“I don’t know.” It crossed his mind to wonder whether Froth himself had given the show away.
Elsie repeated Restow’s name, then asked abruptly,
“What is he like? Very tall? Towering?”
Lindsay nodded.
“You think you know him?”
“Yes—but it’s eight years ago.”
“And he didn’t call himself Restow then?”
“No.”
“Will you tell me what he did call himself?”
Elsie pushed back her chair and got up.
“No, I can’t tell you that. Will you go?”
He went as far as the door. Then he turned.
“Where does Thurloe come in?”
“Jimmy? Just a friend of mine.”
“Same kind of friend as Froth?”
“No.”
He came a step nearer.
“I only asked because— Is he likely to talk?”
Elsie laughed unexpectedly.
“About your being a ghost?”
“Oh, he thought I was a ghost, did he?”
She laughed again.
“Lindsay Trevor’s ghost. I’ve never heard of anyone meeting a ghost in a fog. Have you?”
“Fogs are proverbially misleading,” said Lindsay.
“This one didn’t mislead Jimmy. He recognized you.”
Lindsay took a quick decision.
“Miss Manning—it is very important indeed that Thurloe shouldn’t talk about a supposed likeness between me and Lindsay Trevor, who is dead. You understand—Lindsay Trevor is dead. If he were alive, it might have very serious consequences for a number of people, including Trevor Fothering.”
“Is that true?”
“Perfectly.”
She looked at him for a moment.
“You told me the truth about Trevor? He’s safe?”
“Safe—and out of the country.”
She went past him and through the shop to the outer door. When she had opened it she looked back over her shoulder.
“You can drop the Miss Manning. I’m Elsie to my friends. Good-night, Lindsay Trevor! Jimmy won’t talk.”
Lindsay walked mechanically into the foggy street. He had received a shock which had taken away his power to think. It was not Elsie Manning’s use of his name that had produced this sense of shock; it was quite inevitable that she should guess that he was Lindsay Trevor, and he felt oddly certain that he could trust her not to give him away. No, the thing that had struck him numb and dazed had come and gone like a flash just at the moment when he had answered her question about Froth. She had said, “You told me the truth about Trevor? He is safe?” And he had replied, “Safe—and out of the country.” And then, just for a second before she turned and went out through the shop, there was something—a look, a flashing likeness—that left him with this inexplicable sense of shock.
He had reached the corner of the road before he quite knew what he was doing. He stood there for a moment recovering himself. He was just about to go on again, when he heard the sound of running footsteps.
Elsie Manning came up with him, panting a little.
“Come away from the light. You never know who’s looking.”
He was, for one—looking hard and steadily for a likeness which he didn’t believe in. There wasn’t any likeness. He told himself he was a fool.
Elsie slipped a hand inside his arm and drew him away from the light.
“I can’t stay—Jimmy’s waiting.”
“Yes. What is it?”
She drew her hand away.
“It might be safer for you—I think you’re a pretty good sort—I didn’t want to—but it might be safer.”
“Are you going to tell me something?” said Lindsay. “Is that it?”
“Yes. I said I wouldn’t, and then I thought—”
“Then you thought you would?”
“Yes.”
She was breathing quickly. He had a feeling that she might run away without telling him after all.
“What were you going to tell me?” he said, and laid a hand on her arm.
“You asked me what he called himself—when I—knew him?”
“Yes. Are you going to tell me that?”
He felt her arm stiffen under his hand. Then all of a sudden she pulled free.
“Manning,” she said, and ran from him into the fog.
CHAPTER XVIII
LINDSAY STOOD LOOKING AFTER her. Manning—what did she mean by that? Manning—was Restow Manning? Was Restow Elsie Manning’s father?
He went over everything that she had said very carefully. She had seen a man go into Restow’s house. It was a man whom she had not seen for eight years. She was obviously terrified of him. She had made inquiries and had found out that the house belonged to Algerius Restow. She had told Froth—now just what had she told Froth? Probably a good deal more than she had told himself. Then exit Froth and enter Lindsay Trevor in his stead. She had told him that the man was a blackmailer. Then to-night there was this story of coming across the man in a house in Cannington Place. Was it Restow who had talked with Madame Ferrans about articles in the Paris press and interpellations in the Chamber? Was it Restow, or was it Drayton? She had asked if he were “towering,” and he had said yes, with Restow in his mind. But Drayton was as tall. Was Drayton Manning? For all he knew he might have a dozen aliases. He wondered what Restow was doing eight or nine years ago, and then remembered, or thought he remembered, that the time corresponded with a spectacular crash in his affairs and a temporary disappearance from the limelight.
Lindsay had begun to walk. His thoughts kept him company. It would be much easier for Drayton to be Manning than for Restow. He could make no more of it than that. He roused himself with a jerk. What he had to do at this moment was to find the nearest post office.
