“Because I think you should make the search,” she answered with a note of mockery in her tone. “Why should I run the risk because you have been kind to me for an hour? What do I gain by it? If you suspect that such a thing is to be found, I have made it easy for you to find it.”
He stretched out his hand, picked up the keys and slipped them into his pocket. She laughed quietly, almost, he fancied, happily. The disturbance remained in the atmosphere but the tenseness had passed.
“You would like to dance again?” he asked.
She made no reply but rose to her feet with a swift movement of effortless grace. Again she yielded herself altogether to her passionate love of dancing, and her almost fantastic skill. Her feet seemed scarcely to touch the floor. There was a look of supreme content in her eyes and the softened expression of her mouth. Only it seemed to him that now and then, at the corners, and when he paused for a moment to yield to the sway of the music, she drew a little closer to him. He was conscious of the grip of her fingers upon his shoulder. All the time he could feel her soft breathing upon his cheek. Then the leader of the orchestra came to the conclusion that three encores were sufficient. The music ceased. They made their way to their places. Cheshire’s bill was waiting upon his plate. Mechanically he signed it, mechanically he counted out the amount of the pourboire. Without any conscious impulse, he rose to his feet, helped her draw her ermine cape around her shoulders and followed her up the stairs. She was a pace or two ahead of him at the top and she led the way without hesitation to the lifts on the left-hand side. He followed her. The lift man bowed respectfully. They glided up to the fourth floor. Again she stepped out first and led the way down the corridor. Towards the end she waited.
“You have the keys,” she reminded him.
He opened the door. She passed through the hall into the sitting room beyond, then she flung off her cape and turned round.
“That is my room,” she said, pointing to the right. “The one on the other side is Horace’s. I see that both doors are open. Which first?”
“I shall make my search,” he answered.
“Then I await the pleasure of Monsieur,” she remarked, holding out her hands.
She flung wide the door of her room, revealing a very delightful glimpse of pink satin furnishings, a softly burning light over the bed, a gentle current of pleasant air from the open window that looked out on the Thames. She came up to him and he felt her arms slowly encompassing his neck.
“Now, my man of adventures,” she whispered in his ear, “I ask you again—which first?”
“The cartridges.”
“Your minor search!”
He laughed, touched her cheek for a moment with his fingers and drew away.
“We shall see,” he said.
She was not wholly satisfied. She gripped at his arm.
“You shall kiss me once before I let you go,” she insisted.
He kissed the eyes which had always intrigued him, felt the faint stir of her eyelashes beneath his lips and drew away—himself a little breathless.
“If you are too long,” she warned him, “I may come and see if I can help you. Listen, it is no good ransacking drawers and wardrobes. There is a small cupboard there built like a safe which I have always suspected, and you will have to be clever because I think there is something secret about the fastenings.”
He stepped back a little unsteadily and it was he who closed the door between them. In the sitting room he threw open the window and leaned out over the balcony breathing in the night air. He was still himself; still, he swore, he was himself—Guy Cheshire—the man whose life belonged to his country, the man who ran all risks for her. There was danger where he was. He knew that well enough. There was danger to himself, not only to his life but to everything that counted—to his self-esteem, to his proud passage through the days to come. Yet on the other hand, there was Florestan. If only he could find that one thing! If it took a thousand men—with that foul cartridge at Scotland Yard—Florestan would pass the rest of his days, as many days as he lived, anyway, in safe keeping. He paused to collect himself. His mind jumped about from place to place. He was ready to risk his life. Why should he mind risking the rest? It belonged to no one. Then the voices began to scream in his ears. To no one except himself. There was Sabine to be faced. How? As an all-conquering man or as one of the herd? Stupid to have cherished what he had cherished so long, madness to throw it away even for his country. “Hypocrite!” he murmured. These were real beats of his pulse, a real passion tearing in his veins, a real animal sense burning… .
Cheshire closed the window and entered Florestan’s sleeping apartment. He obeyed the instructions of the woman whom he had just left. He went straight to the cupboard built into the wall. There was no lock, only a solid panel. He slid it back, disclosing four drawers and a little space above. The four drawers were locked. In the space above was a row of small bottles, some of them half-emptied—cognac, whisky, Cointreau. He removed the bottles. The top space was bare. Then he tried the drawers again. They were firmly locked. Perhaps, if there had been ordinary keyholes there, anything to indicate a rational mode of opening them, he might have given up his task as hopeless, for the drawers themselves were of metal and would have yielded to no implement he could find. The absence of any place for the key, however, seemed in itself to convey a suggestion. He felt the back of the upper part of the cupboard, realised that the bottles which he had drawn out had had for their foundation two shelves. He tapped them. Below was hollow. He went all round the sides. He pulled them, he pushed them, he made every possible effort to discover their secret. In one of those four drawers below, in all probability, lay the evidence he so passionately desired. He knew quite well that nothing would induce him to leave the room until he had dealt with it, at whatever cost it might be. He went over the ground again, then, abandoning the subtle search of his fingers, he struck his hand with his clenched fist. At last he drew up a chair and sat down in front of the cupboard in despair. It seemed that nothing but sheer force would be of the slightest use.
