Havoc by E. Philips Oppenheim (page 4)

“And a meeting place, perhaps?” she inquired. “It would probably be a meeting place. One might leave there and walk down this passage naturally enough.”

Laverick inclined his head.

“As a matter of fact,” he declared, “I think that the evidence went to prove that there were no visitors in the restaurant that night. You see, all these offices round here close at six or seven o’clock, and the whole neighborhood becomes deserted.”

She shrugged her shoulders impatiently.

“Your English police, they do not know how to collect evidence. In the hands of Frenchmen, this mystery would have been solved long before now. The guilty person would be in the hands of the law. As it is, I suppose that he will go free.”

“Well, we must give the police a chance, at any rate,” answered Laverick. “They haven’t had much time so far.”

“No,” she admitted, “they have not had much time. I wonder – ” She hesitated for a moment and did not conclude her sentence. “Come,” she exclaimed, with a little shiver, “let us go back to your office! This place is not cheerful. All the time I think of that poor man. It does make me frightened.”

Laverick escorted his visitor back to the electric brougham which was waiting before his door.

“A list of stocks purchased on your behalf will reach you by to-night’s post,” he promised her. “We shall do our best in your interests.”

He held out his hand, but she seemed in no hurry to let him go.

“You are very kind, Mr. Laverick. I would like to see you again very soon. You have heard me sing in Samson and Delilah?”

“Not yet, but I am hoping to very shortly.”

“To-night,” she declared, “you must come to the Opera House. I leave a box for you at the door. Send me round a note that you are there, and it is possible that I may see you. It is against the rules, but for me there are no rules.”

Laverick hesitating, she leaned forward and looked into his face.

“You are doing something else?” she protested. “You were, perhaps, thinking of taking out again the little girl with whom you were sitting last night?”

“I had half promised – “

“No, no!” she exclaimed, holding his hand tighter. “She is not for you – that child. She is too young. She knows nothing. Better to leave her alone. She is not for a man of the world like you. Soon she would cease to amuse you. You would be dull and she would still care. Oh, there is so much tragedy in these things, Mr. Laverick – so much tragedy for the woman! It is she always who suffers. You will take my advice. You will leave that little girl alone.”

Laverick smiled.

“I am afraid,” said he, “that I cannot promise that so quickly. You see, I have not known her long, but she has very few friends and I think that she would miss me. Perhaps,” he added, after a second’s pause, “I care for her too much.”

“It is not for you,” she answered scornfully, “to care too much. An Englishman, he cares never enough. A woman to him is something amusing, – his companion for a little of his spare time, something to be pleased about, to show off to his friends, – to share, even, the passion of the moment. But an Englishman he does not care too much. He never cares enough. He does not know what it is to care enough.”

“Mademoiselle, there may be truth in what you say, and again there may not. We have the name, I know, of being cold lovers, but at least we are faithful.”

She held up her hand with a little grimace.

“Oh, how I do hate that word!” she exclaimed. “Who is there, indeed, who wishes that you would be faithful? How much we poor women do suffer from that! Why can you never understand that a woman would be cared for very, very much, with all the strength and all the passion you can conceive, but let it not last for too long. It gets weary. It gets stale. It is as you say, – the Englishman he cares very little, perhaps, but he cares always; and the woman, if she be an artiste and a woman, she tires. But good afternoon, Mr. Laverick! I must not keep you here on the pavement talking of these frivolous matters. You come to-night?”

“You are very kind,” Laverick said. “If I may come until eleven o’clock, it would give me the greatest pleasure.”

“As you will,” she declared. “We shall see. I expect you, then. You ask for your box.”

“If you wish it, certainly.”

She smiled and waved her hand.

“You will tell him, please,” she directed, “to drive to Bond Street.”

Laverick re-entered his office, pausing for a minute to give his clerk instructions for the purchase of stocks for Mademoiselle Idiale. He had scarcely reached his own room when he was told that Mr. James Shepherd wished to speak to him for a moment upon the telephone. He took up the receiver.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“It is Shepherd,” was the answer. “Is that Mr. Laverick?”

“Yes!”

“You were outside the restaurant here a few minutes ago,” Shepherd continued. “You had with you a lady – a young, tall lady with a veil.”

“That’s right,” Laverick admitted. “What about her?”

“One of the two men who watch always here was reading the paper in the window,” Shepherd went on hoarsely. “He saw her with you and I heard him mutter something as though he had received a shock. He dropped his glass and his paper. He watched you every second of the time you were there until you had disappeared. Then he, too, put on his hat and went out.”

“Anything else?”

“Nothing else,” was the reply. “I thought you might like to know this, sir. The man recognized the lady right enough.”

“It seems queer,” Laverick admitted. “Thank you for ringing me up, Shepherd. Good morning!”

Laverick leaned back in his chair. There was no doubt whatever now in his mind but that Mademoiselle Idiale, for some reason or other, was interested in this crime. Her wish to see the place, her introduction to him last night and her purchase of stocks, were all part of a scheme. He was suddenly and absolutely convinced of it. As friend or foe, she was very certainly about to take her place amongst the few people over whom this tragedy loomed.

CHAPTER XXII

ACTIVITY OF AUSTRIAN SPIES

Louise left her brougham in Piccadilly and walked across the Green Park. Bellamy, who was waiting, rose up from a seat, hat in hand. She took his arm in foreign fashion. They walked together towards Buckingham Palace – a strangely distinguished-looking couple.

“My dear David,” she said, “the man perplexes me. To look at him, to hear him speak, one would swear that he was honest. He has just those clear blue eyes and the stolid face, half stupid and half splendid, of your athletic Englishman. One would imagine him doing a foolishly honorable thing, but he is not my conception of a criminal at all.”

Bellamy kicked a pebble from the path. His forehead wore a perplexed frown.

“He didn’t give himself away, then?”

“Not in the least.”

“He took you out and showed you the spot where it happened?”

“Without an instant’s hesitation.”

“As a matter of curiosity,” asked Bellamy, “did he try to make love to you?”

She shook her head.

“I even gave him an opening,” she said. “Of flirtation he has no more idea than the average stupid Englishman one meets.”

Bellamy was silent for several moments.

“I can’t believe,” he said, “that there is the least doubt but that he has the money and the portfolio. I have made one or two other inquiries, and I find that his firm was in very low water indeed only a week ago. They were spoken of, in fact, as being hopelessly insolvent. No one can imagine how they tided over the crisis.”

“The man who was watching for you?” she inquired.

“He makes no mistakes,” Bellamy assured her. “He saw Laverick enter that passage and come out. Afterwards he went back to his office, although he had closed up there and had been on his homeward way. The thing could not have been accidental.”

“Why do you not go to him openly?” she suggested. “He is, after all, an Englishman, and when you tell him what you know he will be very much in your power. Tell him of the value of that document. Tell him that you must have it.”

“It could be done,” Bellamy admitted. “I think that one of us must talk plainly to him. Listen, Louise, – are you seeing him again?”

“I have invited him to come to the Opera House to-night.”

“See what you can do,” he begged. “I would rather keep away from him myself, if I can. Have you heard anything of Streuss?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Nothing directly,” she replied, “but my rooms have been searched – even my dressing-room at the Opera House. That man’s spies are simply wonderful. He seems able to plant them everywhere. And, David! – “

“Yes, dear?”

“He has got hold of Lassen,” she continued. “I am perfectly certain of it.”

Then the sooner you get rid of Lassen, the better,” Bellamy declared.

“It is so difficult,” she murmured, in a perplexed tone. “The man has all my affairs in his hands. Up till now, although he is uncomely, and a brute in many ways, he has served me well.”

“If he is Streuss’s creature he must go,” Bellamy insisted.

She nodded.

“Let us sit down for a few minutes,” she said. “I am tired.”

She sank on to a seat and Bellamy sat by her side. In full view of them was Buckingham Palace with its flag flying. She looked thoughtfully at it and across to Westminster.

“Do they know, I wonder, your country-people?” she asked.

“Half-a-dozen of them, perhaps,” he answered gloomily, no more.

“To-day,” she declared, “I seem to have lost confidence. I seem to feel the sense of impending calamity, to hear the guns as I walk, to see the terror fall upon the faces of all these great crowds who throng your streets. They are a stolid, unbelieving people – these. The blow, when it comes, will be the harder.”

Bellamy sighed.

“You are right,” he said. “When one comes to think of it, it is amazing. How long the prophets of woe have preached, and how completely their teachings have been ignored! The invasion bogey has been so long among us that it has become nothing but a jest. Even I, in a way, am one of the unbelievers.”

“You are not serious, David!” she exclaimed.

