The Light Beyond E-Book

E. Phillips Oppenheim

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

In this remarkable 1927 novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim, a great conference has been called in London to renegotiate the war debt. It is clear that Germany is suffering, and all of Europe is affected. The great Financier Felix Dukane is in London with his beautiful daughter Estelle. It is rumored that he stands ready to loan Germany One Billion Pounds if the conference is able to limit the total debt. The outcome of the conference hinges on military and industrial secrets. The novel presents a fascinating picture of the political mindset of the day to go along with the twists and turns of the story. Interestingly, unlike most of Oppenheim’s novels, many of the main characters act dishonorably at various points in the novel.

Leseprobe

Contents

BOOK ONE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

BOOK TWO

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

BOOK THREE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

BOOK ONE

CHAPTER I

Of the three men who lunched together at the comer table at the Ritz, Raoul de Fontanay was perhaps the most distinguished in appearance, Henry Dorchester the best-looking, and Van Stratton the most attractive. In their outlook upon life, as well as in their personal tastes, they were so far removed from one another that their friendship was an easy thing. Not one of the three was in the least disputative, and controversy merely added an appetite to discussion. They even ventured, on this particular May morning, to speak of the other sex.

“To lunch without women,” Raoul de Fontanay observed, “is now and then a relief.”

“If one would converse seriously,” Dorchester assented, “it is a necessity. Women are too distracting. They force our thoughts into an absolutely fanciful groove. They make rational conversation impossible. I am convinced that the realisation of this fact is the reason why our forefathers banished them from the dining-table at the earliest possible opportunity.”

“Better not let any of my countrywomen hear you speak like that,” Van Stratton observed.

The Frenchman smiled.

“Your countrywomen are adorable,” he declared, “but if they have a fault, it is that they take themselves too seriously. They will not admit or recognise the impassable boundaries which divide the sexes. I cannot talk to a woman seriously; I need a man to understand what I am aiming at–to understand what I would hope and work for. Woman is our best helpmate when she leaves our careers alone, when she is simply amusing and beautiful, and perhaps affectionate.”

“That is all very well for one’s mistress,” Dorchester conceded, “but no one in this country, at any rate, can altogether keep his wife out of the serious side of his life.”

“You English!” Raoul de Fontanay murmured, with a little shrug of the shoulders. “Ah, well!…Still, as we must talk of women, let us ask one another this; we are all fond of them, and yet not one of us is married or even engaged. How does that come about?”

“I shall marry some day,” Dorchester announced. “Up to now, my work has been too absorbing.”

“I have looked around,” Mark Van Stratton admitted, “but so far–well, there doesn’t seem to have been anything doing. I admire Frenchwomen more than any in the world, but they’re a trifle too exigeant for us Americans. They either keep you dangling at their heels all the time, or else, in the most charming way possible, fill your place. The English girls I have met are all right for sport, but they are either too reserved, and cold, or so slangy they’re almost incomprehensible, and a bit too quick off the mark. I suppose when I do marry, it will be one of my own country-women.”

“As for me,” Raoul de Fontanay pronounced, “I am the only one of us who has a logical reason for his celibacy. I shall never marry, because there is something ugly to me in infidelity, and I am too conscious of my limitations. I could never be faithful for a lifetime, or a quarter of it. What about you, Mark?”

The young American had been looking steadfastly across the room. His face had become curiously intent, his eyes fixed. He did not reply for a moment. Then he drew a little breath, and answered without withdrawing his gaze.

“I could be faithful all my life,” he declared, “to the girl who has just come in, and whom I shall probably some day marry–the girl in grey with the chinchilla furs and the rose-coloured hat.”

The speech itself might have sounded banal, but for Van Stratton’s intense earnestness–an earnestness which his two friends realised from the first.

“This is distinctly intriguing,” Raoul de Fontanay declared, thrusting his monocle into his eye, and looking across the room.

“Thrilling,” Dorchester assented. “A trifle on the melodramatic side, perhaps, but atoned for by Mark’s obvious earnestness. Would it be possible, without exciting too much attention, to indicate the favoured lady?”

