The Grand Babylon Hotel, Arnold Bennett [ereader ebook .txt] 📗

along at a pace which is rather too rapid.”

“That remains to be seen,” she put in coldly.

“It does,” he admitted. “And I repeat that I can’t help admiring you⁠—that is, when you aren’t interfering with my private affairs. That is a proceeding which I have never tolerated from anyone⁠—not even from a millionaire, nor even from a beautiful woman.” He bowed. “I will tell you what I propose to do. I propose to escort you to a place of safety, and to keep you there till my operations are concluded, and the possibility of interference entirely removed. You spoke just now of murder. What a crude notion that was of yours! It is only the amateur who practises murder⁠—”

“What about Reginald Dimmock?” she interjected quickly.

He paused gravely.

“Reginald Dimmock,” he repeated. “I had imagined his was a case of heart disease. Let me send you up some more chocolate. I’m sure you’re hungry.”

“I will starve before I touch your food,” she said.

“Gallant creature!” he murmured, and his eyes roved over her face. Her superb, supercilious beauty overcame him. “Ah!” he said, “what a wife you would make!” He approached nearer to her. “You and I, Miss Racksole, your beauty and wealth and my brains⁠—we could conquer the world. Few men are worthy of you, but I am one of the few. Listen! You might do worse. Marry me. I am a great man; I shall be greater. I adore you. Marry me, and I will save your life. All shall be well. I will begin again. The past shall be as though there had been no past.”

“This is somewhat sudden⁠—Jules,” she said with biting contempt.

“Did you expect me to be conventional?” he retorted. “I love you.”

“Granted,” she said, for the sake of the argument. “Then what will occur to your present wife?”

“My present wife?”

“Yes, Miss Spencer, as she is called.”

“She told you I was her husband?”

“Incidentally she did.”

“She isn’t.”

“Perhaps she isn’t. But, nevertheless, I think I won’t marry you.” Nella stood like a statue of scorn before him.

He went still nearer to her. “Give me a kiss, then; one kiss⁠—I won’t ask for more; one kiss from those lips, and you shall go free. Men have ruined themselves for a kiss. I will.”

“Coward!” she ejaculated.

“Coward!” he repeated. “Coward, am I? Then I’ll be a coward, and you shall kiss me whether you will or not.”

He put a hand on her shoulder. As she shrank back from his lustrous eyes, with an involuntary scream, a figure sprang out of the dinghy a few feet away. With a single blow, neatly directed to Mr. Jackson’s ear, Mr. Jackson was stretched senseless on the deck. Prince Aribert of Posen stood over him with a revolver. It was probably the greatest surprise of Mr. Jackson’s whole life.

“Don’t be alarmed,” said the Prince to Nella, “my being here is the simplest thing in the world, and I will explain it as soon as I have finished with this fellow.”

Nella could think of nothing to say, but she noticed the revolver in the Prince’s hand.

“Why,” she remarked, “that’s my revolver.”

“It is,” he said, “and I will explain that, too.”

The man at the wheel gave no heed whatever to the scene.

XI The Court Pawnbroker

“Mr. Sampson Levi wishes to see you, sir.”

These words, spoken by a servant to Theodore Racksole, aroused the millionaire from a reverie which had been the reverse of pleasant. The fact was, and it is necessary to insist on it, that Mr. Racksole, owner of the Grand Babylon Hotel, was by no means in a state of self-satisfaction. A mystery had attached itself to his hotel, and with all his acumen and knowledge of things in general he was unable to solve that mystery. He laughed at the fruitless efforts of the police, but he could not honestly say that his own efforts had been less barren. The public was talking, for, after all, the disappearance of poor Dimmock’s body had got noised abroad in an indirect sort of way, and Theodore Racksole did not like the idea of his impeccable hotel being the subject of sinister rumours. He wondered, grimly, what the public and the Sunday newspapers would say if they were aware of all the other phenomena, not yet common property: of Miss Spencer’s disappearance, of Jules’ strange visits, and of the non-arrival of Prince Eugen of Posen. Theodore Racksole had worried his brain without result. He had conducted an elaborate private investigation without result, and he had spent a certain amount of money without result. The police said that they had a clue; but Racksole remarked that it was always the business of the police to have a clue, that they seldom had more than a clue, and that a clue without some sequel to it was a pretty stupid business. The only sure thing in the whole affair was that a cloud rested over his hotel, his beautiful new toy, the finest of its kind. The cloud was not interfering with business, but, nevertheless, it was a cloud, and he fiercely resented its presence; perhaps it would be more correct to say that he fiercely resented his inability to dissipate it.

“Mr. Sampson Levi wishes to see you, sir,” the servant repeated, having received no sign that his master had heard him.

“So I hear,” said Racksole. “Does he want to see me, personally?”

“He asked for you, sir.”

“Perhaps it is Rocco he wants to see, about a menu or something of that kind?”

“I will inquire, sir,” and the servant made a move to withdraw.

“Stop,” Racksole commanded suddenly. “Desire Mr. Sampson Levi to step this way.”

The great stockbroker of the “Kaffir Circus” entered with a simple unassuming air. He was a rather short, florid man, dressed like a typical Hebraic financier, with too much watch-chain and too little waistcoat. In his fat hand he held a gold-headed cane, and an absolutely new silk hat⁠—for it was Friday, and Mr. Levi purchased a new hat every Friday of his life, holiday times only excepted. He breathed heavily