“I am,” he affirmed. “I think that if we could read that document we should see that there is no plan there for the immediate invasion of England. I think you would find that the blow would be struck simultaneously at our Colonies. We should either have to submit or send a considerable fleet away from home waters. Then, I presume, the question of invasion would come again. All the time, of course, the gage would be flung down, treaties would be defied, we should be scorned as though we were a nation of weaklings. Austria would gather in what she wanted, and there would be no one to interfere.”

Louise was very pale but her eyes were flashing fire.

“It is the most terrible thing which has happened in history,” she said, “this decadence of your country. Once England held the scales of justice for the world. Now she is no longer strong enough, and there is none to take her place. David, even if you know what that document contains, even then will it help very much?”

“Very much indeed. Don’t you see that there is one hope left to us – one hope – and that is Russia? The Czar must be made to withdraw from that compact. We want to know his share in it. When we know that, there will be a secret mission sent to Russia. Germany and Austria are strong, but they are not all the world. With Russia behind and France and England westward, the struggle is at least an equal one. They have to face both directions, they have to face two great armies working from the east and from the west.”

She nodded, and they sat there in silence for several moments. Bellamy was thinking deeply.

“You say, Louise,” he asked, looking up quickly, “that your rooms have been searched. When was this?”

“Only last night,” she replied.

Bellamy drew a little sigh of relief.

“At any rate,” he said, “Streuss has no idea that the document is not in our possession. He knows nothing about Laverick. How are we going to deal with him, Louise, when he comes for his answer?”

“You have a plan?” she asked.

“There is only one thing to be done,” Bellamy declared. “I shall say that we have already handed over the document to the English Government. It will be a bluff, pure and simple. He may believe it or he may not.”

“You will break your compact then,” she reminded him.

“I shall call myself justified,” he continued. “He has attempted to rob us of the document. You are sure of what you say – that your rooms and dressing-room have been searched?”

“Absolutely certain,” she declared.

“That will be sufficient,” Bellamy decided. “If Streuss comes to me, I shall meet him frankly. I shall tell him that he has tried to play the burglar and that it must be war. I shall tell him that the compact is in the hands of the Prime Minister, and that he and his spies had better clear out.”

She looked at him questioningly.

“Of course, you understand,” he added, “there is one thing we can do, and one thing only. We must send a mission to Russia and another to France, and before the German fleet can pass down the North Sea we must declare war. It is the only thing left to us – a bold front. Without that packet we have no casus belli. With it, we can strike, and strike hard. I still believe that if we declare war within seven days, we shall save ourselves.”

Streuss and Kahn looked, too, across the panorama of London, across the dingy Adelphi Gardens, the turbid Thames, the smoke-hung world beyond. They were together in Streuss’s sitting-room on the seventh floor of one of the great Strand hotels.

“Our enterprise is a failure!” Kahn exclaimed gloomily. “We cannot doubt it any longer. I think, Streuss, that the best course you and I could adopt would be to realize it and to get back. We do no good here. We only run needless risks.”

The face of the other man was dark with anger. His tone, when he spoke, shook with passion.

“You don’t know what you say, Kahn!” he cried hoarsely. “I tell you that we must succeed. If that document reaches the hands of any one in authority here, it would be the worst disaster which has fallen upon our country since you or I were born. You don’t understand, Kahn! You keep your eyes closed!”

“What men can do we have done,” the other answered. “Von Behrling played us false. He has died a traitor’s death, but it is very certain that he parted with his document before he received that twenty thousand pounds.”

“Once and for all, I do not believe it!” Streuss declared. “At mid-day, I can swear to it that the contents of that envelope were unknown to the Ministers of the King here. Now if Von Behrling had parted with that document last Monday night, don’t you suppose that everything would be known by now? He did not part with it. Bellamy and Mademoiselle lie when they say that they possess it. That document remains in the possession of Von Behrling’s murderer, and it is for us to find him.”

Kahn sighed.

“It is outside our sphere – that. What can we do against the police of this country working in their own land?”

Streuss struck the table before which they were standing. The veins in his temples were like whipcord.

“Adolf,” he muttered, “you talk like a fool! Can’t you see what it means? If that document reaches its destination, what do you suppose will happen?”

“They will know our plans, of course,” Kahn answered. “They will have time to make preparation.”

Streuss laughed bitterly.

“Worse than that!” he exclaimed. “They are not all fools, these English statesmen, though one would think so to read their speeches. Can’t you see what the result would be if that document reaches Downing Street? War at a moment’s notice, war six months too soon! Don’t you know that every shipbuilding yard in Germany is working night and day? Don’t you know that every nerve is being strained, that the muscles of the country are hammering the rivets into our new battleships? There is but one chance for this country, and if her statesmen read that document they will know what it is. It is open to them to destroy the German navy utterly, to render themselves secure against attack.”

“They would never have the courage,” Kahn declared. “They might make a show of defending themselves if they were attacked, but to take the initiative – no! I do not believe it.”

“There is one man who has wit enough to do it,” Streuss said. “He may not be in the Cabinet, but he commands it. Kahn, wake up, man! You and I together have never known what failure means. I tell you that that document is still to be bought or fought for, and we must find it. This morning Mademoiselle drove into the city and called at the offices of a stockbroker within a dozen yards of Crooked Friars’ Alley. She was there a long time. The stockbroker himself came out with her into the street, took her to see the entry, stood with her there and returned. What was her interest in him, Kahn? His name is Laverick. Four days ago he was on the brink of ruin. To the amazement of every one, he met all his engagements. Why did Mademoiselle go to the city to see him? He was at his office late that Tuesday night. He had a partner who has disappeared.”

Kahn looked at his companion with admiration.

“You have found all this out!” he exclaimed.

“And more,” Streuss declared. “For twenty-four hours, this man Laverick has not moved without my spies at his heels.”

“Why not approach him boldly?” Kahn suggested. “If he has the document, let us outbid Mademoiselle Louise, and do it quickly.”

Streuss shook his head.

“You don’t know the man. He is an Englishman, and if he had any idea what that document contained, our chances of buying it would be small indeed. This is what I think will happen. Mademoiselle will try to obtain it, and try in vain. Then Bellamy will tell him the truth, and he will part with it willingly. In the meantime, I believe that it is in his possession.

“The evidence is slender enough,” objected Kahn.

“What if it is!” Streuss exclaimed. “If it is only a hundred to one chance, we have to take it. I have no fancy for disgrace, Adolf, and I know very well what will happen if we go back empty-handed.”

The telephone bell rang. Streuss took off the receiver and held it to his ear. The words which he spoke were few, but when he laid the instrument down there was a certain amount of satisfaction in his face.

“At any rate,” he announced, “this man Laverick did not part with the document to-day. Mademoiselle Louise and Bellamy have been sitting in the Park for an hour. When they separated, she drove home and dropped him at his club. Up till now, then, they have not the document. We shall see what Mr. Laverick does when he leaves business this evening; if he goes straight home, either the document has never been in his possession, or else it is in the safe in his office; if he goes to Mademoiselle Idiale’s – “

“Well?” Kahn asked eagerly.

“If he goes to Mademoiselle Idiale’s,” Streuss repeated slowly, “there is still a chance for us!”

CHAPTER XXIII

LAVERICK AT THE OPERA

Laverick, in presenting his card at the box office at Covent Garden that evening, did so without the slightest misconception of the reasons which had prompted Mademoiselle Idiale to beg him to become her guest. It was sheer curiosity which prompted him to pursue this adventure. He was perfectly convinced that personally he had no interest for her. In some way or other he had become connected in her mind with the murder which had taken place within a few yards of his office, and in some other equally mysterious manner that murder had become a subject of interest to her. Either that, or this was one of the whims of a spoiled and pleasure-surfeited woman.

He found an excellent box reserved for him, and a measure of courtesy from the attendants not often vouchsafed to an ordinary visitor. The opera was Samson and Delilah, and even before her wonderful voice thrilled the house, it seemed to Laverick that no person more lovely than the woman he had come to see had ever moved upon any stage. It appeared impossible that movement so graceful and passionate should remain so absolutely effortless. There seemed to be some strange power inside the woman. Surely her will guided her feet! The necessity for physical effort never once appeared. Notwithstanding the slight prejudice which he had felt against her, it was impossible to keep his admiration altogether in check. The fascination of her wonderful presence, and then her glorious voice, moved him with the rest of the audience. He clapped as the others did at the end of the first act, and he leaned forward just as eagerly to catch a glimpse of her when she reappeared and stood there with that marvelous smile upon her lips, accepting with faint, deprecating gratitude the homage of the packed house.