He wrote down word for word what Elsie Manning had been able to remember of the conversation between Madame Ferrans and the man who might be Restow, or Drayton, or someone quite unknown. He wrote standing at one of the partitioned desks which the Post Office provides, and hoped that the result was legible. He used paper bought at the stationer’s next door, and when he had finished his report he asked for a registered envelope. Whatever else happened, Madame Ferrans would be shadowed, and the identity, at any rate of the gentleman who was to make a violent speech in the Chamber, should not be impossible to establish. With luck, F might also be traced.
He walked to the corner of Blenheim Square and stood looking at the immense block which Restow had converted into his town house. The fog was almost gone from this side of the square, though he had just come out of a street where it was as thick as ever.
He walked back along the side of the block. All this must be part of the house. He was spacing it out in his mind—the depth of the hall, the great central court with its swimming-pool. The house must take in everything down to Blenheim Road. Probably there was an entrance from Blenheim Road. It occurred to him that it might be useful to be free of a second entrance.
He turned the corner, crossed to the other side, and took a look at what must be the back of the immense house. It didn’t look like the back of a house at all, but like any row of houses with steps leading up to pillared porches. The last three houses covered about the space required. Each had its own flight of steps, its own door.
As he looked, a taxi drew up before the middle house of the three. Someone got out. With the cab between, Lindsay could not see who it was, but a moment later the taxi made off and a girl walked up the steps and rang the bell.
Lindsay stood on the other side of the road and looked at her. Before the bell could have stopped ringing, the door was opened. The girl stood for a moment, black and slender against the light. Then she moved forward, and the door shut.
Lindsay went on looking at the door. He seemed to have no po
wer to look away, for he thought the door was the back door of Restow’s house, and he thought that he had just seen Marian Rayne go through it.
After a very long minute he moved. It was quite, quite impossible. The street was dark; an uncertain lamplight contended with drifting remnants of fog. He had seen the silhouette which is every woman’s silhouette—a close cap, a coat with a fur collar—and he must needs call this shadow Marian. A cold anger flooded his mood. He might as well give up his job and have done with it if he was going to see his own thought between him and any chance-met stranger. It was the second time to-day. He had Marian in his thought. It irked him bitterly that his pulses should have leapt and stopped for this mirage of Marian.
He crossed the road. If he were to ring the bell? He tried to debate the point, and found himself unable to clear his mind of the insistent desire to follow the shadow of Marian. He had his foot on the bottom step, when someone passed him. A young man ran up the steps and then, turning, looked down upon him with obvious recognition.
“Forgotten your key, sir?” he said.
Lindsay came up to the same level as far as his feet were concerned; the lad’s round rosy face was still well above his own.
“You’re—?”
“Robert, sir.”
Lindsay recognized one of the younger footmen. The boy had waited on him once or twice; but out of his ridiculous green and gold livery he had a countrified look.
“I don’t think I’ve got a key. I suppose I can get in this way?”
“Oh yes, sir.” He was opening the door as he spoke.
Lindsay walked past him into a plain, square hall.
“Which way do I go?”
“Straight through takes you out into the swimming-bath, sir.”
Lindsay stopped, turned.
“Robert—”
“Yes, sir.”
“A young lady came in here just now. Can you find out where she went?”
“A young lady?”
“Yes.”
He waited. Robert seemed a long time gone. A lad who might be useful. He extracted a ten-shilling note and held it ready.
Robert came back rather embarrassed.
“It was one of the maids, sir.”
Lindsay shook his head.
“One of the maids wouldn’t arrive in a taxi.”
“It was Ellen, sir—fourth housemaid she is.”
“In a taxi?”
“William let her in, sir. He didn’t say anything about a taxi.”
“All right,” said Lindsay. “Thanks for letting me in, Robert.” He put the ten-shilling note into the boy’s hand and walked away.
A straight passage led from the hall to the swimming-pool. He would have liked to explore this side of the house. There was a staircase, and other passages going off right and left.
He didn’t believe it was Ellen he had seen. Seeing Ellen wouldn’t have dug him up by the roots like this. And yet he couldn’t have seen Marian Rayne. It was a sheer impossibility.
He skirted the bathing-pool and came to the side of the house with which he was familiar. In the passage that led past the library he hesitated, his mind on Drayton. After a moment he opened the door and went in softly. The big room was in darkness. A dull glow from the recessed fireplace showed where the logs had fallen into red ash. The air was still.
With a hand on the switch he stood, listening intently. He wondered if Drayton was in his room, and as the thought passed through his mind, a pencilled streak of light divided the darkness on the right of the fireplace. Lindsay’s hand dropped from the switch. He caught at the door and stepped back into the passage. He could see nothing now of course, for the passage was brightly lighted. The two-inch gap between door and jamb showed him merely darkness. He listened, heard nothing, and was about to move, when he saw the dark gap change to a bright one. The light had been turned on in the library.
On an impulse he pushed open the door and went in.
Drayton’s door was ajar, and Drayton himself stood before it looking down the room. At the sight of Lindsay he stretched a hand behind him and shut his door.
Does one shut the door of an empty room like that? Lindsay thought not. He came towards Drayton in as aimless a manner as he could compass.
