She drew a little sigh.
“I wonder!” she said, half to herself. “I think, perhaps,—yes, we will dine together, monsieur, you and I!” she said. “You must take me somewhere where it is quite quiet—where no one will see us!”
“Not down in the café, then?” I asked smiling.
She held up her hands in horror.
“But no!” she declared. “If it is possible, let us get away somewhere without Louis knowing.”
“It can be arranged,” I assured her. “May I come in and see you later on, and you shall tell me where to meet you?”
She thought for a minute.
“At seven o’clock,” she answered. “Please go away now. I have a dressmaker coming to see me.”
I turned away, but I had scarcely gone half a dozen paces before she called me back.
“Capitaine Rotherby,” she said, “there is something to tell you.”
I waited expectantly.
“Yes?” I murmured.
She avoided meeting my eyes.
“You need not trouble any further about my uncle,” she said. “He has returned.”
“Returned!” I exclaimed. “When?”
“A very short time ago,” she answered. “He is very unwell. It will not be possible for any one to see him for a short time. But he has returned!”
“I am very glad indeed,” I assured her.
Her face showed no signs of exultation or relief. I could not help being puzzled at her demeanor. She gave me no further explanation.
There was a ring at the door, and she motioned me away.
“The dressmaker!” she exclaimed.
I went upstairs to my rooms to wait for Louis.
XV. A DANGEROUS IMPERSONATION
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Louis appeared, as ever, punctual to the moment. He carried a menu card in his hand. He had the air of having come to take my orders for some projected feast. I closed the door of the outer hall and the door of my sitting-room.
“Now, Louis,” I said, “we are not only alone, but we are secure from interruption. Tell me exactly what it is that you have in your mind.”
Louis declined the chair to which I waved him. He leaned slightly back against the table, facing me.
“Captain Rotherby,” he said, “I have sometimes thought that men like yourself, of spirit, who have seen something of the world, must find it very wearisome to settle down to lead the life of an English farmer gentleman.”
“I am not proposing to do anything of the sort,” I answered.
Louis nodded.
“For you,” he said, “perhaps it would be impossible. But tell me, then, what is there that you care to do? I will tell you. You will give half your time to sport. The rest of the time you will eat and drink and grow fat. You will go to Marienbad and Carlsbad, and you will begin to wonder about your digestion, find yourself growing bald,—you will realize that nothing in the world ages a man so much as lack of excitement.”
“I grant you everything, Louis,” I said. “What excitement have you to offer me?”
“Three nights ago,” Louis said, “I saw you myself take a man into your hands with the intention of killing him. You broke the law!”
“I did,” I admitted, “and I would do it again.”
“Would you break the law in other ways?” Louis asked.
“Under similar circumstances, yes!” I answered.
“Listen, monsieur,” Louis continued. “It is our pleasure to save you from the unpleasant consequences which would certainly have befallen you in any other place than the Café des Deux Epingles after your—shall we say misunderstanding?—with James Tapilow.”
“I admit my indebtedness, Louis,” I answered.
“Will you do something to repay it?” Louis asked, raising his eyes to mine.
“You will have to tell me what it is first,” I said.
“It is concerned with the disappearance of Mr. Delora,” Louis said.
“But Mr. Delora has returned!” I exclaimed. “His niece told me so herself. He has returned, but he is very unwell—confined to his room, I believe.”
“It is the story which has been agreed upon,” Louis answered. “We were obliged to protect ourselves against the police and the newspaper people, but, nevertheless, it is not the truth. Mr. Delora has not returned!”
“Does mademoiselle know that?” I asked quickly.
“She does not,” Louis admitted. “She has been told exactly what she told you,—that her uncle had returned, but that he was ill and must be kept quiet for a little time. It was necessary that she should believe his room occupied, for reasons which you will understand later. She shall be told the truth very soon.”
I was conscious of a distinct sense of relief. The thought that she might have told me a falsehood had given me a sudden stab.
“Where is Mr. Delora, then?” I asked.
“That we can guess,” Louis said. “We want you to go to him.”
“Very well, Louis,” I said. “I am perfectly agreeable, only you must tell me who this Mr. Delora is, why he is in hiding, and who you mean when you say ‘we’.”
“Monsieur,” Louis said, “if it rested with me alone I would tell you all these things. I would give you our confidence freely, because we are a little company who trust freely when we are sure. The others, however, do not know you as I know you, and I have the right to divulge only certain things to you. Mr. Delora has come to this country on a mission of peculiar danger. He has a secret in his possession which is of immense value, and there are others who are not our friends who know of it. Mr. Delora had a signal at Charing Cross that there was danger in taking up his residence here. That is why he slipped away quietly and is lying now in hiding. If monsieur indeed desires an adventure, I could propose one to him.”
“Go ahead, Louis,” I said.
“Let it be understood that Mr. Delora has returned.—As I have already told you, he has not returned. The door of his room is locked, and no one is permitted to enter. It is believed that to-night an attempt will be made to force a way into that room and to rob its occupant.”
“The room is empty, you say? There is no one there?” I interrupted.