“You cannot possibly mistake her,” Mark replied, “There is no one else. She is just sitting down now, facing you, at the table by the window, with an elderly man. She is in grey, with some chinchilla furs, and a sort of crushed rose-coloured hat. She is not the most beautiful, but she certainly is the most attractive girl I have ever seen in my life.”

De Fontanay glanced in the direction indicated and his manner changed a little. He dropped his monocle, and whistled softly under his breath. Dorchester seemed to have caught his friend’s enthusiasm.

“She’s awfully good-looking,” he pronounced, “like a piece of Dresden china. Who is she, Mark?”

“I don’t know–yet.”

“I do,” de Fontanay answered. “I know her name, at any rate. That is her father with her.”

“Tell us her name then–quickly,” Mark demanded.

De Fontanay’s surprise was obvious.

“Do you mean to say that you neither of you know who he is?”

“I have no idea whatever,” Mark confessed.

“Neither have I,” Dorchester affirmed.

Raoul de Fontanay sipped his wine approvingly. He had a sense of the dramatic, and he paused for a moment to give weight to his words–besides, the wine was of a wonderful vintage, and far too good to be hurried over.

“That,” he confided, “is one of the best known men on paper and the least known personally in the world. The Press, when they try to find adjectives for him, are sometimes lyrical, sometimes hysterical. Sometimes he is the world’s greatest hero, the mightiest potentate of modern times; at others he is the direct descendant of Barrabas, riding one of the evil steeds of the Apocalypse, spreading ruin and destruction over a stricken world. It depends entirely upon which side of the market you are on. That is Felix Dukane.”

“Felix Dukane!” Mark gasped.

“Dukane!” Dorchester repeated wonderingly. “He isn’t in the least like what I expected.”

“There is a personalty to excite one’s imagination!” de Fontanay continued. “He is very seldom seen in a restaurant–very seldom seen anywhere, as a matter of fact. They say that he has never been interviewed in his life, and that he beat the only photographer who ever succeeded in taking a snapshot of him, with a loaded stick which he always carries, and smashed the camera. Look at those shoulders! You would have to respect them if you were his enemy, for he is really prodigiously strong.”

Mark’s national respect for wealth kept him a little awed. Dorchester’s imagination was fired with this unexpected encounter with the “Mystery Man” of the world.

“Felix Dukane!” the former muttered. “The only man who single-handed has ever created a panic in Wall Street.”

“It isn’t his enormous wealth alone,” de Fontanay observed, “but he has the power of raising more money than any other born financier. If he speaks the word, the banks in London, New York and Paris obey. I should call him the most unwholesome factor in modern finance. It is a wicked thing for any one man to be able to influence the money market of the world in the way he does.”

“I wonder,” Dorchester reflected, “what he is doing in London?”

“I, too, am curious,” de Fontanay confessed, “for, to tell you the truth, it is the one city which he dislikes, and seldom visits. There must be some mischief brewing.”

Mark remained profoundly uninterested in all such considerations.

“Say, Raoul,” he demanded, “how is it, if you know the old man, that you have never met the daughter?”

“Alas,” the Frenchman replied, “how does one obtain the chance? Socially, Dukane does not exist. People in every capital have grown tired of sending him invitations; he never even answers them. I chanced to see them both in Monte Carlo last season. They arrived in his yacht, and they left within the week–people said because he was annoyed it the sensation his presence had created.”

“Of what nationality is he?” Mark enquired.

“No one knows exactly. I believe his passport would describe him as English. His wife, I know, was a Greek. She was the daughter of a former Prime Minister. I never saw her, but I remember her being spoken of in Paris as a famous beauty.”

“Listen here, Raoul,” Mark continued, “if you’ve never met the daughter, do you know the father well enough to present me?”

De Fontanay shook his head thoughtfully.

“I am afraid that I do not,” he acknowledged. “With anyone else in the world, I would try to gratify you, but Felix Dukane is a law unto himself. Observe the way he looks round the room. His stare is absolutely stony. He has probably recognised me long ago, but I doubt whether he will take the slightest notice of my existence.”

“That seems unfortunate,” Mark said doggedly, “because I’ve got to get to know her somehow, and it must be soon.”

“As a matter of fact,” Dorchester affirmed, with unusual seriousness, “I, too, am interested.”