“I wanted to have a talk to you,” he said fretfully.
Drayton stood there, tall, stooping—what was the word Elsie had used?—towering. Lindsay was assailed by a memory of the Leaning Tower of Pisa—Drayton had just that over-balanced look. He said in his harsh, unmodulated voice, “I am engaged.”
Lindsay produced Froth’s snigger.
“Pleasantly?”
He thought that got home. Imagination boggled at the idea of Drayton changing colour, but just for a second those cold eyes of his became, as it were, fixed. It was not that his expression changed, but Lindsay divined, or thought that he divined, the effort that kept it from changing.
“Well, I thought it would be a good plan if we had a talk,” he said.
“When you are required to think, I will tell you.”
Lindsay looked blank.
“Oh well—of course—just as you like.”
“You may return in half an hour,” said Drayton curtly.
Lindsay turned on his heel with a shrug. Less than ever did he believe that it was Ellen he had seen entering the house. Whoever it was, he believed that she was at that moment in Drayton’s room. As he went upstairs, he told himself with vehemence that it was not, and could not, be Marian Rayne. But if it were—what madness to follow her! Wasn’t she the one person in this world whom he must avoid?
He went up to his room and stared out of his window at the opaque roof of the swimming-pool.
CHAPTER XIX
HALF AN HOUR LATER HE was in Drayton’s room, with Drayton sitting crouched forward over a big bare writing-table. That was the keynote of the whole room—bareness. There was not a picture, or a photograph. The chairs were cushionless. The window had a plain blind and no curtains. The floor was carpetless except for a hearth-rug. On the writing-table there was no litter of papers; an unmarked blotter held the middle of it; beyond it an inkstand and a tray of pens; a case of writing-paper and envelopes was on the right, and on the left Bradshaw, Debrett, and Who’s Who. The waste-paper basket under the table was empty.
Lindsay found himself with food for thought. Was this tidiness, or caution? It occurred to him that Drayton could not safely leave his correspondence about. There was certainly nothing here to furnish food for servants’ gossip.
“You wanted to talk to me,” Drayton was saying.
“Er—yes,” said Lindsay. He had adopted a nervously jaunty attitude, and sat ankle on knee, making play with an unlighted cigarette.
“Well?” said Drayton.
Lindsay plunged.
“You don’t seem to trust me,” he said in an injured voice.
“No? How strange! Such a trustworthy person!”
Lindsay tapped his cigarette.
“Oh, cornel”
Drayton surveyed him coldly. The whole atmosphere was cold.
“So I don’t trust you? Perhaps you’d like some mark of confidence. As it happens, I can gratify you. When you’ve done a job or two for us, we’ll have rather more reason to trust you, because if anything goes wrong, it’ll be a case of Mr Trevor Fothering first and the rest nowhere.” He thrust forward his head suddenly. “First for jug—do you understand that?”
“Oh, I say!” said Lindsay feebly.
“It’s what I say,” said Drayton. “The sooner you learn that, the better.”
“Hang it all—I’m Restow’s secretary!”
He got a horrible look for this. There was something daunting about the man.
“Do you expect him to move in these matters himself?” said Drayton. “You’ll take your orders from m
e. Restow’s the big noise—do you grasp that? And you—you’re just one of the specks of dust that he uses because it suits him. You’re dust—dust! And when you’re not wanted any more, he’ll just flick you away, and then you won’t even be dust.” His voice went down into a grinding whisper.
Lindsay supposed that he was being impressed—hypnotized perhaps. He looked away from the fixed cold eyes, and was pleased to feel cool and detached.
Drayton drew back. He sat immensely high in the stiff office chair. He picked up a penholder with a bright new nib and balanced it between finger and thumb as if it were a dart that he was about to throw.
“Do you know Sir John Gladisloe?”
Lindsay fidgeted.
“Not personally. That is—”
“You don’t know him. It doesn’t really matter whether you do or not.”
“I know of him.”
“And what do you know?”
“Er—well—he’s a big man in steel.”
“He is the head of the Gladisloe-Vail steel works. Quite an important person in his—in his way.” He repeated the last words and gave a short grim laugh. Lindsay thought it one of the most unpleasant sounds he had ever heard. Then, with harsh directness, Drayton was saying, “You have an appointment with him at nine-forty-five to-night.”
Lindsay showed all the surprise he felt.
“I’ve got—an appointment!”
“With Sir John Gladisloe, at his house in Portesbery Square, at nine-forty-five to-night.”
Lindsay said “Why?” and let his mouth hang open in the best Fothering manner. It occurred to him that he must look exactly like a codfish, a dithering redhaired codfish.
Drayton made a darting movement in the air with the pen he was holding. He might have been measuring his distance before launching it at some invisible mark.
“We have had some correspondence with Sir John Gladisloe. We have arrived at the stage of the personal interview. I don’t engage in personal interviews myself—I employ deputies. On this occasion you will be the deputy.”
“Er—what do you want me to do?”
“Say what I tell you to say—neither more nor less.”
“But what am I to say?”
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