The light, swift footsteps behind sent him swinging round, brought him swiftly to his feet. Deborah Florestan had entered the room. For the moment he was staggered. She had the appearance of a girl. Her great coils of hair had been released and—unexpectedly light in colour—hung over her shoulders. She was wearing a white negligee. She seemed somehow to have gained a finer quality of passionate and vivid humanity. Her lips smiled at him, her forehead was slightly wrinkled.
“You do not succeed? You are a long, long time,” she complained.
“You see where I arrive,” he pointed out. “Those four drawers—they are of metal. There is no opening. With a crowbar I could force them from their places, with dynamite I could blow them up, but even a Samson could not move them with his bare fingers.”
She laughed mockingly.
“Poor dear man! Out of my way, please. I will show you something.”
She went down on her knees. In all his efforts to be fair to himself in later years, Cheshire’s cheeks sometimes burned as he confessed how the lines of her figure, the curve of her arm as she leaned forward, almost made him forget the sacredness of his mission. Her long fingers crept underneath the space between the drawers and the bottom of the cupboard. There was a little click. As he watched, the topmost drawer slid out of its place towards him. He gripped it. She stood upright.
“There you are,” she said. “I should have told you. How could you find out? You are only a dear, stupid man, is that not so?”
He looked into the drawer without speech. It was empty. He drew out the second. That also was empty. He drew out the third. There were two loose revolvers lying there and a box of cartridges. He drew out the fourth and there was a case, a brown leather case, with a brown buff inside. There was space for two revolvers of small size. Both were there—one clean, the other with a little dark edge to its muzzle and in the vacant space of the case there was an indentation which held a bo
x of cartridges three-quarters full. Cheshire drew one out—the sheath was of glittering steel. He stood looking at it like a man who had lost all power of speech or movement.
“You have found what you want?” the woman whispered. “I am cold.”
“I have found what I want,” he answered. “One minute.”
He took the revolver which showed signs of recent use, and slipped the box of cartridges into his pocket.
“Let me put everything back as it was,” Deborah Florestan begged. “Let me close the cupboard. We will get away from the room. I hate it here. In mine you will be safe.”
Cheshire laughed a little unnaturally. The revolver was his, the cartridges which fitted it—devilish messengers of death—were also his. His companion bent over the drawers. There was a click and they slid back. She closed the panel door of the cupboard and turned slowly towards him. Her hands rested upon his shoulders. Even in later life he wondered just what she was about to say, for in those strange eyes there was a light which he could never have imagined, there was a trembling even in that first word which came from her lips.
“Dear—” she faltered.
That was the beginning and end of the speech, for at the same moment they heard voices in the corridor, the grating of a key—a passkey, in all probability—in the outside door. Then there was an instant’s pause—afterwards a knocking. The woman drew slowly away. Her voice as she spoke had a certain terrible hopelessness but it was steady and scarcely raised above a whisper.
“Someone has entered,” she said, “but I drew the bolt of the sitting-room door. They can come no further. Is this what God sends instead of hell?”
There was agony in her eyes as they lingered upon his. She was shivering all over.
“I do not wish anything to happen to you,” she went on. “All I shall ask you is to remember. Look behind you.”
He obeyed. There was another door.
“That leads through his bathroom. You open the door of that and you are in a side passage. Exactly opposite you are the service stairs. Go!”
“And leave you?”
She looked around.
“Nothing can hurt me more than having to say that one word—go,” she told him.
He shook his head. Then he realised that she was passionately, madly in earnest.
“Nothing is to be gained by your staying,” she insisted as the knocking came once more. “At my own pace I return to the sitting room, I pass into my own room, I wake up and admit whoever it may be. I have no wish to have my body torn to pieces, as my spirit and mind will be from now on. Go!”
“I can protect you against anything in the world,” he assured her. “I have authority at my back and a gun in my hand. I will take you away with me.”
Her face lightened. She leaned forward and kissed him.
“Dear—my dear,” she said. “I shall be thankful all my life that those were your last words before you went. Now—go!”
A sudden fire swept through him.
“No!” he cried fiercely. “Listen, you can pass through the sitting room to your bedroom. I shall unbolt the sitting room door myself when you are safe.”
She shook her head.
“Nothing can explain your presence here,” she said. “Nothing will keep from him later on the sight of that empty drawer.”
Again there came the knocking. The terror in her face was an inspiration to Cheshire. The thought that he had been so near leaving her shamed him. He smiled as he led her into the sitting room and saw her enter her own room.
“Lock your door,” he whispered.
She obeyed him. He waited for a few seconds, he even fancied that he heard the creak of her bed. He closed the door leading from Florestan’s bedroom, straightened his tie, glanced at the loading of the revolver and withdrew the bolt of the sitting-room door… .
One man, and one man only, was standing there waiting—a man in a black overcoat and a black Homburg hat, with his hands in his pockets. There was no appearance of haste about him, no sign of excitement, nor was there any concealment in his person or dress. It was Florestan who entered the sitting room with a grim smile upon his lips.