The service of luncheon proceeded, but the continuity of the discussion between the three men seemed to have become broken, and conversation was only fitful. The attention of both Dorchester and Mark seemed entirely engrossed by observation more or less surreptitious of the table at which Felix Dukane and his daughter were seated. De Fontanay, whose turn it was that day to be host, suffered their neglect patiently, and even watched them both with slightly cynical amusement. As they passed out of the restaurant at the conclusion of the luncheon, he took each by the arm, and spoke half banteringly of their obsession.

“My friends,” he said, “it is a fact that both of you regard women a little more seriously than I–racial instinct, perhaps. Well, let me tell you this: the joy of a woman’s love is great, but the joy of such a friendship as exists between us three is, I think, a greater thing. You will not forget it, either of you?”

“Of course not,” Dorchester assented firmly.

“Sure thing,” Mark murmured a little mechanically.

“That being clearly understood,” de Fontanay continued, “I will expose myself to rebuff, and do my best to present you both to the young lady. We will take our coffee at one of the lower tables. The opportunity will thus occur.”

CHAPTER II

The three men found a table in the lounge which commanded a view of the departing guests, and the eyes of two of them scarcely ever wandered from the exit to the restaurant. They still conversed, but in a disconnected fashion, and under Mark’s manner there was always a vein of almost feverish impatience. At last the inevitable happened.

“They’re coming right along now,” the latter declared eagerly, “You’ll have to look alive, Raoul. The old man seems to be in a hurry.”

De Fontanay, with a little gesture of resignation, rose to his feet, and the two young men leaned forward, their eyes fixed upon the advancing pair. There was not the slightest personal resemblance between father and daughter, Felix Dukane was a short man, powerfully built, with a head large in proportion to his body, and a protruding under lip. He had masses of grey-black hair, a pallid complexion and cold, grey eyes, set, as he walked down the carpeted way from the restaurant, in a hard, unseeing stare. The girl by his side possessed without a doubt those insidious gifts of charm which, coupled with an exquisite physique alike defy description and disarm criticism. She was a trifle taller than her father, slim, with light brown hair, coiffured in the Italian fashion, hazel eyes, which looked about her with pleasant curiosity, the smooth, perfect complexion of youth and health, a mouth large, but wonderfully attractive, with indications of humour in its sensitive corners. Whilst her father’s one object seemed to be to get out of the place as speedily as possible, to look at no one, to remain unrecognised if possible, she, on the other hand, showed some disposition towards loitering, and was obviously taking in her surroundings with a certain amount of interest and pleasure. De Fontanay, summoning up all his courage, as he afterwards confessed, intercepted Dukane with a courteous bow, and outstretched hand.

“This is the first time, I think, Mr. Dukane, that I have had the pleasure of meeting you in London,” he remarked. “You will remember that we met at the French Embassy in Rome, and subsequently at the President’s week-end party at Rambouillet. My name is de Fontanay–Colonel Raoul de Fontanay.”

“I remember you, Colonel,” Dukane admitted, without rudeness, but certainly without enthusiasm.

“You will perhaps give me the great pleasure,” the other continued, “of presenting me to your daughter?”

The introduction was made, stiffly enough by Dukane, but accepted with obvious pleasure by the young lady. The three stood talking together pleasantly enough, yet even then the final issue of de Fontanay’s efforts on his friends’ behalf appeared to be in doubt. Felix Dukane’s manner had lost none of its brusqueness, and he showed distinct signs of a desire to escape. The two young men in the background sat and watched anxiously, conversing in nervous undertones.

“I am forced to acknowledge, Mark,” Dorchester confided, “that you have better taste than I gave you credit for. With one possible exception, I should say that Felix Dukane’s daughter is the most attractive young woman I have ever seen.”

“I guess that shows you don’t know what you’re talking about then,” was the gruff retort. “There couldn’t be an exception.”

Dorchester tapped a cigarette upon the table, and lit it.

“The times have gone by,” he answered, “when it would have been my duty to encase myself in unwieldy armour, mount a spirited dray horse and perform prodigies of valour with the most ineffectual weapon the mind of man ever conceived, to prove–Mark, they’re coming! Good old Raoul! He’s brought it off!”