Just before the curtain rose upon the second act, there was a knock at his box door. One of the attendants ushered in a short man of somewhat remarkable personality. He was barely five feet in height, and an extremely fat neck and a corpulent body gave him almost the appearance of a hunchback. He had black, beady eyes, a black moustache fiercely turned up, and sallow skin. His white gloves had curious stitchings on the back not common in England, and his silk hat, exceedingly glossy, had wider brims than are usually associated with Bond Street.

Laverick half rose, but the little man spread out one hand and commenced to speak. His accent was foreign, but, if not an Englishman, he at any rate spoke the language with confidence.

“My dear sir,” he began, “I owe you many apologies. It was Mademoiselle Idiale’s wish that I should make your acquaintance. My name is Lassen. I have the fortune to be Mademoiselle’s business manager.

“I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Lassen,” said Laverick. “Will you sit down?”

Mr. Lassen thereupon hung his hat upon a peg, removed his overcoat, straightened his white tie with the aid of a looking-glass, brushed back his glossy black hair with the palms of his hands, and took the seat opposite Laverick. His first question was inevitable.

“What do you think of the opera, sir?”

“It is like Mademoiselle Idiale herself,” Laverick answered. “It is above criticism.”

“She is,” Mr. Lassen said firmly, “the loveliest woman in Europe and her voice is the most wonderful. It is a great combination, this. I myself have managed for many stars, I have brought to England most of those whose names are known during the last ten years; but there has never been another Louise Idiale, – never will be.”

I can believe it,” Laverick admitted.

She has wonderful qualities, too,” continued Mr. Lassen. “Your acquaintance with her, I believe, sir, is of the shortest.”

“That is so,” Laverick answered, a little coldly. He was not particularly taken with his visitor.

“Mademoiselle has spoken to me of you,” the latter proceeded. “She desired that I should pay my respects during the performance.”

“It is very kind of you,” Laverick answered. “As a matter of fact, it is exceedingly kind, also, of Mademoiselle Idiale to insist upon my coming here to-night. She did me the honor, as you may know, of paying me a visit in the city this morning.”

“So she did tell me,” Mr. Lassen declared. “Mademoiselle is a great woman of business. Most of her investments she controls herself. She has whims, however, and it never does to contradict her. She has also, curiously enough, a preference for the men of affairs.”

Laverick had reached that stage when he felt indisposed to discuss Mademoiselle any longer with a stranger, even though that stranger should be her manager. He nodded and took up his programme. As he did so, the curtain rang up upon the next act. Laverick turned deliberately towards the stage. The little man had paid his respects, as he put it. Laverick felt disinclined for further conversation with him. Yet, though his head was turned, he knew very well that his companion’s eyes were fixed upon him. He had an uncomfortable sense that he was an object of more than ordinary interest to this visitor, that he had come for some specific object which as yet he had not declared.

“You will like to go round and see Mademoiselle,” the latter remarked, some time afterwards.

Laverick shook his head.

“I shall find another opportunity, I hope, to congratulate her.”

“But, my dear sir, she expects to see you,” Mr. Lassen protested. “You are here at her invitation. It is usual, I can assure you.”

“Mademoiselle Idiale will perhaps excuse me,” Laverick said. “I have an engagement immediately after the performance is over.”

His companion muttered something which Laverick could not catch, and made some excuse to leave the box a few minutes later. When he returned, he carried a little, note which he presented to Laverick with an air of triumph.

“It is as I said!” he exclaimed. “Mademoiselle expects you.”

Laverick read the few lines which she had written.

I wish to see you after the performance. If you cannot come round or escort me yourself, will you come later to the restaurant of Luigi, where, as always, I shall sup. Do not fail. Louise Idiale.

Laverick placed the note in his waistcoat pocket without immediate remark. Later on he turned to his companion.

“Will you tell Mademoiselle Idiale,” he said, “that I will do myself the honor of coming to her at Luigi’s restaurant. I have an engagement after the performance which I must keep.”

“You will certainly come?” Lassen asked anxiously.

“Without a doubt,” Laverick promised.

Mr. Lassen took up his hat…

“I will go and tell Mademoiselle. For some reason or other she seemed particularly desirous of seeing you this evening. She has her whims, and those who have most to do with her, like myself, find it well to keep them gratified. If I do not see you again, sir, permit me to wish you good evening.”

He disappeared with several bows of his pudgy little person, and Laverick was left with another puzzle to solve. He was not in the least conceited, and he did not for a moment misinterpret this woman’s interest in him. Her invitation, he knew very well, was one which half London would have coveted. Yet it meant nothing personal, he was sure of that. It simply meant that for some mysterious reason, the same reason which had prompted her to visit him in the city he was of interest to her.

At a few minutes before eleven Laverick left the place and drove to the stage-door of the Universal Theatre. Zoe came out among the first and paused upon the threshold, looking up and down the street eagerly. When she recognized him, her smile was heavenly.

“Oh, how nice of you!” she exclaimed, stepping at once into his taxicab. “You don’t know how different it feels to hope that there is some one waiting for you and then to find your hope come true. To-night I was not sure. You had said nothing about it, and yet I could not help believing that you would be here.”

“I was hoping,” he said, “that we might have another supper together. Unfortunately, I have an engagement.”

“An engagement?” she repeated, her face falling.

Laverick loved the truth and he seldom hesitated to tell it.

“It is rather an odd thing,” he declared. “You remember that woman at Luigi’s last night – Mademoiselle Idiale?”

“Of course.”

“She came to my office to-day and gave me six thousand pounds to invest for her. She made me take her out and show her where the murder was committed, and asked a great many questions about it. Then she insisted that I should go and hear her sing this evening, and I find that I was expected to take her on to supper afterwards. I excused myself for a little while, but I have promised to go to Luigi’s, where she will be.”

The girl was silent for a moment.

“Where are we going now, then?” she asked.

“Wherever you like. I can take you home first, or I can leave you anywhere.”

She looked at him with a piteous little smile.

“The last two nights you have spoiled me,” she said. “I have so many evil thoughts and I am afraid to go home.”

“I am sorry. If I could think of anything or anywhere – “

“No, you must take me home, please,” said she. “It was selfish of me. Only Mademoiselle Idiale is such a wonderful person. Do you think that she will want you every night?”

“Of course not,” he laughed. “Come, I will make an engagement with you. We will have supper together to-morrow evening.”

She brightened up at once.

“I wonder,” she asked timidly, a few minutes afterwards, “have you heard anything from Arthur? He promised to send a telegram from Queenstown.”

Laverick shook his head. He said nothing about the marconigram he had sent, or the answer which he had received informing him that there was no such person on board. It seemed scarcely worth while to worry her.

“I have heard nothing,” he replied. “Of course, he must be half-way to America by now.”

“There have been no more inquiries about him?” she asked.

“No more than the usual ones from his friends, and a few creditors. The latter I am paying as they come. But there is one thing you ought to do with me. I think we ought to go to his rooms and lock up his papers and letters. He never even went back, you know, after that night.”

She nodded thoughtfully.

“When would you like to do this?”

“I am so busy just now that I am afraid I can spare no time until Monday afternoon. Would you go with me then?”

“Of course… My time is my own. We have no matinee, and I have nothing to do except in the evening.”

They had reached her home. It looked very dark and very uninviting. She shivered as she took her latchkey from the bag which she was carrying.

“Come in with me, please, while I light the gas,” she begged. “It looks so dreary, doesn’t it?”

“You ought to have some one with you,” he declared, “especially in a part like this.”

“Oh, I am not really afraid,” she answered. “I am only lonely.”

He stood in the passage while she felt for a box of matches and lit the gas jet. In the parlor there was a bowl of milk standing waiting for her, and some bread.

“Thank you so much,” she said. “Now I am going to make up the fire and read for a short time. I hope that you will enjoy your supper – well, moderately,” she added, with a little laugh.

“I can promise you,” he answered, “that I shall enjoy it no more than last night’s or to-morrow night’s.”

She sighed.

“Poor little me!” she exclaimed. “It is not fair to have to compete with Mademoiselle Idiale. Good night!”

Something he saw in her eyes moved him strangely as he turned away.

“Would you like me,” he asked hesitatingly, “supposing I get away early – would you like me to come in and say good night to you later on?”

Her face was suddenly flushed with joy.

“Oh, do!” she begged. “Do!”

He turned away with a smile.

“Very well,” he said. “Don’t shut up just yet and I will try.”

“I shall stay here until three o’clock,” she declared, – “until four, even. You must come. Remember, you must come. See.”

She held out to him her key.

“I can knock at the door,” he protested. “You would hear me.”

“But I might fall asleep,” she answered. “I am afraid. If you have the key, I am sure that you will come.”

He put it in his waistcoat pocket with a laugh.

“Very well,” he said, “if it is only for five minutes, I will come.”

