21 Greatest Spy Thrillers in One Premium Edition (Mystery & Espionage Series)

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  “That’s all right,” Laverick declared. “You can show him in. We’ll probably give him American rails.”

  “Can’t we attend to it in the office for you, sir?” the clerk asked. “I suppose it’s only a matter of a few hundreds.”

  “Less than that, probably, but I promised the fellow I’d look after it myself. Send him in, Scropes.”

  There was a brief delay and then Mr. Shepherd was announced. Laverick, who was sitting with his coat off, smoking a well-earned cigarette, looked up and nodded to his visitor as the door was closed.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he remarked. “We’re having a bit of a rush.”

  The man laid down his hat and came up to Laverick’s side.

  “I guess that, sir,” he said, “from the number of people we’ve had in the ‘Black Post’ to-day, and the way they’ve all been shouting and talking. They don’t seem to eat much these days, but there’s some of them can shift the drink.”

  “I’ve got some sound stocks looked out for you,” Laverick remarked, “two hundred and fifty pounds’ worth. If you’ll just approve that list as a matter of form,” he added, pushing a piece of paper across, “you can come in to-morrow and have the certificates. I shall tell them to debit the purchase money to my private account, so that if any one asks you anything, you can say that you paid me for them.”

  “I’m sure I’m much obliged, sir,” the man said. “To tell you the truth,” he went on, “I’ve had a bit of a scare to-day.”

  Laverick looked up quickly.

  “What do you mean?” he demanded.

  “May I sit down, sir? I’m a bit worn out. I’ve been on the go since half-past ten.”

  Laverick nodded and pointed to a chair. Shepherd brought it up to the side of the table and leaned forward.

  “There’s been two men in to-day,” he said, “asking questions. They wanted to know how many customers I had there on Monday night, and could I describe them. Was there any one I recognized, and so on.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I declared I couldn’t remember any one. To the best of my recollection, I told them, there was no one served at all after ten o’clock. I wouldn’t say for certain—it looked as though I might have had a reason.”

  “And were they satisfied?”

  “I don’t think they were,” Shepherd admitted. “Not altogether, that is to say.”

  “Did they mention any names?” asked Laverick—“Morrison’s, for instance? Did they want to know whether he was a regular customer?”

  “They didn’t mention no names at all, sir,” the man answered, “but they did begin to ask questions about my regular clients. Fortunate like, the place was so crowded that I had every excuse for not paying any too much attention to them. It was all I could do to keep on getting orders attended to.”

  “What sort of men were they?” Laverick asked. “Do you think that they came from the police?”

  “I shouldn’t have said so,” Shepherd replied, “but one can’t tell, and these gentlemen from Scotland Yard do make themselves up so sometimes on purpose to deceive. I should have said that these two were foreigners, the same kidney as the poor chap as was murdered. I heard a word or two pass, and I sort of gathered that they’d a shrewd idea as to that meeting in the ‘Black Post’ between the man who was murdered and the little dark fellow.”

  Laverick nodded.

  “Jim Shepherd,” he declared, “you appear to me to be a very sagacious person.”

  “I’m sure I’m much obliged, sir; I can tell you, though,” he added, “I don’t half like these chaps coming round making inquiries. My nerves ain’t quite what they were, and it gives me the jumps.”

  Laverick was thoughtful for a few moments.

  “After all, there was no one else in the bar that night,” he remarked,—“no one who could contradict you?”

  “Not a soul,” Jim Shepherd agreed.

  “Then don’t you bother,” Laverick continued. “You see, you’ve been wise. You haven’t given yourself away altogether. You’ve simply said that you don’t recollect any one coming in. Why should you recollect? At the end of a day’s work you are not likely to notice every stray customer. Stick to it, and, if you take my advice, don’t go throwing any money about, and don’t give your notice in for another week or so. Pave the way for it a bit. Ask the governor for a rise—say you’re not making a living out of it.”