De Fontanay had indeed succeeded, by the only strategy possible–by making a request and anticipating the reply. The girl had readily enough followed his lead. The enterprise was smoothly and successfully concluded.

“Mademoiselle,” de Fontanay said, “will you permit that I present to you my two friends–Lord Henry Dorchester, Mr. Van Stratton–Miss Dukane, Mr. Felix Dukane. I have persuaded Mr. and Miss Dukane to take coffee with us.”

Attentive waiters hurried up with chairs, and the little party subsided into a semicircle, the cynosure for many eyes as the identity of the small man with the big head, the “Mystery Millionaire” of finance began to be whispered about. Dukane responded to his host’s courteous attempts at conversation with cold monosyllables. He had the air of a man who is unwillingly submitting to a social act which he would have avoided if possible. It was Dorchester who first engaged the young lady’s attention. They talked for several moments of trifles. Then during a temporary lapse in the conversation, she turned with a flash of graciousness towards Mark, as though desirous of including him.

“You are an American?” she enquired.

“I am,” he answered, “although I am afraid not a very patriotic one. Most of my time is spent over on this side.”

“I was in New York last year,” she confided. “A very wonderful place! My father was immersed in business all the time, however, and I was a little dull. Tell me–your friend Lord Henry’s profession, I know; only last week I heard him speak in the House of Commons; and Colonel de Fontanay is of course a famous soldier–how do you interest yourself in life?”

For a moment, Mark was taken aback. The directness of the question, the friendly yet inquisitive regard of her bewildering eyes almost embarrassed him.

“I am afraid,” he confessed, “that I am rather what the’ call over here a ‘slacker.’ There are more of them on this side than in my country, as a rule. Of course, there was the War. Since then I haven’t done anything particular.”

“You play games, do you not? I have seen your name amongst the polo players. I think I saw you play once at Ranelagh.”

“It is quite likely,” he admitted.

“But when the season for games passes?” she persisted. “How do you spend your time then? You have still perhaps business affairs to attend to. In your country these become so absorbing that you men sometimes find leisure for little else.”

He shook his head.

“I know better than to attempt anything of the sort,” he confided.” Banking in Wall Street is rather too intricate an affair for an amateur to meddle with. When I left college, I went to Washington for a time. I had some idea of studying diplomacy. They sent me down to two places in South America, but I couldn’t seem to make good anyway. Then the War came, and since then–well, I’ve just drifted around.”

She had the air of beginning to lose interest in him. Mark noticed it, and sought desperately to re-establish himself.

“Of course,” he argued, “it’s all very well for Dorchester. He is living in his own country, and he has his own interests and the interests of his class to work for. For me there is nothing. America doesn’t need men of my kind, who have no commercial training. If I were to try, for instance, to manage my own affairs over there, it would simply mean that money would be wasted.”

“A somewhat indolent excuse,” she murmured disapprovingly. “Why not return to diplomacy?”

“I thought of it once,” he admitted.

She turned away, and addressed some remark to de Fontanay, whose gallant efforts to entertain Dukane had come momentarily to an end. Mark had a queer and disconcerting feeling that he had somehow fallen into disfavour with the one person in the world he was most anxious to conciliate. He watched her admiringly, the eloquent turn of her head, her white neck with its single row of beautiful pearls, her full, unbecarmined lips, the transparent, untouched complexion. He watched her smile, and found it adorable–a smile accompanied by the deepening of the fascinating little lines at the corners of her eyes. She was discussing with de Fontanay the poetry of a Russian whom they had both met in Paris, and for the first time Mark realised that she possessed, notwithstanding the precision of her speech, distinct traces of a foreign accent–an accent, however, which seemed to make her voice even more attractive. He leaned forward, and, taking his courage into his hands, addressed her father.

“You live in Paris, don’t you, sir?” he asked. “I remember once having your house in the Bois pointed out to me.”

“It is my headquarters,” Dukane admitted. “I have, however, a pied-à-terre in a good many places. Just now my affairs make it necessary that I stay some time in London.”

“You are spending the season here, you and your daughter?” Mark continued eagerly.

Dukane knocked the ash from the cigar which de Fontanay had persuaded him to light.