CHAPTER XXIV

A SUPPER PARTY AT LUIGI’S

Laverick walked into Luigi’s Restaurant at about a quarter to twelve, and found the place crowded with many little supper-parties on their way to a fancy dress ball. The demand for tables was far in excess of the supply, but he had scarcely shown himself before the head maitre d’hotel came hurrying up.

“Mademoiselle Idiale is waiting for you, sir,” he announced at once. “Will you be so good as to come this way?”

Laverick followed him. She was sitting at the same table as last night, but she was alone, and it was laid, he noticed with surprise, only for two.

“You have treated me,” she said, as she held out her fingers, “to a new sensation. I have waited for you alone here for a quarter of an hour – I! Such a thing has never happened to me before.”

“You do me too much honor,” Laverick declared, seating himself and taking up the carte.

“Then, too,” she continued, “I sup alone with you. That is what I seldom do with any man. Not that I care for the appearance,” she added, with a contemptuous wave of the hand. “Nothing troubles me less. It is simply that one man alone wearies me. Almost always he will make love, and that I do not like. You, Mr. Laverick, I am not afraid of. I do not think that you will make love to me.”

“Any intentions I may have had,” Laverick remarked, with a sigh, “I forthwith banish. You ask a hard task of your cavaliers, though, Mademoiselle.”

She smiled and looked at him from under her eyelids.

“Not of you, I fancy, Mr. Laverick,” she said. “I do not think that you are one of those who make love to every woman because she is good-looking or famous.”

“To tell you the truth,” Laverick admitted, “I find it hard to make love to any one. I often feel the most profound admiration for individual members of your sex, but to express one’s self is difficult – sometimes it is even embarrassing. For supper?”

“It is ordered,” she declared. “You are my guest.”

“Impossible!” Laverick asserted firmly. “I have been your guest at the Opera. You at least owe me the honor of being mine for supper.”

She frowned a little. She was obviously unused to being contradicted.

“I sup with you, then, another night,” she insisted. “No,” she continued, “If you are going to look like that, I take it back. I sup with you to-night. This is an ill omen for our future acquaintance. I have given in to you already – I, who give in to no man. Give me some champagne, please.”

Laverick took the bottle from the ice-pail by his side, but the sommelier darted forward and served them.

“I drink to our better understanding of one another, Mr. Laverick,” she said, raising her glass, “and, if you would like a double toast, I drink also to the early gratification of the curiosity which is consuming you.”

“The curiosity? “

“Yes! You are wondering all the time why it is that I chose last night to send and have you presented to me, why I came to your office in the city to-day with the excuse of investing money with you, why I invited you to the Opera to-night, why I commanded you to supper here and am supping with you alone. Now confess the truth; you are full of curiosity, is it not so?”

“Frankly, I am.”

She smiled good-humoredly.

“I knew it quite well. You are not conceited. You do not believe, as so many men would, that I have fallen in love with you. You think that there must be some object, and you ask yourself all the time, ‘What is it?’ in your heart, Mr. Laverick, I wonder whether you have any idea.”

Her voice had fallen almost to a whisper. She looked at him with a suggestion of stealthiness from under her eyelids, a look which only needed the slightest softening of her face to have made it something almost irresistible.

“I can assure you,” Laverick said firmly, “that I have no idea.”

“Do you remember almost my first question to you?” she asked.

“It was about the murder. You seemed interested in the fact that my office was within a few yards of the passage where it occurred.”

“Quite right,” she admitted. “I see that your memory is very good. There, then, Mr. Laverick, you have the secret of my desire to meet you.”

Laverick drank his wine slowly. The woman knew! Impossible! Her eyes were watching his face, but he held himself bravely. What could she know? How could she guess?

“Frankly,” he said, “I do not understand. Your interest in me arises from the fact that my offices are near the scene of that murder. Well, to begin with, what concern have you in that?”

“The murdered man,” she declared thoughtfully, “was an acquaintance of mine.”

“An acquaintance of yours!” Laverick exclaimed. “Why, he has not been identified. No one knows who he was.”

She raised her eyebrows very slightly.

“Mr. Laverick,” she murmured, “the newspapers do not tell you everything. I repeat that the murdered man was an acquaintance of mine. Only three days ago I traveled part of the way from Vienna with him.”

Laverick was intensely interested.

“You could, perhaps, throw some light, then, upon his death?”

“Perhaps I could,” she answered. “I can tell you one thing, at any rate, Mr. Laverick, if it is news to you. At the time when he was murdered, he was carrying a very large sum of money with him. This is a fact which has not been spoken of in the Press.”

Once again Laverick was thankful for those nerves of his. He sat quite still. His face exhibited nothing more than the blank amazement which he certainly felt.

“This is marvelous,” he said. “Have you told the police?”

“I have not,” she answered. “I wish, if I can, to avoid telling the police.”

“But the money? To whom did it belong?”

“Not to the murdered man.”

“To any one whom you know of?” he inquired.

“I wonder,” she said, after a moment of hesitation, “whether I am telling you too much.”

“You are telling me a good deal,” he admitted frankly.

“I wonder how far,” she asked, “you will be inclined to reciprocate?”

“I reciprocate!” he exclaimed. “But what can I do? What do I know of these things?”

She stretched out her hand lazily, and drew towards her a wonderful gold purse set with emeralds. Carefully opening it, she drew from the interior a small flat pocketbook, also of gold, with a great uncut emerald set into its centre. This, too, she opened, and drew out several sheets of foreign note-paper pinned together at the top. These she glanced through until she came to the third or fourth. Then she bent it down and passed it across the table to Laverick.

“You may read that,” she said. “It is part of a report which I have had in my pos session since Wednesday morning.”

Laverick drew the sheet towards him and read, in thin, angular characters, very distinct and plain:

Some ten minutes after the assault, a policeman passed down the street but did not glance toward the passage. The next person to appear was a gentleman who left some offices on the same side as the passage, and walked down evidently on his homeward way. He glanced up the passage and saw the body lying there. He disappeared for a moment and struck a match. A minute afterwards he emerged from the passage, looked up and down the street, and finding it empty returned to the office from which he had issued, let himself in with his latchkey, and closed the door behind him. He was there for about ten minutes. When he reappeared, he walked quickly down the street and for obvious reasons I was unable to follow him.

The address of the offices which he left and re-entered was Messrs. Laverick & Morrison, Stockbrokers.

“That interests you, Mr. Laverick?” she asked softly.

He handed it back to her.

“It interests me very much,” he answered. “Who was this unseen person who wrote from the clouds?”

“I may not tell you all my secrets, Mr. Laverick,” she declared. “What have you done with that twenty thousand pounds?”

Laverick helped himself to champagne. He listened for a moment to the music, and looked into the wonderful eyes which shone from that beautiful face a few feet away. Her lips were slightly parted, her forehead wrinkled. There was nothing of the accuser in her countenance; a gentle irony was its most poignant expression.

“Is this a fairy tale, Mademoiselle Idiale?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“It might seem so,” she answered. “Sometimes I think that all the time we live two lives, – the life of which the world sees the outside, and the life inside of which no one save ourselves knows anything at all. Look, for instance, at all these people – these chorus girls and young men about town – the older ones, too – all hungry for pleasure, all drinking at the cup of life as though they had indeed but to-day and to-morrow in which to live and enjoy. Have they no shadows, too, no secrets? They seem so harmless, yet if the great white truth shone down, might one not find a murderer there, a dying man who knew his terrible secret, yonder a Croesus on the verge of bankruptcy, a strong man playing with dishonor? But those are the things of the other world which we do not see. The men look at us to-night and they envy you because you are with me. The women envy me more because I have emeralds upon my neck and shoulders for which they would give their souls, and a fame throughout Europe which would turn their foolish heads in a very few minutes. But they do not know. There are the shadows across my path, and I think that there are the shadows across yours. What do you say, Mr. Laverick?”

He looked at her, curiously moved. Now at last he began to believe that it was true what they said of her, that she was indeed a marvelous woman. She had a fame which would have contented nine hundred and ninety-nine women out of a thousand. She had beauty, and, more wonderful still, the grace, the fascination which are irresistible. She had but to lift a finger and there were few who would not kneel to do her bidding. And yet, behind it all there were other things in her life. Had she sought them, or had they come to her?

“You are one of those wise people, Mr. Laverick,” she said, “who realize the danger of words. You believe in silence. Well, silence is often good. You do not choose to admit anything.”

“What is there for me to admit? Do you want to know whether I am the man who left those offices, who disappeared into the passage, who reappeared again – “

“With a pocket-book containing twenty thousand pounds,” she murmured across the flowers.

“At least tell me this?” he demanded. “Was the money yours?”

“I am not like you,” she replied. “I have talked a great deal and I have reached the limit of the things which I may tell you.”