  “I’m on,” Jim Shepherd remarked, nodding his head. “I’m on to it, sir. I don’t want to get into no trouble, I’m sure.”

  “You can’t,” Laverick answered dryly, “unless you chuck yourself in. You’re not obliged to remember anything. No one can ever prove that you remembered anything. Keep your eyes open, and let me hear if these fellows turn up again.”

  “I’m pretty certain they will, sir,” the man declared. “They sat about waiting for me to be disengaged, but when my time off came, I hopped out the back way. They’ll be there again to-night, sure enough.”

  Laverick nodded.

  “Well, you must let me know,” he said, “what happens.”

  Jim Shepherd leaned across the corner of the table and dropped his voice.

  “It’s an awful thing to think of, sir,” he whispered, blinking rapidly. “I wouldn’t be that young Mr. Morrison for all that great pocketful of notes. But my! there was a sight of money there, sir! He’ll be a rich man for all his days if nothing comes out.”

  “We won’t talk any more about it,” Laverick insisted. “It isn’t a pleasant thing to think about or talk about. We won’t know anything, Shepherd. We shall be better off.”

  The man took his departure and the whirl of business recommenced. Laverick turned his back upon the city only a few minutes before eight and, tired out, he dined at a restaurant on his homeward way. When at last he reached his sitting-room he threw himself on the sofa and lit a cigar. Once more the evening papers had no particular news. This time, however, one of them had a leading article upon the English police system. The fact that an undetected murder should take place in a wealthy neighborhood, away from the slums, a murder which must have been premeditated, was in itself alarming. Until the inquest had been held, it was better to make little comment upon the facts of the case so far as they were known. At the same time, the circumstance could not fail to incite a considerable amount of alarm among those who had offices in the vicinity of the tragedy. It was rumored that some mysterious inquiries were being circulated around London banks. It was possible that robbery, after all, had been the real motive of the crime, but robbery on a scale as yet unimagined. The whole interest of the case now was centred upon the discovery of the man’s identity. As soon as this was solved, some very startling developments might be expected.

  Laverick threw the paper away. He tried to rest upon the sofa, but tried in vain. He found himself continually glancing at the clock.

  “To-night,” he muttered to himself,—“no, I will not go to-night! It is not fair to the child. It is absurd. Why, she would think that I was—”

  He stopped short.

  “I’ll change and go to the club,” he decided.

  He rose to his feet. Just then there was a ring at his bell. He opened the door and found a messenger boy standing in the vestibule.

  “Note, sir, for Mr. Stephen Laverick,” the boy announced, opening his wallet.

  Laverick held out his hand. The boy gave him a large square envelope, and upon the back of it was “Universal Theatre.” Laverick tried to assure himself that he was not so ridiculously pleased. He stepped back into the room, tore open the envelope, and read the few lines traced in rather faint but delicate handwriting.

  Are you coming to fetch me to-night? Don’t let me be a nuisance, but do come if you have nothing to do. I have something to tell you.

  ZOE.

  Laverick gave the boy a shilling for himself and suddenly forgot that he was tired. He changed his clothes, whistling softly to himself all the time. At eleven o’clock,
he was at the stage-door of the Universal Theatre, waiting in a taxicab.

  XX. LAVERICK IS CROSS-EXAMINED

  Table of Contents

  One by one the young ladies of the chorus came out from the stage-door of the Universal, in most cases to be assisted into a waiting hansom or taxicab by an attendant cavalier. Laverick stood back in the shadows as much as possible, smiling now and then to himself at this, to him, somewhat novel way of spending the evening. Zoe was among the last to appear. She came up to him with a delightful little gesture of pleasure, and took his arm as a matter of course as he led her across to the waiting cab.

  “This sort of thing is making me feel absurdly young,” he declared. “Luigi’s for supper, I suppose?”

  “Supper!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands. “Delightful! Two nights following, too! I did love last night.”