“I don’t know what you mean by the ‘season,’” he answered. “Social things do not interest me. I am here for another six weeks, or two months, until certain affairs in which I am concerned are concluded. When they are, I shall get away as soon as I can. The English climate and cooking are the worst in the world. What did you say your name was?”

“Van Stratton,” Mark replied, a little taken aback by the abruptness of the question.

“And you’re American? Are you connected in any way with the firm of Van Stratton and Arbuthnot of Wall Street?”

“My grandfather founded the business, I am the only Van Stratton left.”

“Your grandfather then,” Felix Dukane declared, “was one of the shrewdest men of his generation. You have still interests in the firm?”

“All my interests are in it,” Mark assented–“my financial ones, that is to say. I am not a banker myself though.”

Felix Dukane looked at him keenly–appraisingly, as Mark felt. There was something covert about the intensity of his regard.

“It is a pity,” he said. “I could give you good advice. Your people are still money-makers, but they are too conservative. Modern banking requires new methods.”

The girl turned suddenly back to Mark. She had apparently concluded her conversation with de Fontanay, who was leaning back in his chair with the satisfied air of one who has just produced a successful repartee.

“Colonel de Fontanay is too literary to be human,” she declared. “Are you a great reader, Mr. Van Stratton?”

“I am afraid not,” he confessed, a little gloomily, “and I am afraid that, except for one or two of my favourites, what I do read in a general way could scarcely be called literature.”

She concentrated upon him a regard which might almost have been termed critical. He was over six feet, with broad shoulders and long athletic body, with the blue eyes and fair hair of his Dutch ancestors, but little of their stolidity. His expression at the moment was certainly a little anxious and discontented, but he had by no means the appearance of a man lacking in intelligence. De Fontanay had bravely resumed his attempts at conversation with Dukane, a passing acquaintance had paused to speak to Dorchester. Mark and his companion were practically isolated.

“Should you very much resent a word of advice from a complete stranger?” she asked, dropping her voice a little.

“If you mean yourself, I should welcome it,” was the eager reply. “You see, if you took so much interest in me as to offer it, I should feel that after all we were not complete strangers. I don’t feel that way myself at all.”

She laughed softly. His intense earnestness redeemed his speech from any suggestion of impertinence.

“Very well then,” she continued, “I will speak to you not as a stranger, but as a friend. If, by any chance, the opportunity should come for you to take up some useful work–I do not mean wasting time in Bolivia or Ecuador or one of those terrible countries, but if at any time you should have a position offered you which meant a certain amount of responsibility, but which occupied some of your idle time, promise me not to refuse it.”

He was a little bewildered, but he did not hesitate.

“I won’t refuse anything,” he assured her. “If I am offered a job as Consul to the North Pole, or President of the United States, I’ll take either on if you wish me to.”

“Brave man!” she murmured, under her breath. “Don’t forget.”

She rose to her feet in response to an imperative gesture from her father, and after farewells, which the latter’s impatience restricted to the merest conventionalities, they took their leave. The three men resumed their seats.

“Well?” de Fontanay enquired, as he lit a fresh cigarette.

“She is just as wonderful as I knew she would be,” Mark declared fervently.

“She is the most attractive human being I have ever met,” Dorchester pronounced. “Ambitious, too,–no use for idlers. She is coming down to the House to hear me speak one day next week. I warn you, Mark, that if you are in earnest, you may possibly find in me a rival.”

There was a gleam of cynical amusement in de Fontanay’s eyes as he leaned back and laughed softly.

“I suppose in your way,” he mused, “you are both of you eligible enough ‘partis.’ You, Henry, the son of a peer–second in succession, by-the-by, aren’t you?–and Mark here, a millionaire. All the same,” he went on, with a note of seriousness in his tone, “when Estelle Dukane makes up her mind to marry, her father could buy her a kingdom if he chose. If either of you two are in earnest, take my advice and forget it.”

CHAPTER III

Mr. Stephen Widdowes, Ambassador from the Government of the United States to the Court of St. James, a pleasant, dignified-looking man of slightly over middle age, was standing upon the pavement waiting for his car as Mark left the hotel. The latter raised his hat respectfully, and would have passed on. The Ambassador, however, detained him.

“Just the man I was looking for, Mark!” he exclaimed. “Are you in a hurry for half an hour?”

