The Avenger - E. Phillips Oppenheim (best classic romance novels .txt) 📗

Colonel answered simply.

"You and she are, for some unhappy reason, not on speaking terms. That—"

"Good God!" the Colonel interrupted, "whom do you mean? Whom are you talking about?"

"About your daughter—whom I shielded—the companion of the Baroness de Sturm. Your daughter Louise."

The Colonel raised his trembling fingers to his forehead. His voice quivered ominously.

"Of course! Of course! God help me, I thought you meant Edith! I never thought of Louise. And Edith has spoken of you lately."

"I found your younger daughter charming," Wrayson said seriously, "but it was of your daughter Louise I was speaking. I thought that you would understand that."

"My daughter—whom you found—in Morris Barnes' flat—that night?"

"Exactly," Wrayson answered, "and my question is this. I cannot ask you why you and she parted, but at least you can tell me if you know of any reason why I should not ask her to be my wife."

The Colonel was silent.

"No!" he said at last, "there is no reason. But she would not consent. I am sure of that."

"We will let it go at that," Wrayson answered. "Come!"

He had chosen his moment for rising so as to pass down the room almost at the same time as Mr. Bentham and his strange companion. Prolific of smiles and somewhat elephantine graces, the lady's darkened eyes met Wrayson's boldly, and finding there some encouragement, she even favoured him with a backward glance. In the vestibule he slipped a half-crown into the attendant's hand.

"See if you can hear the address that lady gives her cabman," he whispered.

The boy nodded, and hurried out after them. Wrayson kept the Colonel back under the pretence of lighting a fresh cigar. When at last they strolled forward, they met the boy returning. He touched his hat to Wrayson.

"Alhambra, sir!" he said, quietly. "Gone off alone, sir, in a hansom. Gentleman walked."

The Colonel kept silence until they were in the street.

"Coming to the club?" he asked, a little abruptly.

"No!" Wrayson answered.

"You are going after that woman?" the Colonel exclaimed.

"I am going to the Alhambra," Wrayson answered. "I can't help it. It sounds foolish, I suppose, but this affair fascinates me. It works on my nerves somehow. I must go."

The Colonel turned on his heel. Without another word, he crossed the Strand, leaving Wrayson standing upon the pavement. Wrayson, with a little sigh, turned westwards.

CHAPTER XVIII

AN AMATEUR DETECTIVE

Wrayson easily discovered the object of his search. She was seated upon a lounge in the promenade, her ample charms lavishly displayed, and her blackened eyes mutely questioning the passers-by. She welcomed Wrayson with a smile which she meant to be inviting, albeit she was a little suspicious. Men of Wrayson's stamp and appearance were not often such easy victims.

"Saw you at Luigi's, didn't I?" he asked, hat in hand.

She nodded, and made room for him to sit down by her side.

"Did you see the old stick I was with?" she asked. "I don't know why I was fool enough to go out with him. Trying to pump me about poor old Barney, too, all the time. Just as though I couldn't see through him."

"Old Barney!" Wrayson repeated, a little perplexed.

She laughed coarsely.

"Oh! come, that won't do!" she declared. "I'm almost sure you're on the same lay yourself. Didn't I see you at the inquest?—Morris Barnes' inquest, of course? You know whom I mean right enough."

"I know whom you mean now," Wrayson admitted. "Yes! I was there. Queer affair, wasn't it?"

The lady nodded.

"I should like a liqueur," she remarked, with apparent irrelevance. "Benedictine!"

They were seated in front of a small table, and were at times the object of expectant contemplation on the part of a magnificent individual in livery and knee-breeches. Wrayson summoned him and ordered two Benedictines.

"Now I don't mind telling you," the lady continued, leaning over towards him confidentially, "that I'm dead off that old man who came prying round and took me out to dinner, to pump me about poor Barney! He didn't get much out of me. For one thing, I don't know much. But the little I do know I'd sooner tell you than him."

"You're very kind," Wrayson murmured. "He used to come to these places a good deal, didn't he?"

She nodded assent.

"He was always either here or at the Empire. He wasn't a bad sort, Barney, although he was just like all the rest of them, close with his money when he was sober, and chucking it about when he'd had a drop too much. What did you want to know about him in particular?"

"Well, for one thing," Wrayson answered, "where he got his money from."

She shook her head.

"He was always very close about that," she said. "The only story I ever heard him tell was that he'd made it mining in South Africa."

"You have really heard him say that?" Wrayson asked.

"Half a dozen times," she declared.

"That proves, at any rate," he remarked thoughtfully, "that there was some mystery about his income, because I happen to know that he came back from South Africa a pauper."

"Very likely," she remarked. "Barney was always the sort who would rather tell a lie than the truth."

"Did he say anything to you that night about being in any kind of danger?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"No! I don't think so. I didn't take particular notice of what he said, because he was a bit squiffy. I believe he mentioned some thing about a business appointment that night, but I really didn't take much notice."

"You didn't tell them anything about that at the inquest," Wrayson remarked.

"I know I didn't," she admitted. "You see, I was so knocked over, and I really didn't remember anything clearly, that I thought it was best to say nothing at all. They'd only have been trying to ferret things out of me that I couldn't have told them."

