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

It's plain English."

"Admirably simple," Wrayson answered, "and perfectly satisfactory."

"What do you mean?"

"It answers my question," Wrayson declared quietly.

Heneage shrugged his shoulders.

"You can get what satisfaction you like out of it," he said doggedly.

"It isn't much," Wrayson admitted. "I wish I could induce you to treat me a little more generously."

Heneage looked at him with a curious gleam in his eyes.

"Look here," he said. "Take my advice. Drop the whole affair. You see what it's made of me. It'll do the same to you. I shan't tell you anything! You can swear to that. I've done with it, Wrayson, done with it! You understand that? Talk about something else, or leave me alone!"

Wrayson looked at the man whom he had once called his friend.

"You're in a queer sort of mood, Heneage," he said.

"Let it go at that," Heneage answered. "Every man has a right to his moods, hasn't he? No right to inflict them upon his friends, you'd say! Perhaps not, but you know I'm a reasonable person as a rule. Don't—don't—"

He broke off abruptly in his sentence. His eyes were fixed upon a distant corner of the room. Their expression was unfathomable, but Wrayson shuddered as he looked away and followed their direction. Then he, too, started. He recognized the miserable little figure whose presence a group just broken up left revealed. Heneage rose softly to his feet.

"Let us go before he sees us," he whispered hurriedly. "Look sharp!"

But they were too late. Already he was on his way towards them, shambling rather than walking down the room, an unwholesome, unattractive, even repulsive figure. He seemed to have shrunken in size since his arrival in England, and his brother's clothes, always too large, hung about him loose and ungraceful. His tie was grimy; his shirt frayed; his trousers turned up, but still falling over his heels; his hat, too large for him, came almost to his ears. In the increased pallor and thinness of his face, his dark eyes seemed to have come nearer together. He would have been a ludicrous object but for the intense earnestness of his expression. He came towards them with rapidly blinking eyes. He took no notice of Heneage, but he insisted upon shaking hands with Wrayson.

"Mr. Wrayson," he said, "I am glad to see you again, sir. You always treated me like a gentleman. Not like him," he added, motioning with his head towards Heneage. "He's a thief, he is!"

"Steady," Wrayson interrupted, "you mustn't call people names like that."

"Why not?" Barnes asked. "He is a thief. He knows it. He knows who robbed me of my money. And he won't tell. That's what I call being a thief."

Wrayson glanced towards Heneage and was amazed at his demeanour. He had shrunk back in his chair, and he was sitting with his hands in his pockets and his eyes fixed upon the table. Of the two, his miserable little accuser was the dominant figure.

"He's very likely spending it now—my money!" Barnes continued. "Here am I living on crusts and four-penny dinners, and begging my way in here, and some one else is spending my money. Never mind! It may be my turn yet! It may be only a matter of hours," he added, leaning over towards them and showing his yellow teeth, "and I may have the laugh on both of you."

Heneage looked up quickly. He was obviously discomposed.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

Sydney Barnes indulged in the graceless but expressive proceeding of sticking his tongue in his cheek. After which he turned to Wrayson.

"Mr. Wrayson," he said, "lend me a quid. I've got the flat to sleep in for a few more weeks, but I haven't got money enough for a meal. I'll pay you back some day—perhaps before you expect it."

Wrayson produced a sovereign and handed it over silently.

"If I were you," he said, "I'd spend my time looking for a situation, instead of hunting about for this supposed fortune of your brother's."

Barnes took the sovereign with hot, trembling fingers, and deposited it carefully in his waistcoat pocket. Then he smiled in a somewhat mysterious manner.

"Mr. Wrayson," he said, "perhaps I'm not so far off, after all. Other people can find out what he knows," he added, pointing at Heneage. "He ain't the only one who can see through a brick wall. Say, Mr. Wrayson, you've always treated me fair and square," he added, leaning towards him and dropping his voice. "Can you tell me this? Did Morry ever go swaggering about calling himself by any other name—bit more tony, eh?"

Wrayson started. For a moment he did not reply. Thoughts were rushing through his brain. Was he forestalled in his search for this girl? Meanwhile, Barnes watched him with a cunning gleam in his deep-set eyes.

"Such as Augustus Howard, eh? Real tony name that for Morry!"

Wrayson, with a sudden instinctive knowledge, brushed him on one side, and half standing up, gazed across the room at the corner from which his questioner had come. With her back against the wall, her cheap prettiness marred by her red eyes, her ill-arranged hair, and ugly hat, sat, beyond a doubt, the girl for whom he had waited in the promenade.

CHAPTER XXXV

HIS WIFE

Wrayson drew a little breath and looked back at Sydney Barnes.

"You asked me a question," he said. "I believe I have heard of your brother calling himself by some such name."

Barnes grasped him by the arm.

"Look here," he said, "come and repeat that to the young lady over there. She's with me. It won't do you any harm."

Wrayson rose to his feet, but before he could move he felt Heneage's hand fall upon his arm.

"Where are you going, Wrayson?" he asked.