“Nothing whatever to do, sir, this afternoon,” was the prompt admission.

“Step in and drive round with me to Carlton House then,” the other invited. “I have a few little matters to look after down there. They won’t take me more than a few minutes. Brownlow was writing to you this evening.”

Mark, mystified but interested, accepted the invitation, and entered the car. During the short drive his companion spoke only of the weather and some mutual family friends. Arrived at the Embassy, he led the way to his own study where Brownlow, his private secretary, was at work.

“Anything urgent?” the Ambassador enquired.

“Nothing of any importance, sir. They have rung up from Whitehall once or twice, but we were able to deal with their enquiries.”

“That’s good. You know Mark Van Stratton?”

The two young men exchanged greetings.

“Of course you do, though,” the Ambassador continued, “you were at Harvard together, weren’t you, and you must have met here. Give us a few minutes, Brownlow. I want to have a word or two with this young man.”

“I have to go down to the Consul’s office, if you can spare me for half an hour, sir.”

“Capital! Don’t be longer if you can help it.”

Mr. Widdowes waited until the door was closed. Then he motioned his visitor to a chair and seated himself at his desk.

“Am I correct in believing, Mark,” he began, “that you have so far imbibed English habits as to be living the life of a gentleman at ease?”

“Well, that’s one way of putting it, sir,” the other admitted. “Since the War I am afraid I have led rather a useless existence.”

“Should you like some work?”

The question was so unexpected that it came almost as a shock. Mark’s thoughts flashed back to the Ritz, to the girl leaning towards him, her earnest, almost mysterious admonition. If this was coincidence it was coincidence of an amazing sort.

“What kind of work, sir?” he enquired.

“We need help here badly,” Mr. Widdowes explained. “We have all we can do at any time. They don’t overstaff us, as you know, and perhaps you’ve heard–we’ve lost Dimsdale. Influenza, or something of the sort. He’s going home by the next steamer.”

“Sorry to hear that, sir,” Mark ventured. “He always seemed so keen.”

Mr. Widdowes sighed.

“Well, anyhow, he’s gone, and I don’t know exactly where to replace him for the moment.”

“Do you think I should be of any use, sir?” Mark asked eagerly.

“Of course you would,” was the prompt reply. “Anyway, I want you to try. You could relieve Brownlow here of some of the social stunts he has to get up for Mrs. Widdowes–takes him half his day sometimes to make out her party lists. The work won’t be strenuous, of course. All that we need is someone who knows the social ropes pretty well, and can keep a still tongue in his head if any other little matter happens to come along. Can you dine to-night?”

“I have no engagement, sir.”

“Capital! We’ll have a further talk after dinner. Come early–say, about a quarter to eight. Mrs. Widdowes may want you to help her. She misses Ned rather when we have guests.”

Mark was dismissed with a kindly nod, and walked out feeling a little dazed. With his hands thrust into his overcoat pockets he stood upon the pavement for several seconds. The Ambassador’s offer was not, after all, such a surprising one, as Mark was on cordial terms with the family, and the suggestion of his re-entering the diplomatic service had once or twice cropped up in the course of conversation. The coincidence was that the offer should have come on this precise day. “She couldn’t possibly have guessed,” he reflected. “It’s odd, though–damned odd!”…

Instead of turning back into Pall Mall, Mark descended the steps and turned towards the Strand, meaning to call upon some friends in the Savoy Court. After a few yards, he turned up the collar of his coat, for the mist which had been hanging about all day was changing into rain, and towards the river there were signs of fog. He had only proceeded a short distance, however, when a long two-seater car, driven by a girl, passed him at a great speed and suddenly, with a discordant grinding of brakes, was brought to a standstill by the kerb a little way ahead. The girl looked round and waved to him. Mark, recognising her with a thrill of pleasure, raised his hat and hurried forward.

“Have I splashed you?” she asked. “If so, I am very sorry. It was wonderful seeing you so unexpectedly. Jump in, please.”

Her invitation, surprising though it was, seemed as she delivered it, to be the most natural thing in the world. Mark obeyed without hesitation, and in a moment they were off again. She was seated very low amongst the cushions, and was completely enveloped in a macintosh driving coat, but she wore no veil, and he realised at once that there was a change in her since luncheon-time. She had lost that becoming tinge of colour, her eyes were set and her expression strained.

