The Avenger, E. Phillips Oppenheim [uplifting book club books txt] 📗

Freddy! Sixpence, you divide!"

They found themselves in the Strand about half an hour later.

"Where shall we go?" Wrayson asked. "Somewhere quiet."

"Across the way," the Colonel answered. "We shan't see any one we know there."

Wrayson nodded, and they crossed the street and entered Luigi's. It was early for diners, and they found a small table in a retired corner. Wrayson ordered the dinner, and then leaned across the table towards his guest.

"It's that Barnes matter, Colonel," he said quietly. "Heneage has taken it up and means going into it thoroughly. He saw me letting out your daughter that night."

The Colonel was in the act of helping himself to hors d'œuvre. His fork remained suspended for a moment in the air. Then he set it down with trembling fingers. The cheery light had faded from his face. He seemed suddenly older. His voice sounded unnatural.

"Heneage!" he repeated, sharply. "Stephen Heneage! What affair is it of his?"

"None," Wrayson answered. "He likes that sort of thing, that's all. He saw—your daughter with a lady—the Baroness de Sturm, and the seeing them together, after he had watched her come out of the flat that night, seemed to suggest something to him. He warned me that he had made up his mind to solve the mystery of Morris Barnes' murder; he advised me, in fact, to clear out. And now, since then—"

The waiter brought the soup. Wrayson broke off and talked for a moment or two to the maître d'hôtel, who had paused at their table. Presently, when they were alone, he went on.

"Since then, a young brother of Barnes has turned up from South Africa. There was some mystery about Morris Barnes and the source of his income. The brother is just as determined to solve this as Heneage seems to be to discover the—the murderer! They will work together, and I am afraid! Not for myself! You know for whom."

The Colonel was very grave. He ate slowly, and he seemed to be thinking.

"There is one man, a solicitor named Bentham," Wrayson continued, "who I believe knows everything. But I do not think that even Heneage will be able to make him speak. His connection with the affair is on behalf of a mysterious client. Young Barnes and I went to see him this afternoon, but beyond encouraging the boy to search for the source of his brother's income, he wouldn't open his mouth."

"A solicitor named Bentham," the Colonel repeated mechanically. "Ah!"

"Do you know him?" Wrayson asked.

"I have heard of him," the Colonel answered. "A most disreputable person, I believe. He has offices in the Adelphi."

Wrayson nodded.

"And whatever his business is," he continued, "it isn't the ordinary business of a solicitor. He has no clerks—not even an office boy!"

The Colonel poured himself out a glass of wine.

"No clerks—not even an office boy! It all agrees with what I have heard. A bad lot, Wrayson, I am afraid—a thoroughly bad lot. Are you sure that up to now he has kept his own counsel?"

"I am sure of it," Wrayson answered.

The Colonel seemed in some measure to have recovered himself. He looked Wrayson in the face, and though grave, his expression was decidedly more natural.

"Herbert," he asked, sinking his voice almost to a whisper, "who do you believe murdered Morris Barnes?"

"God knows," Wrayson answered.

"Do you believe—that—my daughter had any hand in it?"

"No!" Wrayson declared fiercely.

The Colonel was silent for a moment. He seemed to be contemplating the label on the bottle of claret which reposed in its cradle by their side.

"And yet," he said thoughtfully, "she would necessarily be involved in any disclosures which were made."

"And so should I," Wrayson declared. "And those two, Sydney Barnes and Heneage, mean to bring about disclosures. That is why I felt that I must talk to some one about this. Colonel, can't you get your daughter to tell us the whole truth—what she was doing in Barnes' flat that night, and all the rest of it? We should be forewarned then!"

The Colonel covered his face with his hand for a moment. The question obviously distressed him.

"I can't, Herbert," he said, in a low tone. "You would scarcely think, would you, that I was the sort of man to live on irreconcilable terms with one of my own family? But there it is. Don't think hardly of her. It is more the fault of circumstances than her fault. But I couldn't go to see her—and she wouldn't come to see me."

Wrayson sighed.

"It is like the rest of this cursed mystery, utterly incomprehensible," he declared. "I shall never—"

With his glass half raised to his lips, he paused suddenly in his sentence. His face became a study in the expression of a boundless amazement. His eyes were fastened upon the figures of two people on their way up the room, preceded by the smiling maître d'hôtel. Some words, or rather an exclamation, broke incoherently from his lips. He set down his glass hurriedly, and a stain of red wine crept unheeded across the tablecloth.

"Look," he whispered hoarsely,—"look!"

CHAPTER XVII

A CONFESSION OF LOVE

The Colonel turned bodily round in his chair. The couple to whom Wrayson had drawn his attention were certainly incongruous enough to attract notice anywhere. The man was lank, elderly, and of severe appearance. He was bald, he had slight side-whiskers, he wore spectacles, and his face was devoid of expression. He was dressed in plain dinner clothes of old-fashioned cut. The tails of his coat were much too short, his collar belonged to a departed generation, and his tie was ready made. In a small Scotch town he might have passed muster readily enough as the clergyman or lawyer of the place. As a diner at Luigi's, ushered up the room to the soft strains of "La Mattchiche," and followed by such a companion, he was almost ridiculously out of place. If anything, she was the more noticeable of the two to the casual observer. Her hair was dazzlingly yellow, and arranged with all the stiffness of the coiffeur's art. She wore a dress of black sequins, cut perilously low, and shorn a little by wear of its pristine splendour. Her complexion was as artificial as her high-pitched voice; her very presence seemed to exude perfumes of the patchouli type. She was the sort of person concerning whom the veriest novice in such matters could have made no mistake. Yet her companion seemed wholly unembarrassed. He handed her the menu and looked calmly around the room.