"I think that you were very wise," Wrayson said. "You don't happen to remember anything else that he said, I suppose?"

"No! except that he seemed a little depressed. But there's something else about Barney that I always suspected, that I've never heard mentioned yet. Mind you, it may be true or it may not, but I always suspected it."

"What was that?" Wrayson demanded.

"I believe that he was married," she declared impressively.

"Married!"

Wrayson looked incredulous. It certainly did not seem probable.

"Where is his wife then?" he asked. "Why hasn't she turned up to claim his effects? Besides, he lived alone. He was my neighbour, you know. His brother has taken possession of his flat."

The lady rather enjoyed the impression she had made. She was not averse, either, to being seen in so prominent a place in confidential talk with a man of Wrayson's appearance. It might not be directly remunerative, but it was likely to do her good.

"He showed me a photograph once," she continued. "A baby-faced chit of a girl it was, but he was evidently very proud of it. A little girl of his down in the country, he told me. Then, do you know this? He was never in London for Sunday. Every week-end he went off somewhere; and I never heard of any one who ever saw him or knew where he went to."

"This is very interesting," Wrayson admitted; "but if he was married, surely his wife would have turned up by now!"

"Why should she?" the lady answered. "Don't you see that she very likely has what all you gentlemen seem to be so anxious about—his income?"

"By Jove!" Wrayson exclaimed softly. "Of course, if there was anything mysterious about the source of it, all the more reason for her to keep dark."

"Well, that's what I've had in my mind," she declared, summoning the waiter. "I'll take another liqueur, if you don't mind."

Wrayson nodded. His thoughts were travelling fast.

"Did you tell Mr. Bentham this?" he asked.

"Not I," she answered. "The old fool got about as much out of me as he deserved—and that's nothing."

"I'm sure I'm very much obliged," Wrayson answered, drawing out his pocketbook. "I wonder if I might be allowed—?"

He glanced at her inquiringly. She nodded. "I'm not proud," she declared.

"As an amateur detective," Wrayson remarked to himself, as he strolled homewards, "I am beginning rather to fancy myself. And yet—"

His thoughts had stolen away. He forgot Morris Barnes and the sordid mystery of which he was the centre. He remembered only the compelling cause which was driving him towards the solution of it. The night was warm, and he walked slowly, his hands behind him, and ever before his eyes the shadowy image of the girl who had brought so many strange sensations into his somewhat uneventful life. Would he ever see her, he wondered, without the light of trouble in her eyes, with colour in her cheeks, and joy in her tone? He thought of her violet-rimmed eyes, her hesitating manner, her air always as of one who walked hand in hand with fear. She was not meant for these things! Her lips and eyes were made for laughter; she was, after all, only a girl. If he could but lift the cloud! And then he looked upwards and saw her—leaning from the little iron balcony, and looking out into the cool night.

He half stopped. She did not move. It was too dark to see her features, but as he looked upwards a strange idea came to him. Was it a gesture or some unspoken summons which travelled down to him through the semi-darkness? He only knew, as he turned and entered the flat, that a new chapter of his life was opening itself out before him.

CHAPTER XIX

DESPERATE WOOING

Wrayson felt, from the moment he crossed the threshold of the room, that he had entered an atmosphere charged with elusive emotion. He was not sure of himself or of her as she turned slowly to greet him. Only he was at once conscious that something of that change in her which he had prophetically imagined was already shining out of her eyes. She was at once more natural and further removed from him.

"I am glad," she said simply. "I wanted to say good-bye to you."

He was stunned for a moment. He had not imagined this.

She nodded.

"Good-bye!" he repeated. "You are going away?"

"To-morrow. Oh! I am glad. You don't know how glad I am."

She swept past him and sank into an easy-chair. She wore a black velveteen evening dress, cut rather high, without ornament or relief of any sort, and her neck gleamed like polished ivory from which creeps always a subtle shade of pink. Her hair was parted in the middle and brushed back in little waves, her eyes were full of fire, and her face was no longer passive. Beautiful she had seemed to him before, but beautiful with a sort of impersonal perfection. She was beautiful now in her own right, the beauty of a woman whom nature has claimed for her own, who acknowledges her heritage. The fear-frozen subjectivity in which he had yet found enough to fascinate him had passed away. He felt that she was a stranger.

"Always," she murmured, "I shall think of London as the city of dreadful memories. I should like to be going to set my face eastwards or westwards until I was so far away that even memory had perished. But that is just where the bonds tell, isn't it?"

"There are many who can make the bonds elastic," he answered. "It is only a question of going far enough."

"Alas!" she answered, "a few hundred miles are all that are granted to me. And London is like a terrible octopus. Its arms stretch over the sea."

"A few hundred miles," he repeated, with obvious relief. "Northward or southward, or eastward or westward?"

"Southward," she answered. "The other side of the Channel. That, at least, is something. I always like to feel that there is sea between me and a place which I—loathe!"

"Is London so hateful to you, then?" he asked.

"Perhaps I should not have said that," she answered. "Say a place of which I am afraid!"

He looked across at her. He, too, in obedience to