“Precisely, monsieur,” Louis said, “but if some one were there who was strong and brave it might be possible to teach a lesson to those who have played us false, and who have planned evil things! If that some one were you, Captain Rotherby, we should consider—Monsieur Decresson and the others would consider—that your debt to them was paid!”
I whistled softly to myself. I began to see Louis’ idea. I was to enter, somehow or other, the room in which Mr. Delora was supposed to be, to remain there concealed, and to await this attack which, for some reason or other, they were expecting. And then, as the possibilities connected with such an event spread themselves out before me, my sense of humor suddenly asserted itself, and, to Louis’ amazement, I laughed in his face. I came back from this world of fanciful figures, of mysterious robberies, of attempted assassinations, to the world of every-day things. It was Louis—the maître d’hôtel, the man who had ordered my Plat du Jour and selected my Moselle—who spoke of these things so calmly in my own sitting-room, with a menu card in his hand, and a morocco-bound wine list sticking out of his breast pocket. I was not in any imaginary city but in London,—city of tragedies, indeed, but tragedies of a homelier sort. It was not possible that such things could be happening here, in an atmosphere which, through familiarity, had become almost commonplace. Was I to believe that Louis, my favorite maître d’hôtel, my fellow schemer in many luncheon and dinner parties, my authority upon vintages, my gastronomic good angel, was one of a band of conspirators, who played with life and death as though they had been the balls of a juggler? Was I to believe that there existed even in this very hotel, which for years had been my home, the seeds of these real tragical happenings which sometimes, though only half disclosed, blaze out upon the world as a revelation of the great underground world of crime
? I found it almost impossible to take Louis seriously. I could not focus my thoughts.
“Louis,” I said, “is this a great joke, or are you talking to me in sober, serious earnest?”
“I am talking in earnest, monsieur,” Louis said slowly. “I have not exaggerated or spoken a word to you which is not the truth.”
“Let me understand this thing a little more clearly,” I said. “What has Ferdinand Delora done that he need fear a murderous assault? What has he done to make enemies? Is he a criminal, or are those who seek him criminals?”
“He carries with him,” Louis said slowly, “a secret which will produce a great fortune. There are others who think that they have a right to share in it. It is those others who are his enemies. It is those others who hope to attain by force what they could gain by no other means.”
A sudden inspiration prompted my next question.
“Was Tapilow one of those?” I demanded.
Louis nodded gravely.
“Monsieur Tapilow was one of those who claimed a share, but he was not willing to run the smallest risk,” he assented.
“And for that reason,” I remarked, “he is well out of the way! I understand. There is one more question, Louis, and it is one which you must answer me truthfully. You can imagine what it is when I tell you that it concerns mademoiselle!”
“Mademoiselle is innocent of the knowledge of any of these things,” Louis declared earnestly. “She is a very charming and a very beautiful young lady, but if ever a young lady needed friends, she does!”
“Why is she here at all?” I demanded. “Why was she not left behind in Paris? If there is no part for her to play in this little comedy, it seems to me that she would have been much better out of the way.”
“Captain Rotherby,” Louis said, “there was a reason, and some day you will understand it—why it was necessary that she should come to London with her uncle. I can tell you no more. You must not ask me any more.”
I looked into Louis’ impenetrable face. I could learn nothing there. His words had left me partly unconvinced. Somehow I felt that the only time he had spoken the entire truth was when he had spoken of Felicia. Yet it was certainly true that I owed these people something, and I had no wish to shrink from paying my debt.
“Tell me,” I said, “if I take Delora’s place to-night, and if your scheme is successful, does that free him? Will he be able to come back? Will it be for the benefit of mademoiselle?”
“But most certainly!” Louis answered earnestly. “It is not an organization against which we fight. It is one or two desperate men who believe themselves robbed. Once they are out of the way, Delora can walk the streets a free man. There would be nothing,” he added, “to prevent your seeking his friendship or the friendship of his niece.”
“Very well,” I agreed. “I will spend the night in Mr. Delora’s rooms. I shall leave it to you to make all the arrangements.”
Louis looked at me with a curious expression in his face.
“You understand, monsieur,” he said slowly, “that there may be danger?”
“Naturally I understand,” I said. “If it comes to a fight, I shall be prepared, and I have had a little experience.”
“However well armed you may be,” Louis said, “there will be a risk. Our enemies are swift and silent. One of them, at any rate, is an accomplished criminal. They are too clever for us unaided. I could take Mademoiselle Delora to Scotland Yard to-day, and I could tell them what we fear. They might patrol the hotel with the police, and even then you would wake in the night and find some one by your bedside.”
“By the bye, Louis,” I said, “why all this mystery? According to you, Delora is an honest man. Why don’t you go to the police?”
Louis shook his head.
“We are not free to do that,” he said. “Delora is honest, but it is a great secret which he controls, and the only chance of using it successfully is to keep it a secret from the whole world!”
“How am I to be introduced into the room, Louis?” I asked.