"Who are those people?" the Colonel asked. "Rather a queer combination, aren't they?"

"The man is Bentham, the lawyer," Wrayson answered. His eyes were fixed upon the lady, who seemed not at all indisposed to become the object of any stray attention.

"That Bentham!" the Colonel repeated, under his breath. "But what on earth—where the mischief could he pick up a companion like that?"

Wrayson scarcely heard him. He had withdrawn his eyes from the lady with an effort.

"I have seen that woman somewhere," he said thoughtfully—"somewhere where she seemed quite as much out of place as she does here. Lately, too."

"H'm!" the Colonel remarked, leaning back in his chair to allow the waiter to serve him. "She's not the sort of person you'd be likely to forget either, is she?"

"And, by Heavens, I haven't!" Wrayson declared, suddenly laying down his knife and fork. "I remember her now. It was at the inquest—Barnes' inquest. She was one of the two women at whose flat he called on his way home. What on earth is Bentham doing with her?"

"You think," the Colonel remarked quietly, "that there is some connection—"

"Of course there is," Wrayson interrupted. "Does that old fossil look like the sort to take such a creature about for nothing? Colonel, he doesn't know himself—where those securities are! He's brought that woman here to pump her!"

The Colonel passed his hand across his forehead.

"I am getting a little confused," he murmured.

"And I," Wrayson declared, with barely suppressed excitement, "am beginning to see at least the shadow of daylight. If only you had some influence with your daughter, Colonel!"

The Colonel looked at him steadfastly. Wrayson wondered whether it was the light, or whether indeed his friend had aged so much during the last few months.

"I have no influence over my daughter, Wrayson," he said. "I thought that I had already explained that. And, Herbert," he added, leaning over the table, "why don't you let this matter alone? It doesn't concern you. You are more likely to do harm than good by meddling with it. There may be interests involved greater than you know of; you may find understanding a good deal more dangerous than ignorance. It isn't your affair, anyhow. Take my advice! Let it alone!"

"I wish I could," Wrayson answered, with a little sigh. "Frankly, I would if I could, but it fascinates me."

"All that I have heard of it," the Colonel remarked wearily, "sounds sordid enough."

Wrayson nodded.

"I think," he said, "that it is the sense of personal contact in a case like this which stirs the blood. I have memories about that night, Colonel, which I couldn't describe to you—or any one. And now this young brother coming on the scene seems to bring the dead man to life again. He's one of the worst type of young bounders I ever came into contact with. A creature without sentiment or feeling of any sort—nothing but an almost ravenous cupidity. He's wearing his brother's clothes now—thinks nothing of it! He hasn't a single regret. I haven't heard a single decent word pass his lips. But he wants the money. Nothing else! The money!"

"Do you believe," the Colonel asked, "that he will get it?"

"Who can tell?" Wrayson answered. "That Morris Barnes was in possession of valuables of some sort, everything goes to prove. Just think of the number of people who have shown their interest in him. There is Bentham and his mysterious client, the Baroness de Sturm and your daughter, and—the person who murdered him. Apparently, even though he lost his life, Barnes was too clever for them, for his precious belongings must still be undiscovered."

The Colonel finished his wine and leaned back in his chair.

"I am tired of this subject," he said. "I should like to get back to the club."

Wrayson called for the bill a little unwillingly. He was, in a sense, disappointed at the Colonel's attitude.

"Very well," he said, "we will bury it. But before we do so, there is one thing I have had it in my mind to say—for some time. I want to say it now. It is about your daughter, Colonel!"

The Colonel looked at him curiously.

"My daughter?" he repeated, under his breath.

Wrayson leaned a little forward. Something new had come into his face. This was the first time he had suffered such words to pass his lips—almost the first time he had suffered such thoughts to form themselves in his mind.

"I never looked upon myself," he said quietly, "as a particularly impulsive person. Yet it was an impulse which prompted me to conceal the truth as to her presence in the flat buildings that night. It was a serious thing to do, and somehow I fancy that the end is not yet."

"Why did you do it?" the Colonel asked. "You did not know who she was. It could not have been that."

"Why did I do it?" Wrayson repeated. "I can't tell you. I only know that I should do it again and again if the need came. If I told you exactly how I felt, it would sound like rot. But I'm going to ask you that question."

"Well?"

The Colonel's grey eyebrows were drawn together. His eyes were keen and bright. So he might have looked in time of stress; but he was not in the least like the genial idol of the Sheridan billiard-room.

"If I came to you to-morrow," Wrayson said, "and told you that I had met at last the woman whom I wished to make my wife, and that woman was your daughter, what should you say?"

"I should be glad," the