“My friend Admiral Cheshire,” he remarked. “I have been looking forward to another meeting with you. I have been curious for a long time to know how you escaped from those cords. Is it Ludini who has lied to me or did some Good Samaritan crawl through the cellar window and show you the way to safety?”
As he spoke, he was divesting himself of coat and hat. He threw them upon the table. He appeared to be unarmed. There was nothing truculent about his voice or his bearing, but beyond a doubt it was Florestan.
CHAPTER XXII
Table of Contents
“Queer meeting, this,” Florestan remarked as he seated himself in an easy chair. “Mind if I ring for some ice?” he added, reaching out towards the bell.
“You can do what you like, I suppose, in your own apartment,” Cheshire answered.
“Of course, of course,” the other assented. “To tell you the truth, I had forgotten for the moment that they were my own apartments. You seem so completely at home here. May I ask—would you think it an impertinence—but is your visit here the visit of shall we say a Lothario? Have you, in short, been calling upon my wife, or have you come here on some burglarious exploit?”
“I know nothing of your wife,” was the curt reply. “I came here to see if I could discover any evidence which would enable me to put you promptly under arrest for the murder of Sir Theodore Meldicott.”
Florestan nodded understandingly, almost sympathetically. He showed no signs of emotion.
“I cannot think why you liaison officers between Scotland Yard and all those mysterious departments of the Navy and Military, I cannot think why you choose to do your own low-down work instead of leaving it to the underlings. You should use your brains to discover the likely places for your men to search and let them do the searching. If you had gone upon that principle you would not be in the parlous position which you occupy at the present moment.”
Cheshire nodded approval.
“Spoken like a master,” he admitted. “It is not the police themselves who want to butt in. It is we who are new to the job. We cannot keep from interfering. I should have telephoned, of course, to my friends at Scotland Yard and I should have said: ‘Mr. Florestan is away from the rooms he occupies at the Milan Hotel in the name of Copeland. Kindly search them and see if you can find any explosive cartridges which would fit a No. 5 Webley revolver.’ Instead of that I came myself.”
“You should not have done that,” Florestan remonstrated. “You have submitted yourself to unreasonable risk and you have compromised my wife.”
“Your wife has nothing to do with it,” Cheshire rejoined, slipping into the opposite easy chair but keeping his hand in his jacket pocket. “I came here on my own and I was on the point of departure when you knocked at the door.”
“Too bad that I should have to knock at the door of my own apartment, isn’t it?” Florestan complained. “However, this meeting grows even more interesting. I am learning how glibly and smoothly the real English gentleman can lie.”
“I can do better than that if you give me time,” Cheshire assured him. “I think you will agree that the principal thing we have to discuss is the fact that my search was successful. I have in my pocket the revolver with which Meldicott was shot and a few of the cartridges out of the clip which ensured his death.”
“You are a very brave man,” Florestan said, “to sit there and tell me that.”
“It does not require much courage,” Cheshire replied, “because if you showed the slightest signs of slipping either of your hands into any one of your pockets I should still have your life in my keeping before you could produce a weapon.”
“Obviously,” Florestan remarked. “I am sitting here to be shot at, if you fancy shooting people sitting down. On the other hand, I do not think that you will do it. Nor do I for one moment admit that any weapon you
have found is mine, that I have ever used explosive cartridges or that I know anything about the killing of Theodore Meldicott.”
“You may be able to prove that,” was the dry rejoinder. “It would make me look quite foolish if you did, but in the meantime I suggest that we leave off talking and try a little action. It will not be long, then, before you have an opportunity of denying my accusation.”
The waiter brought in the ice. He was on the point of leaving the room when Cheshire stopped him.
“Would it not be better,” he suggested to Florestan, “if you ordered also some whisky and a siphon of soda, or whatever it is you wish to drink?”
“I have them both in my bedroom.”
“Yes, but consider this,” Cheshire continued: “I am not likely to allow you to go into your bedroom to find them. There is something there in the third drawer which might interfere with my plans.”
“So clever of you,” the other observed, scratching his chin. “Yes, of course. There is a very handy Colt in that third drawer. You are afraid I might have got that instead of the whisky.”
“Why should I run the risk?” Cheshire demanded.
“Bring a bottle of whisky and a siphon,” Florestan ordered from the waiter.
“Also,” Cheshire added, “my compliments to Mr. Bousson, if he is on duty, or the deputy manager, and ask him if he will step this way, together with the hotel detective.”
Florestan turned his head lazily.
“If I were you, waiter,” he enjoined, “I should forget the latter part of that message.”
“Certainly, sir,” the man replied.
“You will deliver my message exactly as I gave it to you,” Cheshire interjected.
The waiter took no notice. He left the room without turning his head. Florestan smiled.
“Now, my midnight visitor,” he went on, “you perhaps understand why I keep rooms in the centre of civilisation and feel myself, generally speaking, secure. That waiter is chosen by me, so is the valet on this floor, so are the chambermaids. The lift-man has also claims upon me. That is why I am faithful to my rooms 267 to 269.”
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