Barnes looked up at him anxiously. His pale face seemed twisted into a scowl.

"Don't you interfere!" he exclaimed. "You've done me enough harm, you have. You let Mr. Wrayson pass. He's coming with me."

Heneage took no more notice of him than he would of a yapping terrier. He looked over his head into Wrayson's eyes.

"Wrayson," he said, "don't have anything more to do with this business. Take my advice. I know more than you do about it. If you go on, I swear to you that there is nothing but misery at the end."

"I know more than you think I do," Wrayson answered quietly. "I know more indeed than you have any idea of. If the end were in hell I should not hold back."

Heneage hesitated for a moment. He stood there with darkening face, an obstinate, almost a threatening figure. Passers-by looked with a gleam of interest at the oddly assorted trio, whose conversation was obviously far removed from the ordinary chatter of the loungers about the place. One or two made an excuse to linger by—it seemed possible that there might be developments. Heneage, however, disappointed them. He turned suddenly upon his heel and left the room. Those who had the curiosity to follow along the corridor saw him, without glancing to the right or to the left, descend the stairs and walk out of the building. He had the air of a man who abandons finally a hopeless task.

The look of relief in Barnes' face as he saw him go was a ludicrous thing. He drew Wrayson at once towards the corner.

"Queer thing about this girl," he whispered in his ear. "She ain't like the others about here. She just comes to make inquiries about a friend who's given her the chuck, and whose name she says was Howard. I believe it's Morry she means. Just like him to take a toff's name!"

"Wait a moment before we speak to her," Wrayson said. "How did you find her out?"

"She spoke to me," Barnes answered. "Asked me if my name was Howard, said I was a bit like the man she was looking for. Then I palled up to her, and I'm pretty certain Morry was her man. I want her to go to the flat with me and see his clothes and picture, but she's scared. Mr. Wrayson, you might do me a good turn. She'll come if you'd go too!"

"Do you know why I am here to-night?" Wrayson asked.

"No! Why?"

"To meet that young woman of yours," Wrayson answered.

Barnes looked at him in amazement.

"What do you mean?" he asked quickly. "You don't know her, do you?"

His sallow cheeks were paler than ever. His narrow eyes, furtively raised to Wrayson's, were full of inquisitive fear.

"No! I don't know her," Wrayson answered, "but I rather fancy, all the same, that she is the young person whom I came here to meet to-night."

Barnes waited breathlessly for an explanation. He did not say a word, but his whole attitude was an insistent interrogation point.

"You remember," Wrayson said, "that when you and I were pursuing these investigations together, I made some inquiries of the woman at whose flat your brother called on the night of his murder. I saw her again at Dinant yesterday, and she told me of this young person. She also evidently believed that the man for whom she was inquiring was your brother."

Barnes nodded.

"She told me that she was to have met a gentleman to-night," he said. "Here, we must go and speak to her now, or she'll think that something's up."

He performed something that was meant for an introduction.

"Friend of mine, Miss," he said, indicating Wrayson. "Knew my brother well, lived in the flat just below him, in fact. Perhaps you'd like to ask him a few questions."

"There is only one question I want answered," the girl replied, with straining eyes fixed upon Wrayson's face, and a little break in her tone. "Shall I see him again? If Augustus was really—his brother—where is he? What has happened to him?"

There was a moment's silence. Sydney Barnes had evidently said nothing as to his brother's tragic end. Wrayson could see, too, that the girl was on the brink of hysterics, and needed careful handling.

"We will tell you everything," he said presently. "But first of all we have to decide whether your Augustus Howard and Morris Barnes were the same person. I think that the best way for you to decide this would be to come home to my flat. Mr. Barnes' is just above, and I dare say you can recognize some of his brother's belongings, if he really was—your friend."

She rose at once. She was perfectly willing to go. They left the place together and entered a four-wheeler. During the drive she scarcely opened her lips. She sat in a corner looking absently out of the window, and nervously clasping and unclasping her hands. She answered a remark of Sydney Barnes' without turning her head.

"I always watch the people," she said. "Wherever I am, I always look out of the window. I have always hoped—that I might see Augustus again that way."

Wrayson, from his seat in the opposite corner of the cab, watched her with growing sympathy. In her very conformity to type, she represented so naturally a real and living unit of humanity. Her poor commonplace prettiness was already on the wane, stamped out by the fear and trouble of the last few months. Yet inane though her features, lacking altogether strength or distinction, there was stamped into them something of that dumb, dog-like fidelity to some object which redeemed them from utter insignificance. Wrayson, as he watched her, found himself thinking more kindly of the dead man himself. In his vulgar, selfish way, he had probably been kind to her: he must have done something to have kindled this flame of dogged, persevering affection. Already he scarcely doubted that Morris Barnes and Augustus Howard had been the same person. Within a very few minutes of her entering the flats there remained no doubt at all. With a low moan, like a dumb animal mortally hurt, she sank down upon the nearest chair, clasping the photograph which Sydney Barnes had passed her in her hands.

For a few moments there was silence. Then she looked up—at Wrayson. Her lips moved but no words