“But where are we?” he asked. “Are you seriously accusing me of having robbed this murdered man?”

“Be thankful,” she declared, “that I am not accusing you of having murdered him.”

“But seriously,” he insisted, “am I on my defence have I to account for my movements that night as against the written word of your mysterious informant? Is it you who are charging me with being a thief? Is it to you I am to account for my actions, to defend myself or to plead guilty?”

She shook her head.

“No,” she answered. “I have said almost my last word to you upon this subject. All that I have to ask of you is this. If that pocket-book is in your possession, empty it first of its contents, then go over it carefully with your fingers and see if there is not a secret pocket. If you discover that, I think that you will find in it a sealed document. If you find that document, you must bring it to me.”

The lights went down. The voice of the waiter murmured something in his ears.

“It is after hours,” Mademoiselle Idiale said, “but Luigi does not wish to disturb us. Still, perhaps we had better go.”

They passed down the room. To Laverick it was all – like a dream – the laughing crowd, the flushed men and bright-eyed women, the lowered lights, the air of voluptuousness which somehow seemed to have enfolded the place. In the hall her maid came up. A small motor-brougham, with two servants on the box, was standing at the doorway. Mademoiselle turned suddenly and gave him her hand.

“Our supper-party, I think, Mr. Laverick,” she said, “has been quite a success. We shall before long, I hope, meet again.”

He handed her into the carriage. Her maid walked with them. The footman stood erect by his side. There were no further words to be spoken. A little crowd in the doorway envied him as he stood bareheaded upon the pavement.

CHAPTER XXV

JIM SHEPHERD’S SCARE

It was, in its way, a pathetic sight upon which Laverick gazed when he stole into that shabby little sitting-room. Zoe had fallen asleep in a small, uncomfortable easy-chair with its back to the window. Her supper of bread and milk was half finished, her hat lay upon the table. A book was upon her lap as though she had started to read only to find it slip through her fingers. He stood with his elbow upon the mantelpiece, looking down at her. Her eyelashes, long and silky, were more beautiful than ever now that her eyes were closed. Her complexion, pale though she was, seemed more the creamy pallor of some southern race than the whiteness of ill-health. The bodice of her dress was open a few inches at the neck, showing the faint white smoothness of her flawless skin. Not even her shabby shoes could conceal the perfect shape of her feet and ankles. Once more he remembered his first simile, his first thought of her. She seemed, indeed, like some dainty statuette, uncouthly clad, who had strayed from a world of her own upon rough days and found herself ill-equipped indeed for the struggle. His heart grew hot with anger against Morrison as he stood and watched her. Supposing she had been different! It would have been his fault, leaving her alone to battle her way through the most difficult of all lives. Brute!

He had muttered the word half aloud and she suddenly opened her eyes. At first she seemed bewildered. Then she smiled and sat up.

“I have been asleep!” she exclaimed.

“A most unnecessary statement,” he answered, smiling. “I have been standing looking at you for five minutes at least.”

“How fortunate that I gave you the key!” she declared. “I don’t suppose I should ever have heard you. Now please stand there in the light and let me look at you.”

“Why?”

“I want to look at a man who has had supper with Mademoiselle Idiale.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Am I supposed to be a wanderer out of Paradise, then?”

She looked at him doubtfully.

“They tell strange stories about her,” she said; “but oh, she is so beautiful! If I were a man, I should fall in love with her if she even looked my way.”

“Then I am glad,” he answered, “that I am less impressionable.”

“And you are not in love with her?” she asked eagerly.

“Why should I be?” he laughed. “She is like a wonderful picture, a marvelous statue, if you will. Everything about her is faultless. But one looks at these things calmly enough, you know. It is life which stirs life.”

“Do you think that there is no life in her veins, then?” Zoe asked.

“If there is,” he answered, “I do not think that I am the man to stir it.”

She drew a little sigh of content.

“You see,” she said, “you are my first admirer, and I haven’t the least desire to let you go.”

“Incredible!” he declared.

“But it is true,” she answered earnestly. “You would not have me talk to these boys who come and hang on at the stage-door. The men to whom I have been introduced by the other girls have been very few, and they have not been very nice, and they have not cared for me and I have not cared for them. I think,” she said, disconsolately, “I am too small. Every one to-day seems to like big women. Cora Sinclair, who is just behind me in the chorus, gets bouquets every night, and simply chooses with whom she should go out to supper.”

Laverick looked grave.

“You are not envying her?” he asked.

“Not in the least, as long as I too am taken out sometimes.”

Laverick smiled and sat on the arm of her chair.

“Miss Zoe,” he said, “I have come because you told me to, just to prove, you see, that I am not in the toils of Mademoiselle Idiale. But do you know that it is half past one? I must not stay here any longer.”

She sighed once more.

“You are right,” she admitted, “but it is so lonely. I have never been here without May and her mother. I have never slept alone in the house before the other night. If I had known that they were going away, I should never have dared to come here.”

“It is too bad,” he declared. “Couldn’t you get one of the other girls to stay with you?”

She shook her head.

“There are one or two whom I would like to have,” she said, “but they are all living either at home or with relatives. The others I am afraid about. They seem to like to sit up so late and – “

“You are quite right,” he interrupted hastily, – “quite right. You are better alone. But you ought to have a servant.”

She laughed.

“On two pounds fifteen a week?” she asked. “You must remember that I could not even live here, only I have practically no rent to pay.”

He fidgeted for a moment.

“Miss Zoe,” he said, “I am perfectly serious when I tell you that I have money which should go to your brother. Why will you not let me alter your arrangements just a little ? I cannot bear to think of you here all alone.”

“It is very kind of you,” she answered doubtfully; “but please, no. Somehow, I think that it would spoil everything if I accepted that sort of help from you. If you have any money of Arthur’s, keep it for a time and I think when you write him – I do not want to seem grasping – but I think if he has any to spare you might suggest that he does give me just a little. I have never had anything from him at all. Perhaps he does not quite understand how hard it is for me.

“I will do that, of course,” Laverick answered, “but I wish you would let me at least pay over a little of what I consider due to you. I will take the responsibility for it. It will come from him and not from me.”

She remained unconvinced.

“I would rather wait,” she said. “If you really want to give me something, I will let you – out of my brother’s money, of course, I mean,” she added. “I haven’t anything saved at all, or I wouldn’t have that. But one day you shall take me out and buy me a dress and hat. You can tell Arthur directly you write to him. I don’t mind that, for sometimes I do feel ashamed – I did the other night to have you sit with me there, and to feel that I was dressed so very differently from all of them.”

He laughed reassuringly.

“I don’t think men notice those things. To me you seemed just as you should seem. I only know that I was glad enough to be there with you.”

“Were you?” – rather wistfully.

“Of course I was. Now I am going, but before I go, don’t forget Monday afternoon. We’ll have lunch and then go to your brother’s rooms.”

She glanced at the clock.

“Is it really so late?” she asked.

“It is. Don’t you notice how quiet it is outside?”

They stood hand in hand for a moment. A strange silence seemed to have fallen upon the streets. Laverick was suddenly conscious of something which he had never felt when Mademoiselle Idiale had smiled upon him – a quickening of the pulses, a sense of gathering excitement which almost took his breath away. His eyes were fixed upon hers, and he seemed to see the reflection of that same wave of feeling in her own expressive face. Her lips trembled, her eyes were deeper and softer than ever. They seemed to be asking him a question, asking and asking till every fibre of his body was concentrated in the desperate effort with, which he kept her at arm’s length.

“Is it so very late?” she whispered, coming just a little closer, so that she was indeed almost within the shelter of his arms.

He clutched her hands almost roughly and raised them to his lips.

“Much too late for me to stay here, child,” he said, and his voice even to himself sounded hard and unnatural.

“Run along to bed. To-morrow night – to-morrow night, then, I will fetch you. Good-bye!”

He let himself out. He did not even look behind to the spot where he had left her. He closed the front door and walked with swift, almost savage footsteps down the quiet Street, across the Square, and into New Oxford Street. Here he seemed to breathe more freely. He called a hansom and drove to his rooms.

The hall-porter had left his post in the front hall, and there was no one to inform Laverick that a visitor was awaiting him. When he entered his sitting-room, however, he gave a little start of surprise. Mr. James Shepherd was reclining in his easy-chair with his hands upon his knees – Mr. James Shepherd with his face more pasty even than usual, his eyes a trifle greener, his whole demeanor one of unconcealed and unaffected terror.

“Hullo!” Laverick exclaimed. “What the dickens – what do you want here, Shepherd?”

“Upon my word, sir, I’m not sure that I know,” the man replied, “but I’m scared. I’ve brought you back the certificates of them shares. I want you to keep them for me. I’m terrified lest they come and search my room. I am, I tell you fair. I’m terrified to order a pint of beer for myself. They’re watching me all the time.”

