The Pit-Prop Syndicate - Freeman Wills Crofts (red queen ebook .TXT) 📗

both men stood motionless, staring perplexedly at one another. Then Mr. Coburn lowered the pistol and attempted a laugh, a laugh nervous, shaky, and without merriment. His lips smiled, but his eyes remained cold and venomous.

“Good heavens, Merriman, but you did give me a start,” he cried, making an evident effort to be jocular. “What in all the world are you doing here at this hour? Sorry for my greeting, but one has to be careful here. You know the district is notorious for brigands.”

Merriman was not usually very prompt to meet emergencies. He generally realised when it was too late what he ought to have said or done in any given circumstances. But on this occasion a flash of veritable inspiration revealed a way by which he might at one and the same time account for his presence, disarm the manager’s suspicions, and perhaps even gain his point with regard to Madeleine. He smiled back at the other.

“Sorry for startling you. Mr. Coburn. I have been looking for you for some days to discuss a very delicate matter, and I came out late this evening in the hope of attracting your attention after Miss Coburn had retired, so that our chat could be quite confidential. But in the darkness I fell and hurt my knee, and I spent so much time in waiting for it to get better that I was ashamed to go to the house. Imagine my delight when, just as I was turning to leave, I saw you coming down to the shed, and I followed with the object of trying to attract your attention.”

He hardly expected that Mr. Coburn would have accepted his statement, but whatever the manager believed privately, he gave no sign of suspicion.

“I’m glad your journey was not fruitless,” he answered courteously. “As a matter of fact, my neuralgia kept me from sleeping, and I found I had forgotten my bottle of aspirin down here, where I had brought it for the same purpose this morning. It seemed worth the trouble of coming for it, and I came.”

As he spoke Mr. Coburn took from his pocket and held up for Merriman’s inspection a tiny phial half full of white tablets.

It was now Merriman’s turn to be sceptical, but he murmured polite regrets in as convincing a way as he was able. “Let us go back into my office,” the manager continued. “If you want a private chat you can have it there.”

He unlocked the door, and passing in first, lit a reading lamp on his desk. Then relocking the door behind his visitor and unostentatiously slipping the key into his pocket, he sat down at the desk, waved Merriman to a chair, and producing a box of cigars, passed it across.

The windows, Merriman noticed, were covered by heavy blinds, and it was evident that no one could see into the room, nor could the light be observed from without. The door behind him was locked, and in Mr. Coburn’s pocket was the key as well as a revolver, while Merriman was unarmed. Moreover, Mr. Coburn was the larger and heavier, if not the stronger man of the two. It was true his words and manner were those of a friend, but the cold hatred in his eyes revealed his purpose. Merriman instantly realised he was in very real personal danger, and it was borne in on him that if he was to get out of that room alive, it was to his own wits he must trust.

But he was no coward, and he did not forget to limp as he crossed the room, nor did his hand shake as he stretched it out to take a cigar. When he came within the radius of the lamp he noticed with satisfaction that his coat was covered with fragments of moss and leaves, and he rather ostentatiously brushed these away, partly to prove to the other his calmness, and partly to draw attention to them in the hope that they would be accepted as evidence of his fall.

Fearing lest if they began a desultory conversation he might be tricked by his astute opponent into giving himself away, he left the latter no opportunity to make a remark, but plunged at once into his subject.

“I feel myself, Mr. Coburn,” he began, “not a little in your debt for granting me this interview. But the matter on which I wish to speak to you is so delicate and confidential, that I think you will agree that any precautions against eavesdroppers are justifiable.”

He spoke at first somewhat formally, but as interest in his subject quickened, he gradually became more conversational.

“The first thing I have to tell you,” he went on, “may not be very pleasant hearing to you, but it is a matter of almost life and death importance to me. I have come, Mr. Coburn, very deeply and sincerely to love your daughter.”

Mr. Coburn frowned slightly, but he did not seem surprised, nor did he reply except by a slight bow. Merriman continued:

“That in itself need not necessarily be of interest to you, but there is more to tell, and it is in this second point that the real importance of my statement lies, and on it hinges everything that I have to say to you. Madeleine, sir, has given me a definite assurance that my love for her is returned.”

Still Mr. Coburn made no answer, save then by another slight inclination of his head, but his eyes had grown anxious and troubled.

“Not unnaturally,” Merriman resumed, “I begged her to marry me, but she saw fit to decline. In view of the admission she had just made, I was somewhat surprised that her refusal was so vehement. I pressed her for the reason, but she utterly declined to give it. Then an idea struck me, and I asked her if it was because she feared that your connection with this syndicate might lead to unhappiness. At first she would not reply nor give me any satisfaction, but at last by persistent questioning, and only when she