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

for posting, which occupied one side of the gold bag. The name upon the envelope struck him as being vaguely familiar; what had he heard lately of Madame de Melbain? It was associated somehow in his mind with a recent event. It lingered in his memory for days afterwards.

Louise and the Baroness left the room in silence. In the cloak-room the latter watched her friend curiously as she arranged her wrap.

"So that is Mr. Wrayson," she remarked.

"Yes!" Louise answered deliberately. "I wish that you had let him go!"

The Baroness laughed softly.

"My dear child," she protested, "why? He seems to me quite a personable young man, and he may be useful! Who can tell?"

Louise shrugged her shoulders. She stood waiting while the Baroness made somewhat extensive use of her powder-puff.

"You forget," she said quietly, "that I am already in Mr. Wrayson's debt pretty heavily."

The Baroness looked quickly around. She considered her young friend a little indiscreet.

"I find you amusing, ma chère," she remarked. "Since when have you developed scruples?"

Louise turned towards the door.

"You do not understand," she said. "Come!"

CHAPTER IX

A BOX AT THE ALHAMBRA

The Baroness lowered her lorgnettes and turned towards Wrayson.

"There is a man," she remarked, "in the stalls, who finds us apparently more interesting than the performance. I do not see very well even with my glasses, but I fancy, no! I am quite sure, that his face is familiar to me."

Wrayson leaned forward from his seat in the back of the box and looked downward. There was no mistaking the person indicated by the Baroness, nor was it possible to doubt his obvious interest in their little party. Wrayson frowned slightly as he returned his greeting.

"Ah, then, you know him," the Baroness declared. "It is a friend, without doubt."

"He belongs to my club," Wrayson answered. "His name is Heneage. I beg your pardon! I hope that wasn't my fault."

The Baroness had dropped her lorgnettes on the floor. She stooped instantly to discover them, rejecting almost peremptorily Wrayson's aid. When she sat up again she pushed her chair a little further back.

"It was my clumsiness entirely," she declared. "Ah! it is more restful here. The lights are a little trying in front. You are wiser than I, my dear Louise, to have chosen a seat back there."

She turned towards the girl as she spoke, and Wrayson fancied that there was some subtle meaning in the swift glance which passed between the two. Almost involuntarily he leaned forward once more and looked downwards. Heneage's inscrutable face was still upturned in their direction. There was nothing to be read there, not even curiosity. As the eyes of the two men met, Heneage rose and left his seat.

"You know my friend, perhaps?" Wrayson remarked. "He is rather an interesting person."

The Baroness shrugged her shoulders.

"We are cosmopolitans, Louise and I," she remarked. "We wander about so much that we meet many people whose names even we do not remember. Is it not so, chérie?"

Louise assented carelessly. The incident appeared to have interested her but slightly. She alone seemed to be taking an interest in the performance, which from the first she had followed closely. More than once Wrayson had fancied that her attention was only simulated, in order to avoid conversation.

"This ballet," she remarked, "is wonderful. I don't believe that you people have seen any of it—you especially, Amy."

The Baroness glanced towards the stage.

"My dear Louise," she said, "you share one great failing with the majority of your country-people. You cannot do more than one thing at a time. Now I can watch and talk. Truly, the dresses are ravishing. Doucet never conceived anything more delightful than that blend of greens! Tell me about your mysterious-looking friend, Mr. Wrayson. Is he, too, an editor?"

Wrayson shook his head.

"To tell you the truth," he said, "I know very little about him. He is one of those men who seldom talk about themselves. He is a barrister, and he has written a volume of travels. A clever fellow, I believe, but possibly without ambition. At any rate, one never hears of his doing anything now."

"Perhaps," the Baroness remarked, with her eyes upon the stage, "he is one of those who keep their own counsel, in more ways than one. He does not look like a man who has no object in life."

Wrayson glanced downwards at the empty stall.

"Very likely," he admitted carelessly, "and yet, nowadays, it is a little difficult, isn't it, to do anything really worth doing, and not be found out? They say that the press is lynx-eyed."

Louise leaned a little forward in her chair.

"And you," she remarked, "are an editor! Do you feel quite safe, Amy? Mr. Wrayson may rob us of our most cherished secrets."

Her eyes challenged his, her lips were parted in a slight smile. Underneath the levity of her remark, he was fully conscious of the undernote of serious meaning.

"I am not afraid of Mr. Wrayson," the Baroness answered, smiling. "My age and my dressmaker are the only two things I keep entirely to myself, and I don't think he is likely to guess either."

"And you?" he asked, looking into her companion's eyes.

"There are many things," she answered, in a low tone, "which one keeps to oneself, because confidences with regard to them are impossible. And yet—"

She paused. Her eyes seemed to be following out the mystic design painted upon her fan.

"And yet?" he reminded her under his breath.

"Yet," she continued, glancing towards the Baroness, and lowering her voice as though anxious not to be overheard, "there is something poisonous, I think, about secrets. To have them known without disclosing them would be very often—a great relief."

He leaned a little towards her.

"Is that a challenge?" he asked, "if I can find out?"

The colour left her face with amazing suddenness. She drew away from him quickly. Her whisper was almost a moan.

"No! for God's sake, no!" she murmured. "I meant nothing. You must not think that I was speaking about myself."

"I hoped that you were," he answered simply.