  “We had better engage a table at Luigi’s permanently,” he remarked.

  “If only you meant it!” she sighed.

  He laughed at her, but he was thoughtful for a few minutes. Afterwards, when they sat at a small round table in the somewhat Bohemian restaurant which was the fashionable rendezvous of the moment for ladies of the theatrical profession, he asked her a question.

  “Tell me what you meant in your note,” he begged. “You said that you had some information for me.

  “I’m afraid it wasn’t anything very much,” she admitted. “I found out to-day that some one had been inquiring at the stage-door about me, and whether I was connected in any way with a Mr. Arthur Morrison, the stockbroker.”

  “Do you know who it was?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “The man left no name at all. I tried to get the doorkeeper to tell me about him, but he’s such a surly old fellow, and he’s so used to that sort of thing, that he pretended he didn’t remember anything.”

  “It seems odd,” he remarked thoughtfully, “that any one should have found you out. You were so seldom with Morrison. I dare say,” he added, “it was just some one to whom your brother owes some small sum of money.”

  “Very likely,” she answered. “But I was going to tell you. He came again to-night while the performance was on, and sent a note round. I have brought it for you to see.”

  The note—it was really little more than a message—was written on the back of a programme and enclosed in an envelope evidently borrowed from the box-office. It read as follows:

  DEAR MISS LENEVEU,

  I believe that Mr. Arthur Morrison is a connection of yours, and I am venturing to introduce myself to you as a friend of his. Could you spare me half-an-hour of your company after the performance of this evening? If you could honor me so much, you might perhaps allow me to give you some supper.

  Sincerely,

  PHILIP E. MILES.

  Laverick felt an absurd pang of jealousy as he handed back the programme.

  “I should say,” he declared, “that this was simply some young man who was trying to scrape an acquaintance with you because he was or had been a friend of Morrison’s.”

  “In that case,” answered Zoe, “he is very soon forgotten.”

  She tore the programme into two pieces, and Laverick was conscious of a ridiculous feeling of pleasure at her indifference.

  “If you hear anything more about him,” he said, “you might let me know. You are a brave young lady to dismiss your admirers so summarily.”

  “Perhaps I am quite satisfied with one,” laughing softly.

  Laverick told himself that at his age he was behaving like an idiot, nevertheless his eyes across the table expressed his appreciation of her speech.

  “Tell me something about yourself, Mr. Laverick,” she begged.

  “For instance?”

  “First of all, then, how old are you?”

  He made a grimace.

  “Thirty-eight—thirty-nine my next birthday. Doesn’t that seem grandfatherly to you?”

  “You must not be absurd!” she exclaimed. “It is not even middle-aged. Now tell me—how do you spend your time generally? Do you really mean that you go and play cards at your club most evenings?”

  “I have a good many friends, and I dine out quite a great deal.”

  “You have no sisters?”

  “I have no relatives at all in London,” he explained.

  “It is to be a real cross-examination,” she warned him.

  “I am quite content,” he answered. “Go ahead, but remember, though, that I am a very dull person.”

  “You look so young for your years,” she declared. “I wonder, have you ever been in love?”

  He laughed heartily.

  “About a dozen times, I suppose. Why? Do I seem to you like a misanthrope?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted, hesitatingly. “You don’t seem to me as though you cared to make friends very easily. I just felt I wanted to ask you. Have you ever been engaged?”

  “Never,” he assured her.

  “And when was the last time,” she asked, “that you felt you cared a little for any one?”

  “It dates from the day before yesterday,” he declared, filling her glass.

  She laughed at him.

  “Of course, it is nonsense to talk to you like this!” she said. “You are quite right to make fun of me.”

  “On the contrary,” he insisted. “I am very much in earnest.”

  “Very well, then,” she answered, “if you are in earnest you shall be in love with me. You shall take me about, give me supper every night, send me some sweets and cigarettes to the theatre—oh, and there are heaps of things you ought to do if you really mean it!” she wound up.