“I cannot talk to you yet,” she explained during the short distance they traversed before reaching the Arch. “I wish to drive as quickly as I can, and the traffic is always terrible getting to Northumberland Avenue. I am taking you down to my father’s office in Norfolk Street.”

“Is there anything wrong?” he asked anxiously.

“Yes,” she admitted, “but I cannot tell you about it now.”

“Don’t worry,” he begged her. “If I can help I’ll be proud. Get right along with your driving. If you’re stalled I can take the wheel. I have one of these cars myself.”

She nodded, but it was soon very clear that she needed no help. She threaded her way through the maelstrom of traffic to Northumberland Avenue with scarcely a pause, and, regardless of the disapproving glance of the policeman on duty, swept down on to the Embankment, raced along under the arch, and bearing a little to the left, turned up one of the streets leading to the Strand. At the third house on the left she paused. There was a powerful-looking commissionaire at the door, but no brass plate, or any indication as to the nature of the premises.

“This is where my father interviews people whom he does not wish to meet in the city,” she confided. “Come this way, please.”

Mark followed her into the building. There was nothing whatever to denote the fact that he was in a private retreat of one of the world’s great millionaires. The tesselated stone floor was uncovered. The two rooms through which she led him contained only half a dozen men working at separate desks, and three or four stenographers. She knocked at an inner door and, without waiting for a reply, threw it open.

“Please come in.”

They entered a comfortable but by no means luxuriously furnished apartment. Estelle closed the door, and sank into a chair a little breathlessly. Her father sat at a table upon which were several telephones, a banker’s directory and a few other cloth-bound volumes. He looked up coldly at their entrance, without showing any particular sign of surprise or curiosity. Impossible though it must have been, it seemed to Mark almost as though he might have been expected.

“Olsen had left,” the girl announced. “I must have missed him by five minutes. I found Mr. Van Stratton in the Mall. I don’t know why I brought him, but I did. I have told him nothing.”

Felix Dukane eyed the young man with a frown which was almost a scowl. Mark, who was already sufficiently confused was unable to indulge in even the faintest surmise as to the nature of the thoughts which were passing through the other’s brain. He seemed to have become an object of speculative interest to the great financier but nothing in the latter’s demeanour afforded the slightest indication as to the cause for such interest.

“Since the young man is here,” Felix Dukane decided grudgingly, “we had better perhaps go upstairs and explain our dilemma.”

He rose to his feet, unlocked the door of another exit from the room, by means of a key attached to his watch chain, and led the way across the hall to a small automatic lift into which he motioned his two companions to precede him. Mark, upon their upward journey, ventured upon a somewhat bewildered question, but the girl only shook her head. Her self-control seemed for the moment to have deserted her. Her lips were quivering, and there was an expression almost of horror in her eyes. More than ever Mark wondered how she had been able to drive with such success through the crowded streets. Presently the lift came to a standstill. They all stepped out into a little hall thickly carpeted and having an appearance of luxury which the downstairs premises had entirely lacked. With another key Mr. Dukane opened a heavy oak door, leading into an apartment which, from the number of books which lined the walls and the comfortable easy-chairs, might have been a man’s library. The furniture, however, was in disorder, a couch was overturned, and a small table was lying on its side with a vase of flowers beside it from which the water was trickling across the carpet. Suddenly Mark received a shock. Upon the floor, behind one of the chairs, was the outstretched figure of a man, a rug covering the upper part of the body.

“Good God, what’s happened here?” Mark cried.

“I have had the misfortune,” Dukane explained in his hard dry tone, “during a somewhat heated altercation, to kill an importunate and annoying visitor.”

CHAPTER IV

There was a brief period of horrified silence–the girl leaning against the side of an easy-chair with her head turned away, clearly on the point of a breakdown, Felix Dukane standing like a statue with his under lip thrust out, Mark, dumb as much from sheer surprise at this unexpected termination of his little adventure as from any sense of shock. But only a few feet away, lay without a doubt damning evidence as to the truth of Felix Dukane’s confession. Mark found himself dwelling curiously upon unimportant details; the neat patent shoes, the monogrammed socks, the carefully pressed trousers of the prostrate figure. He roused himself at last to speech.