“That,” he answered, “will be easy. There are two lifts, as you know,—one from the smoking-room and one from the entrance hall. The number of Mr. Delora’s apartment is 157. Here, by the bye, monsieur, is a key.”
I took it and put it in my waistcoat pocket.
“You will ascend by the lift from the smoking-room to the top floor,” Louis continued. “You can then descend by the other lift to the fifth floor, and walk boldly into the sitting-room. The door on the right will be Mr. Delora’s bedroom, and of that there will be, after midnight, a key upon the mantelpiece in the sitting-room.”
“But Miss Delora?” I asked. “What of her? The sitting-room connects, also, with her apartments.”
“Mademoiselle will be told something of this during the evening,” Louis answered. “It will be better. She will have retired and be locked in her room long before it will be necessary for you to ascend.”
“Very well,” I said. “But now for the practical side of it. If anything really happens, what is to be my excuse for occupying those apartments to-night?”
“I will provide you with a sufficient one later on,” Louis promised. “You will dine downstairs?”
“Possibly,” I answered.
“In which case we can have a little conversation,” Louis remarked.
“Louis,” I said, “what sort of an affair is this, really, in which I am mixing myself up? Am I one of a gang of magnificent criminals, a political conspirator, or a fool?”
Louis smiled.
“Monsieur,” he said, “I found you very weary of life. I will put you in the way of finding excitement. Monsieur should ask no more than that. There are many men of his temperament who would give years of their life for the chance.”
He left me with his usual polite bow. I strolled after him down the corridor a moment or so later, but I just missed the lift in which he descended. Looking down, I saw that it had stopped at the fifth floor. It seemed as though Louis had gone to visit number 157!
XVI. TWO OF A TRADE
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I smoked two pipes, one after the other, in a vain attempt to draw out some definite sequence of facts from the tangled web of happenings into which I seemed to have strayed. I came to the conclusion that Fate, which had bestowed on me a physique of more than ordinary size, a sound constitution, and muscles which had filled my study with various kinds of trophies, had not been equally generous in her dispensation of brains. Try as I would, I could make nothing of the situation in which I found myself. The most reasonable thing seemed to be to conclude that Louis was one of a gang of thieves, that I was about to become their accomplice, and that Felicia was simply the Delilah with whom these people had summoned me to their aid. Such a conclusion, however, was not flattering, nor did it please me in any way. Directly I allowed myself to think of Felicia, I believed in her. There were none of the arts of the adventuress about her methods, her glances, or her words. She did not, for instance, in the least resemble the young lady with the turquoises, who had also been good enough to take an interest in me! I gave the whole thing up at last. Perhaps by the morrow I should know more,—if, indeed, I thought, a little grimly, I knew anything! I could not help feeling that this little enterprise to which I had committed myself might turn out to be a serious affair. Even Louis had not tried to minimize the risks. I felt, however, that if it led me to any better understanding of the situation, I could welcome whatever danger it involved.
A little before six o’clock I turned to look at the weather, which had been threatening all day, meaning to take a stroll. The rain, however, was coming down in sheets, so I descended instead to the little smoking-room, thinking that I might find there some one whom I knew. I had already ensconced myself in an easy-chair and ordered a whiskey and soda, when I became conscious that the very person with whom my thoughts were occupied was in the room and within a few feet of me.
Felicia was sitting on a couch, and by her side a man
whom I recognized at once. It was the companion of my lady of the turquoises! Apparently they had not noticed my entrance. They continued for several moments to be unaware of it. Felicia was paler than ever. She seemed to be struggling, as she sat there, to conceal her fear and aversion for the man who leaned toward her, talking in rapid French, with many gesticulations. He was badly dressed in a travelling suit of French cut, with a waistcoat buttoned almost to the chin. A floppy black tie hung down over the lapels of his coat. His black moustache, which seemed to have suffered from the crossing, was drooping, and gave to his mouth a particularly sinister expression. He had a neck of unusual size, and the fat ran in ridges to the back of his scalp, worked up by his collar as he moved his head rapidly with every sentence. He seemed altogether unable to sit still or control himself. His boots—brown tops with narrow patent vamps—beat a tattoo upon the floor. No wonder that Felicia shrunk into the corner of her lounge! I felt that it was impossible for me to sit and watch them any longer. I rose to my feet.
Felicia saw me first,—then her companion. Felicia’s first expression, to my intense joy, was one of relief. Her companion, on the other hand, darted towards me a perfectly murderous glance. I advanced toward them, and Felicia half rose.
“Capitaine Rotherby,” she said, “oh, I am very glad to see you! This man here who sits by my side—he does not speak one word of English. Listen, I beg. Go and find some one in the café—you know whom I mean, I will not mention his name. Go and find him, and bring him here. Tell him that Bartot is here and is terrifying me, that he threatens all the time. Please bring him.”
“I will go at once,” I answered.
I bowed and turned away. Of Bartot I took no notice, though he rose at once and seemed about to address me. I hurried into the café, but it was a slack hour and there were no signs of Louis.
“Can you tell me where to find Louis?” I asked one of the waiters.
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