  “If those things mean being fond of you,” he answered, “I’ll prove it with pleasure. Sweets, cigarettes, suppers, taxicabs at the stage-door.”

  “It all sounds very terrible,” she sighed. “It’s a horrid little life.”

  “Yet I suppose you enjoy it?” he remarked tentatively.

  “I hate it, but I must do something. I could not live on charity. If I knew any other way I could make money, I would rather, but there is no other way. I tried once to give music lessons. I had a few pupils, but they never paid—they never do pay.

  “I wish I could think of something,” Laverick said thoughtfully. “Of course, it is occupation you want. So far as regards the monetary part of it, I still owe your brother a great deal—”

  She shook her head, interrupting him with a quick little gesture.

  “No, no!” she declared. “I have never complained about Arthur. Sometimes he made me suffer, because I know that he was ashamed of having a relative in the chorus, but I am quite sure that I do not wish to take any of his money—or of anybody else’s,” she added. “I want always to earn my own living.”

  “For such a child,” he remarked, smiling, “you are wonderfully independent.”

  “Why not?” she answered softly. “It is years since I had any one to do very much for me. Necessity teaches us a good many things. Oh, I was helpless enough when it began!” she added, with a little sigh. “I got over it. We all do. Tell me—who is that woman, and why does she stare so at you?”

  Laverick looked across the room. Louise and Bellamy were sitting at the opposite table. The former was strikingly handsome and very wonderfully dressed. Her closely-clinging gown, cut slightly open in front, displayed her marvelous figure. She wore long pearl earrings, and a hat with white feathers which drooped over her fair hair. Laverick recognized her at once.

  “It is Mademoiselle Idiale,” he said, “the most wonderful soprano in the world.”

  “Why does she look so at you?” Zoe asked.

  Laverick shook his head.

  “I do not know her,” he said. “I know who she is, of course,—every one does. She is a Servian, and they say that she is devoted to her country. She left Vienna at a moment’s notice, only a few days ago, and they say that it was because she had sworn never to sing again before the enemies of her country. She had been engaged a
long time to appear at Covent Garden, but no one believed that she would really come. She breaks her engagements just when she chooses. In fact, she is a very wonderful person altogether.”

  “I never saw such pearls in my life,” Zoe whispered. “And how lovely she is! I do not understand, though, why she is so interested in you.”

  “She mistakes me for some one, perhaps.”

  It certainly seemed probable. Even at that moment she touched her escort upon the arm, and he distinctly looked across at Laverick. It was obvious that he was the subject of her conversation.

  “I know the man,” Laverick said. “He was at Harrow with me, and I have played cricket with him since. But I have certainly never met Mademoiselle Idiale. One does not forget that sort of person.”

  “Her figure is magnificent,” Zoe murmured wistfully. “Do you like tall women very much, Mr. Laverick?”

  “I adore them,” he answered, smiling, “but I prefer small ones.”

  “We are very foolish people, you and I,” she laughed. “We came together so strangely and yet we talk such frivolous nonsense.”

  “You are making me young again,” he declared.

  “Oh, you are quite young enough!” she assured him. “To tell you the truth, I am jealous. Mademoiselle Idiale looks at you all the time. Look at her now. Is she not beautiful?”

  There was no doubt about her beauty, but those who were criticising her—and she was by far the most interesting person in the room—thought her a little sad. Though Bellamy was doing his utmost to be entertaining, her eyes seemed to travel every now and then over his head and out of the room. Wherever her thoughts were, one could be very sure that they were not fixed upon the subject under discussion.

  “She is like that when she sings,” Laverick remarked. “She has none of the vivacity of the Frenchwomen. Yet there was never anything so graceful in the world as the way she moves about the stage.”

  “If I were a man,” Zoe sighed, “that is the sort of woman I would die for.”