“Who are?” Laverick demanded.

“Lord knows who;” Shepherd answered, “but there’s two of them at it. I told you about them as asked questions, and I thought there we’d done and finished with it. Not a bit of it ! There was another one there this afternoon, said he was a journalist, making sketches of the passage and asking me no end of questions. He wasn’t no journalist, I’ll swear to that. I asked him about his paper. ‘Half-a-dozen,’ he declared. ‘They’re all glad to have what I send them.’ Journalist! Lord knows who the other chap was and what he was asking questions for, but this one was a ‘tec, straight. Joe Forman, he was in to-day looking after my place, for I’d given a month’s notice, and he says to me, “You see that big chap?’ – meaning him as had been asking me the questions – and I says “Yes!’ and he says, ‘That’s a ‘tee. I’ve seed him in a police court, giving evidence.’ I went all of a shiver so that you could have knocked me down.”

“Come, come!” said Laverick. “There’s no need for you to be feeling like this about it. All that you’ve done is not to have remembered those two customers who were in your restaurant late one night. There’s nothing criminal in that.”

“There’s something criminal in having two hundred and fifty pounds’ worth of shares in one’s pocket – something suspicious, anyway,” Shepherd declared, plumping them down on the table. “I ain’t giving you these back, mind, but you must keep ’em for me. I wish I’d never given notice. I think I’ll ask the boss to keep me on.”

“Why do you suppose that this man is particularly interested in you?” Laverick inquired.

“Ain’t I told you?” Shepherd exclaimed, sitting up. “Why, he’s been to my place down in ‘Ammersmith, asking questions about me. My landlady swears he didn’t go into my room, but who can tell whether he did or not? Those sort of chaps can get in anywhere. Then I went out for a bit of an airing after the one o’clock rush was over to-day, and I’m danged if he wasn’t at my ‘eels. I seed him coming round by Liverpool Street just as I went in a bar to get a drop of something.”

Laverick frowned.

“If there is anything in this Story, Shepherd,” he said, “if you are really being followed, what a thundering fool you were to come here! All the world knows that Arthur Morrison was my partner.”

“I couldn’t help it, sir,” the man declared. “I couldn’t, indeed. I was so scared, I felt I must speak about it to some one. And then there were these shares. There was nowhere I could keep ’em safe.”

“Look here,” Laverick went on, “you’re alarming yourself about nothing. In any case, there is only one thing for you to do. Pull yourself together and put a bold face upon it. I’ll keep these certificates for you, and when you want some money you can come to me for it. Go back to your place, and if your master is willing to keep you on perhaps it would be a good thing to stay there for another month or so. But don’t let any one see that you’re frightened. Remember, there’s nothing that you can get into trouble for. No one’s obliged to answer such questions as you’ve been asked, except in a court and under oath. Stick to your story, and if you take my advice,” Laverick added, glancing at his visitor’s shaking fingers, “you will keep away from the drink.”

“It’s little enough I’ve had, sir,” Shepherd assured him. “A drop now and then just to keep up one’s spirits – nothing that amounts to anything.”

“Make it as little as possible,” Laverick said. “Remember, I’m back of you, I’ll see that you get into no trouble. And don’t come here again. Come to my office, if you like – there’s nothing in that – but don’t come here, you understand?”

Shepherd took up his hat.

“I understand, sir. I’m sorry to have troubled you, but the sight of that man following me about fairly gave me the shivers.”

“Come into the office as often as you like, in reason, Laverick said, showing him out, “but not here again. Keep your eyes open, and let me know if you think you’ve been followed here.”

“There’s no more news in the papers, sir? Nothing turned up?”

“Nothing,” replied Laverick. “If the police have found out anything at all, they will keep it until after the inquest.”

“And you’ve heard. nothing, sir,” Shepherd asked, speaking in a hoarse whisper, “of Mr. Morrison?”

“Nothing,” Laverick answered. “Mr. Morrison is abroad.”

The man wiped his forehead with his hand.

“Of course!” he muttered. “A good job, too, for him!”

CHAPTER XXVI

THE DOCUMENT DISCOVERED

On the following morning, Laverick surprised his office cleaner and one errand-boy by appearing at about a quarter to nine. He found a woman busy brushing out his room and a man Cleaning the windows. They stared at him in amazement. His arrival at such an hour was absolutely unprecedented.

“You can leave the office just as it is, if you please,” he told them. “I have a few things to attend to at once.”

He was accordingly left alone. He had reckoned upon this as being the one period during the day when he could rely upon not being disturbed. Nevertheless, he locked the door so as to be secure against any possible intruder. Then he went to his safe, unlocked it, and drew from its secret drawer the worn brown-leather pocket-book.

First of all he took out the notes and laid them upon the table. Then he felt the pocket-book all over and his heart gave a little leap. It was true what Mademoiselle Idiale had told him. On one side there was distinctly a rustling as of paper. He opened the case quite flat and passed his fingers carefully over the lining. Very soon he found the opening – it was simply a matter of drawing down the stiff silk lining from underneath the overlapping edge. Thrusting in his fingers, he drew out a long foreign envelope, securely sealed. Scarcely stopping to glance at it, he rearranged the pocket-book, replaced the notes, and locked it up again. Then he unbolted his door and sat down at his desk, with the document which he had discovered, on the pad in front of him.

There was not much to be made of it. There was no address, but the black seal at the end bore the impression of a foreign coat of arms, and a motto which to him was indecipherable. He held it up to the light, but the outside sheet had not been written on, and he gained no idea as to its contents. He leaned back in his chair for a moment, and looked at it. So this was the document which would probably reveal the secret of the murder in Crooked Friars’ Alley! This was the document which Mademoiselle Idiale considered of so much more importance than the fortune represented by that packet of bank-notes! What did it all mean? Was this man, who had either expiated a crime or been the victim of a terrible vengeance, – was he a politician, a dealer in trade secrets, a member of a secret society, an informer? Or was he one of the underground criminals of the world, one of those who crawl beneath the surface of known things – a creature of the dark places? Perhaps during those few minutes, when his brain was cool and active, with the great city awakening all around him, Laverick realized more completely than ever before exactly how he stood. Without doubt he was walking on the brink of a precipice. Four days ago there had been nothing for him but ruin. The means of salvation had suddenly presented themselves in this startling and dramatic manner, and without hesitation he had embraced them. What did it all amount to? How far was he guilty, and of what? Was he a thief? The law would probably call him so. The law might have even more to say. It would say that by keeping his mouth closed as to his adventure on that night he had ranged himself on the side of the criminals, – he was guilty not only of technical theft, but of a criminal knowledge of this terrible crime. Events had followed upon one another so rapidly during these last few days that he had little enough time for reflection, little time to realize exactly how he stood. The long-expected boom in” Unions,” the coming of Zoe, the strange advances made to him by Mademoiselle Idiale, her incomprehensible connection with this tragedy across which he had stumbled, and her apparent knowledge of his share in it, – these things were sufficient, indeed, to give him food for thought. Laverick was not by nature a pessimist. Other things being equal, he would have made, without doubt, a magnificent soldier, for he had courage of a rare and high order. It never occurred to him to sit and brood upon his own danger. He rather welcomed the opportunity of occupying his mind with other thoughts. Yet in those few minutes, while he waited for the business of the: day to commence, he looked his exact position in the face and he realized more thoroughly how grave it really was. How was he to find a way out – to set himself right with the law? What could he do with those notes? They were there untouched. He had only made use of them in an indirect way. They were there intact, as he had picked them up upon that fateful night. Was there any possible chance by means of which he might discover the owner and restore them in such a way that his name might never be mentioned? His eyes repeatedly sought that envelope which lay before him. Inside it must lie the secret of the whole tragedy. Should he risk everything and break the seal, or should he risk perhaps as much and tell the whole truth to Mademoiselle Idiale? It was a strange dilemma for a man to find himself in.

Then, as he sat there, the business of the day commenced. A pile of letters was brought in, the telephones in the outer office began to ring. He thrust the sealed envelope into the breast-pocket of his coat and buttoned it up. There, for the present, it must remain. He owed it to himself to devote every energy he possessed to make the most of this great tide of business. With set face he closed the doors upon the unreal world, and took hold of the levers which were to guide his passage through the one in which he was an actual figure.

Her visit was not altogether unexpected, and yet, when they told him that Mademoiselle Idiale was outside, he hesitated.

“It is the lady who was here the other day,” his head clerk reminded him. “We made a remarkably good choice of stocks for her. They must be showing nearly sixteen hundred pounds profit. Perhaps she wants to realize.”

“In any case, you had better show her in,” said Laverick.