“Look here,” he expostulated, “you’re not serious? You may have hurt him. He can’t be dead.”

“I tell you that he is dead,” Dukane insisted harshly. “I did not mean to strike so hard, but he had made me very angry. I struck him on the side of the head behind the ear, and he went down like a log. It is the second time he has tried to blackmail me. This time I lost my temper.”

“But what are you going to do about it?” Mark ventured. “Have you rung up for a doctor, or for the police?”

Dukane scowled contemptuously.

“What would be the good of that?” he demanded. “The doctor could tell me no more than I know–that the man is dead. As for the police they are the last people to be dragged in. Do you suppose I want to be marched off to the Courts, and charged with manslaughter or murder?”

“Is there any other way?” Mark asked bluntly.

“Of course there is,” was the angry rejoinder. “If the person whom my daughter went to fetch had not by some evil chance left for Paris this afternoon, he would have done everything that is necessary. The question is, are you man enough to take his place?”

“What do you mean?”

Dukane suddenly gripped his arm and Mark realised the other’s enormous muscular strength. The fingers seemed to crumple up the flesh and almost crush the bone beneath. He turned him towards the window.

“Look there,” he pointed out hoarsely. “You see what’s coming?”

Mark glanced towards the river. Already the lamps across the bridge were shining dimly through a bank of yellow-black fog. Patches of it hung over the water, and even in this narrow thoroughfare the opposite houses were barely visible. Dukane pointed upwards. Above the roofs it hung like a descending curtain, solid and fearsome.

“In half an hour,” the latter continued, “no man in the streets will see another. Think! You drive a little way in the car below–where you will. You take–it–with you–anywhere, away from here. Who is to know? You look strong. You could lift a thing like that with one hand. What about the bridge, the river?”

“Say, is this a serious suggestion?” Mark gasped.

“Of course it is. Do you think I want to go into the dock and be charged with killing a creature like that. They might not punish me. The man is scum, I tell you, but I am in the midst of negotiations upon which the future prosperity of Europe may depend. If I am interrupted now it may mean ruin to thousands. I tell you that it is the work of my life, which draws near to the end,” he went on, his voice suddenly strident. “Every hour of my time is pledged. Besides, my name! The thing might not be properly understood. There are risks I can’t speak of.”

Involuntarily Mark turned his head, and as he did so the girl came towards him. All that wonderful light, the expression which had played like some inner sunshine around her lips and eyes, had gone. The life was drained from her. There remained still, however, the nameless unanalysable appeal which seemed to have drifted to him from the moment of her entrance across the crowded restaurant.

“Of course this must all sound like madness,” she said, “but help us–oh, help us, if you can.”

“I should very much like to,” he assured her gravely.

“A scandal just now would mean such terrible things for my father,” she went on, “and it would do no good. The man is dead and there is an end of it. You will not run a great risk. If you are discovered you can say that you were on your way to a hospital, and we will tell the truth. But you will not be discovered. You will save us from a great disaster, and you will do nobody any harm…It is so much to ask of a stranger, and yet, when I saw you in Pall Mall just now I remembered what you said to me an hour or two ago. I remembered–”

The pause was unaccountably eloquent, thrilling in a mysterious, unexpected way. She was offering nothing, promising nothing, and yet he felt an overmastering impulse to do her bidding, to run any risk, to establish himself in her life–her benefactor, the man who had not failed her in this terrible moment.

“If you are Mark Van Stratton,” her father intervened, “I cannot bribe you. You must have all the money you need in life, but if there is any other way–”

“You cannot bribe him, father,” she interrupted. “He is going to do this for us, for my sake. Will you render me this great service and become my friend for always, Mr. Mark Van Stratton? I have faults–many–but no one in the world has ever called me ungrateful.”

Her hand had slipped from his shoulder and her soft, caressing fingers lay upon his. Her eyes now had lost the glaze of horror. They had opened. They were full of appeal. They pleaded and promised at the same time. Mark had no more thought of hesitation.

“I shall do what you ask me,” he declared, taking her other hand for a moment into his. “Only not in the river. That seems too horrible. I will find a safe, quiet place somewhere.”

“You will never regret it,” she whispered.