The Baroness turned in her chair as though anxious to join in the conversation. At that moment came a knock at the door of the box. Wrayson rose and opened it. Heneage stood there and entered at once, as though his coming were the most natural thing in the world.

"Thought I recognized you," he remarked, shaking hands with Wrayson. "I believe, too, I may be mistaken, but I fancy that I have had the pleasure of meeting the Baroness de Sturm."

The Baroness turned towards him with a smile. Nevertheless, Wrayson noticed what seemed to him a strange thing. The slim-fingered, bejewelled hand which rested upon the ledge of the box was trembling. The Baroness was disturbed.

"At Brussels, I believe," she remarked, inclining her head graciously.

"At Brussels, certainly," he answered, bowing low.

She turned to Louise.

"Louise," she said, "you must let me present Mr. Heneage—Miss Deveney. Mr. Heneage has a cousin, I believe, of the same name, in the Belgian Legation. I remember seeing you dance with him at the Palace."

The two exchanged greetings. Heneage accepted a chair and spoke of the performance. The conversation became general and of stereotyped form. Yet Wrayson was uneasily conscious of something underneath it all which he could not fathom. The atmosphere of the box was charged with some electrical disturbance. Heneage alone seemed thoroughly at his ease. He kept his seat until the close of the performance, and even then seemed in no hurry to depart. Wrayson, however, took his cue from the Baroness, who was obviously anxious for him to go.

"Goodnight, Heneage!" he said. "I may see you at the club later."

Heneage smiled a little oddly as he turned away.

"Perhaps," he said.

It was not until they were on their way out that Wrayson realized that she was slipping away from him once more. Then he took his courage into his hands and spoke boldly.

"I wonder," he said, "if I might be allowed to see you ladies home. I have something to say to Miss Fitzmaurice," he added simply, turning to the Baroness.

"By all means," she answered graciously, "if you don't mind rather an uncomfortable seat. We are staying in Battersea. It seems a long way out, but it is quiet, and Louise and I like it."

"In Battersea?" Wrayson repeated vaguely.

The Baroness looked over her shoulder. They were standing on the pavement, waiting for their electric brougham.

"Yes!" she answered, dropping her voice a little, "in Frederic Mansions. By the bye, we are neighbours, I believe, are we not?"

"Quite close ones," Wrayson answered. "I live in the next block of flats."

The Baroness looked again over her shoulder.

"Your friend, Mr. Heneage, is close behind," she whispered, "and we are living so quietly, Louise and I, that we do not care for callers. Tell the man 'home' simply."

Wrayson obeyed, and the carriage glided off. Heneage had been within a few feet of them when they had started, and although his attention appeared to be elsewhere, the Baroness' caution was obviously justified. She leaned back amongst the cushions with a little sigh of relief.

"Mr. Wrayson," she inquired, "may I ask if Mr. Heneage is a particular friend of yours?"

Wrayson shook his head.

"I do not think that any man could call himself Heneage's particular friend," he answered. "He is exceedingly reticent about himself and his doings. He is a man whom none of us know much of."

The Baroness leaned a little forward.

"Mr. Heneage," she said slowly, "is associated in my mind with days and events which, just at present, both Louise and I are only anxious to forget. He may be everything that he should be. Perhaps I am prejudiced. But if I were you, I would have as little to do as possible with that man."

"We do not often meet," Wrayson answered, "and ours is only a club acquaintanceship. It is never likely to be more."

"So much the better," the Baroness declared. "Don't you agree with me, Louise?"

"I do not like Mr. Heneage," the girl answered. "But then, I have never spoken a dozen words to him in my life."

"You have known him intimately?" Wrayson asked the Baroness.

She shrugged her shoulders and looked out of the window.

"Never that, quite," she answered. "I know enough of him, however, to be quite sure that the advice which I have given you is good."

The carriage drew up in the Albert Road, within a hundred yards or so of Wrayson's own block of flats. The Baroness alighted first.

"You must come in and have a whisky and soda," she said to Wrayson.

"If I may," he answered, looking at Louise.

The Baroness passed on. Louise, with a slight shrug of the shoulders, followed her.

CHAPTER X

OUTCAST

The room into which a waiting man servant showed them was large and handsomely furnished. Whisky and soda, wine and sandwiches were upon the sideboard. The Baroness, stopping only to light a cigarette, moved towards the door.

"I shall return," she said, "in a quarter of an hour."

She looked for a moment steadily at her friend, and then turned away. Louise strolled to the sideboard and helped herself to a sandwich.

"Come and forage, won't you?" she asked carelessly. "There are some pâté sandwiches here, and you want whisky and soda, of course—or do you prefer brandy?"

"Neither, thanks!" Wrayson answered firmly. "I want what I came for. Please sit down here and answer my questions."

She laughed a little mockingly, and turning round, faced him, her head thrown back, her eyes meeting his unflinchingly. The light from a rose-shaded electric lamp glittered upon her hair. She was wearing black again, and something in her appearance and attitude almost took his breath away. It reminded him of the moment when he had seen her first.

"First," she said, "I am going to ask you a question. Why did you do it?"

"Do what?" he asked.

She gave vent to a little gesture of impatience. He must know quite well what she meant.

"Why did you give evidence at the inquest and omit all mention of me?"

"I don't know," he answered bluntly.

"You have committed yourself to a story," she reminded him,