She came, bringing with her, notwithstanding her black clothes and heavy veil, the atmosphere of a strange world into his somewhat severely furnished office. Her skirts swept his carpet with a musical swirl. She carried with her a faint, indefinable perfume of violets, – a perfume altogether peculiar, dedicated to her by a famous chemist in the Rue Royale, and supplied to no other person upon earth. Who else was there, indeed, who could have walked those few yards as she walked?

He rose to his feet and pointed to a chair.

“You have come to ask about your shares?” he asked politely. “So far, we have nothing but good news for you.”

She recognized that he spoke to her in the presence of his clerk, and she waved her hand.

“Women who will come themselves to look after their poor investments are a nuisance, I suppose,” she said. “But indeed I will not keep you long. A few minutes are all that I shall ask of you. I am beginning to find city affairs so interesting.”

They were alone by now and Louise raised her veil, raised it so high that he could see her eyes. She leaned back in her chair, supporting her chin with the long, exquisite fingers of her right hand. She looked at him thoughtfully.

“You have examined the pocket-book?” she asked.

“I have.”

“And the document was there?”

“The document was there,” he admitted. “Perhaps you can tell me how it would be addressed?”

Looking at her closely, it came to him that her indifference was assumed. She was shivering slightly, as though with cold.

“I imagine that there would be no address,” she said.

“You are right. That document is in my pocket.”

“What are you going to do with it?” she asked.

“What do you advise me to do with it?”

“Give it to me.”

“Have you any claim?”

She leaned a little nearer to him.

“At least I have more claim to it,” she whispered, “than you to that twenty thousand pounds.”

“I do not claim them,” he replied. “They are in my safe at this moment, untouched. They are there ready to be returned to their proper owner.”

“Why do you not find him?” – with a note of incredulity in her tone.

“How am I to do that?” Laverick demanded.

“We waste words,” she continued coldly. “I think that if I leave you with the contents of your safe, it will be wise for you to hand me that document.”

“I am inclined to do so,” Laverick admitted. “The very fact that you knew of its existence would seem to give you a sort of claim to it. But, Mademoiselle Idiale, will you answer me a few questions?”

“I think,” she said, “that it would be better if you asked me none.”

“But listen,” he begged. “You are the only person with whom I have come into touch who seems to know anything about this affair. I should rather like to tell you exactly how I stumbled in upon it. Why can we not exchange confidence for confidence? I want neither the twenty thousand pounds nor the document. I want, to be frank with you, nothing but to escape from the position I am now in of being half a thief and half a criminal. Show me some claim to that document and you shall have it. Tell me to whom that money belongs, and it shall be restored.”

“You are incomprehensible,” she declared. “Are you, by any chance, playing a part with me? Do you think that it is worth while?”

“Mademoiselle Idiale,” Laverick protested earnestly, “nothing in the world is further from my thoughts. There is very little of the conspirator about me. I am a plain man of business who stumbled in upon this affair at a critical moment and dared to make temporary use of his discovery. You can put it, if you like, that I am afraid. I want to get out. Nothing would give me greater pleasure, if such a thing were possible, than to send this pocket-book and its contents anonymously to Scotland Yard, and never hear about them again.

She listened to him with unchanged face. Yet for some moments after he had finished speaking she was thoughtful.

“You may be speaking the truth,” she said. “If so, I have been deceived. You are not quite the sort of man I did believe you were. What you tell me is amazing, but it may be true.”

“It is the truth,” Laverick repeated calmly.

“Listen,” she said, after a brief pause. “You were at school, were you not, with Mr. David Bellamy? You know well who he is?”

“Perfectly well,” Laverick admitted.

“You would consider him a person to be trusted?”

“Absolutely.”

“Very well, then,” she declared. “You shall come to my fiat at five o’clock this afternoon and bring that document. If it is possible, David Bellamy shall be there himself. We will try then and prove to you that you do no harm in parting with that document to us.”

“I will come,” Laverick promised, “at five o’clock; but you must tell me where.”

“You will put it down, please,” she said. “There must not be any mistake. You must come, and you must come to-day. I am staying at number 15, Dover Street. I will leave orders that you are shown in at once.”

She rose to her feet and he walked to the door with her. On the way she hesitated.

“Take care of yourself to-day, Mr. Laverick,” she begged. “There are others beside myself who are interested in that packet you carry with you. You represent to them things beside which life and death are trivial happenings.”

Laverick laughed shortly. He was a matter-of-fact man, and there seemed something a little absurd in such a warning.

“I do not think,” he declared, “that you need have any fear. London is, as you doubtless find it, a dull old city, but it is a remarkably safe one to live in.”

“Nevertheless, Mr. Laverick,” she repeated earnestly, “be on your guard to-day, for all our sakes.”

He bowed and changed the subject.

“Your investments,” he remarked, “you will be content, perhaps, to leave as they are. It is, no doubt, of some interest to you to know that they are showing already a profit of considerably over a thousand pounds.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“It was an excuse – that investment,” she declared. “Yet money is always good. Keep it for me, Mr. Laverick, and do what you will. I will trust your judgment. Buy or sell as you please. You will let nothing prevent your coming this afternoon?”

“Nothing,” he promised her.

>From the window of her beautifully appointed little electric brougham she held out her hand in farewell.

“You think me foolish, I know, that I persist,” she said, “but I do beg that you will remember what I say. Do not be alone to-day more than you can help. Suspect every one who comes near to you. There may be a trap before your feet at any moment. Be wary always and do not forget – at five o’clock I expect you.”

Laverick smiled as he bowed his adieux.

“It is a promise, Mademoiselle,” he assured her.

CHAPTER XXVII

PENETRATING A MYSTERY

About an hour after Mademoiselle Idiale’s departure a note marked “Urgent” was brought in and handed to Laverick. He tore it open. It was dated from the address of a firm of stockbrokers, with two of the partners of which he was on friendly terms. It ran thus:

MY DEAR LAVERICK, – I want a chat with you, if you can spare five minutes at lunch time. Come to Lyons’ a little earlier than usual, if you don’t mind, – say at a quarter to one. J.HENSHAW.

Laverick read the typewritten note carelessly enough at first. He had even laid it down and glanced at the clock, with the intention of starting out, when a thought struck him. He took it up and read it though again. Then he turned to the telephone.

“Put me on to the office of Henshaw & Allen. I want to speak to Mr. Henshaw particularly.”

Two minutes passed. Laverick, meanwhile, had been washing his hands ready to go out. Then the telephone bell rang. He took up the receiver.

“Hullo! Is that Henshaw?”

“I’m Henshaw,” was the answer. “That’s Laverick, isn’t it? How are you, old fellow?”

“I’m all right,” Laverick replied. “What is it that you want to see me about?”

“Nothing particular that I know of. Who told you that I wanted to?”

Laverick, who had been standing with the instrument in his hand, sat down in his chair.

“Look here,” he said, “Didn’t you send me a note a few minutes ago, asking me to come out to lunch at a quarter to one and meet you at Lyons’?”

Henshaw’s laugh was sufficient response.

“Delighted to lunch with you there or anywhere, old chap, – you know that,” was the answer, “but some one ‘s been putting up a practical joke on you.”

“You did not send me a note round this morning, then?” Laverick insisted.

“I’ll swear I didn’t,” came the reply. “Do you seriously mean that you’ve had one purporting to come from me?”

Laverick pulled himself together.

“Well, the signature’s such a scrawl,” he said, “that no one could tell what the name really was. I guessed at you but I seem to have guessed wrong. Good-bye!”

He set down the receiver and rang off to escape further questioning. Now indeed the plot was commencing to thicken. This was a deliberate effort on the part of some one to secure his absence from his offices at a quarter to one.

With the document in his pocket and the safe securely locked, Laverick felt at ease as to the result of any attempted burglary of his premises. At the same time his curiosity was excited. Here, perhaps, was a chance of finding some clue to this impenetrable mystery.

There were thee clerks in the outer office. He put on his hat and despatched two of them on errands in different directions. The last he was obliged to take into his confidence.

“Halsey,” he said, “I am going out to lunch. At least, I wish it to be thought that I am going out to lunch. As a matter of fact, I shall return in about ten minutes by the back way. I do not wish you, however, to know this. I want you to have it in your mind that I have gone to lunch and shall not be back until a quarter past two. If there are visitors for me – Inquirers of any sort – act exactly as you would have done if you really believed that I was not in the building.”

Halsey appeared a good deal mystified. Laverick took him even further into his confidence.

“To tell you the truth, Halsey,” he said, “I have just received a bogus letter from Mr. Henshaw, asking me to lunch with him. Some one was evidently anxious to get me out of my office for an hour or so. I want to find out for myself what this means, if possible. You understand?”

“I think so, sir,” the man replied doubtfully. “I am not to be aware that you have returned, then?”

“Certainly not,” Laverick answered. “Please be quite clear about that. If you hear any commotion in the office, you can come in, but do not send for the police unless I tell you to. I wish to look into this affair for myself.”

Halsey, who had started life as a lawyer’s clerk, and was distinctly formal in his ideas, was a little shocked.

“Would it not be better, sir,” he suggested, “for me to communicate with the police in the first case? If this should really turn out to be an attempt at burglary, it would surely be best to leave the matter to them.”

Laverick frowned.

“For certain reasons, Halsey, which I do not think it necessary to tell you, I have a strong desire to investigate this matter personally. Please do exactly as I say.”

He left the office and strolled up the street in the direction of the restaurant which he chiefly frequented. He reached it in a moment or two, but left it at once by another entrance. Within ten minutes he was back at his office.

“Has any one been, Halsey?”

“No one, sir,” the clerk answered.

“You will be so good,” Laverick continued, “as to forget that I have returned.”

He passed on quickly into his own room and made his way into the small closet where he kept his coat and washed his hands. He had scarcely been there a minute when he heard voices in the outside hall. The door of his office was opened.

“Mr. Laverick said nothing about an appointment at this hour,” he heard Halsey protest in a somewhat deprecating tone.

“He had, perhaps, forgotten,” was the answer, in a totally unfamiliar voice. “At any rate, I am not in a great hurry. The matter is of some importance, however, and I will wait for Mr. Laverick.”

The visitor was shown in. Laverick investigated his appearance through a crack in the door. He was a man of medium height, well-dressed, clean-shaven, and wore gold-rimmed spectacles. He made himself comfortable in Laverick’s easy-chair, and accepted the paper which Halsey offered him.

“I shall be quite glad of a rest,” he remarked genially. “I have been running about all the morning.”

“Mr. Laverick is never very long out for lunch, sir,” Halsey said. “I daresay he will not keep you more than a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes.”

The clerk withdrew and closed the door. The man in the chair waited for a moment. Then he laid down his newspaper and looked cautiously around the room. Satisfied apparently that he was alone, he rose to his feet and walked swiftly to Laverick’s writing-table. With fingers which seemed gifted with a lightning-like capacity for movement, he swung open the drawers, one by one, and turned over the papers. His eyes were everywhere. Every document seemed to be scanned and as rapidly discarded. At last he found something which interested him. He held it up and paused in his search. Laverick heard a little breath come though his teeth, and with a thrill he recognized the paper as one which he had torn from a memorandum tablet and upon which he had written down the address which Mademoiselle Idiale had given him. The man with the gold-rimmed glasses replaced the paper where he had found it. Evidently he had done with the writing-table. He moved swiftly over to the safe and stood there listening for a few seconds. Then from his pocket he drew a bunch of keys. To Laverick’s surprise, at the stranger’s first effort the great door of the safe swung open. He saw the man lean forward, saw his hand reappear almost directly with the pocket-book clenched in his fingers. Then he stood once more quite still, listening. Satisfied that no one was disturbed, he closed the door of the safe softly and moved once more to the writing-table. With marvelous swiftness the notes were laid upon the table, the pocket-book was turned upside down, the secret place disclosed – the secret place which was empty. It seemed to Laverick that from his hiding-place he could hear the little oath of disappointment which broke from the thin red lips. The man replaced the notes and, with the pocket-book in his hand, hesitated. Laverick, who thought that things had gone far enough, stepped lightly out from his hiding-place and stood between his unbidden visitor and the door.

“You had better put down that pocket-book,” he ordered quietly.

The man was upon him with a single spring, but Laverick, without the slightest hesitation, knocked him prone upon the floor, where he lay, for a moment, motionless. Then he slowly picked himself up. His spectacles were broken – he blinked as he stood there.

“Sorry to be so rough,” Laverick said. “Perhaps if you will kindly realize that of the two I am much the stronger man, you will be so good as to sit in that chair and tell me the meaning of your intrusion.”

The man obeyed. He covered his eyes with his hand, for a moment, as though in pain.

“I imagine,” he said – and it seemed to Laverick that his voice had a slight foreign accent – “I imagine that the motive for my paying you this visit is fairly clear to you. People who have compromising possessions may always expect visits of this sort. You see, one runs so little risk.”

“So little risk!” Laverick repeated.

“Exactly,” the other answered. “Confess that you are not in the least inclined to ring your bell and send for a constable to give me in charge for being in possession of a pocket-book abstracted from your safe, containing twenty thousand pounds in Bank of England notes.”

“It wouldn’t do at all,” Laverick admitted.

“You are a man of common sense,” declared the other. “It would not do. Now comes the time when I have a question to ask you. There was a sealed document in this pocket-book. Where is it ? What have you done with it?”

“Can you tell me,” Laverick asked, “why I should answer questions from a person whom I discover apparently engaged in a nefarious attempt at burglary?”

The man’s hand shot out from his trouser-pocket, and Laverick looked into the gleaming muzzle of a revolver.

“Because if you don’t, you die,” was the quick reply. “Whether you’ve read that document or not, I want it. If you’ve read it, you know the sort of men you’ve got to deal with. If you haven’t, take my word for it that we waste no time. The document! Will you give it me?”

“Do I understand that you are threatening me?” Laverick asked, retreating a few steps.

“You may understand that this is a repeating revolver, and that I seldom miss a half-crown at twenty paces,” his visitor answered. “If you put out your hand toward that bell, it will be the last movement you’ll ever make on earth.”

“London isn’t really the place for this sort of thing,” Laverick said. “If you discharge that revolver, you haven’t a dog’s chance of getting clear of the building. My clerks would rush out after you into the street. You’d find yourself surrounded by a crowd of business men. You couldn’t make your way through anywhere. You’d be held up before you’d gone a dozen yards. Put down your revolver. We can perhaps settle this little matter without it.”

“The document!” the man ordered. “You’ve got it! You must have it! You took that pocket-book from a dead man, and in that pocket-book was the document. We must have it. We intend to have it.”

“And who, may I ask, are we?” Laverick inquired.

“If you do not know, what does it matter? Will you give it to me?”

Laverick shook his head.

“I have no document.”

The man in the chair leaned forward. The muzzle of his revolver was very bright, and he held it in fingers which were firm as a rock.

“Give it to me!” he repeated. “You ought to know that you are not dealing with men who are unaccustomed to death. You have it about you. Produce it, and I’ve done with you. Deny me, and you have not time to say your prayers!”

Laverick was leaning against a small table which stood near the door. His fingers suddenly gripped the ledger which lay upon it. He held it in front of his face for a single moment, and then dashed it at his visitor. He followed behind with one desperate spring. Once, twice, the revolver barked out. Laverick felt the skin of his temple burn and a flick on the ear which reminded him of his school-days. Then his hand was upon the other man’s throat and the revolver lay upon the carpet.

“We ‘ll see about that. By the Lord, I’ve a good mind to wring the life out of you. That bullet of yours might have been in my temple.”

“It was meant to be there,” the man gasped. “Hand over the document, you pig-headed fool! It’ll cost you your life – if not to-day, to-morrow.”

“I’ll be hanged if you get it, anyway!” Laverick answered fiercely. “You assassin! Scoundrel! To come here and make a cold-blooded effort at murder! You shall see what you think of the inside of an English prison.”

The man laughed contemptuously.

“And what about the pocket-book?” he asked.

Laverick was silent. His assailant smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

“Come,” he said, “I have made my effort and failed. You have twenty thousand pounds. That’s a fair price, but I’ll add another twenty thousand for that document unopened.”

“It is possible that we might deal,” Laverick remarked, kicking the revolver a little further away. “Unfortunately, I am too much in the dark. Tell me the real position of the murdered man? Tell me why he was murdered? Tell me the contents of this document and why it was in his possession? Perhaps I may then be inclined to treat with you.”

“You are either an astonishingly ingenuous person, Mr. Laverick,” his visitor declared, “or you’re too subtle for me. You do not expect me to believe that you are in this with your eyes blindfolded? You do not expect me to believe that you do not know what is in that sealed envelope? Bah! It is a child’s game, that, and we play as men with men.”

Laverick shook his head.

“Your offer,” he asked, “what is it exactly?”

“Twenty thousand pounds,” the man answered. “The document is worth no more than that to you. How you came into this thing is a mystery, but you are in and, what is more, you have possession. Twenty thousand pounds, Mr. Laverick. It is a large sum of money. You find it interesting?”

“I find it interesting,” Laverick answered dryly, “but I am not a seller.”

The intruder moved his hand away from his eyes. His expression was full of wonder.

“Consider for a moment,” he said. “While that document remains in