The Other Man E-Book

Edgar Wallace

• Herausgeber: Interactive Media
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

"The Other Man" by Edgar Wallace is a gripping tale of suspense and moral complexity. As two men become entangled in a web of secrets and deception, the narrative unfolds with unexpected twists. Wallace explores themes of loyalty, betrayal, and the consequences of hidden truths. The story delves into the darker corners of human nature, challenging notions of right and wrong. With vivid characters and a suspenseful plot, the novel keeps readers on edge, unraveling the enigma of "The Other Man" and the profound impact of choices made in the shadows.

Leseprobe

Edgar Wallace

The Other Man

Published by Fractal Press

This edition first published in 2023

Copyright © 2023 Fractal Press

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 9781787368477

Contents

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

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER I

N. H. C.

It was a bad night in London, not wild or turbulent, but swathed to the eyes like an Eastern woman in a soft grey garment of fog. It engulfed the walled canyons of the city through which the traffic had roared all day, plugged up the maze of dark side streets, and blotted out the open squares. Close to the ground it was thick, viscous, impenetrable, so that one could not see a yard ahead, and walked ghostlike, adventuring into a strange world.

Occasionally it dispersed. In front of the opera house, numbers of arc-lights wrought a wavering mist-hung yellow square, into which a constant line of vehicles like monstrous shiny bugs emerged from the outer nowhere, disgorged their contents, and eclipsed again. And pedestrians in gay processional streamed across the ruddy glistening patch like figures on a slide.

Conspicuous in the shifting throng was a boy, ostensibly selling violets, but with a keen eye upon the arriving vehicles. Suddenly he darted to the curb, where an electric coupe had just drawn up. A man alighted heavily, and turned to assist a young woman.

For an instant the lad’s attention was deflected by the radiant vision. The girl, wrapped in a voluminous cloak of ivory colour, was tall and slim, with soft white throat and graceful neck; her eyes under shadowy lashes were a little narrow, but blue as autumn mist, and sparkling now with amusement.

“Watch your steps, auntie,” she warned laughingly, as a plump elderly little lady descended stiffly from the coupe. “These London fogs are dangerous.”

The boy stood staring at her, his feet as helpless as if they had taken root in the ground. Suddenly he remembered his mission. His native impudence reasserted itself, and he started forward.

“Voylets, lidy? Wear your colours. You ain’t allowed to trot without.”

The girl gazed at him, her blue eyes bright as stars on a windy night. An enchanting dimple twinkled about her curved lips in gay hide-and-seek, and when she laughed, fled upward to her eyes.

“Father,” she said, “will you buy my colours from this bold sporting gentleman?”

As the man fumbled in an inner pocket for change, the lad took a swift inventory. The face, beneath the tall hat, was a powerful oval, paste-coloured, with thin lips, and heavy lines from nostril to jaw. The eyes were close-set and of a turbid grey.

“It’s him,” the boy assured himself, and opened his mouth to speak.

“So you are a sporting man,” the girl rallied him gaily, adjusting the flowers.

The boy nodded, responding instantly to her mood.

“Only,” he swept her with shrewd, appraising eyes, that noted every detail of her delicate beauty and sumptuousness, “I don’t trot in the two-minute class myself.”

The girl laughed a clear silvery peal, and turned impulsively to the young man in evening dress who had just dismissed his hansom and joined the group.

It was the diversion the boy had prayed for. He took a quick step toward the older man.

“N.,” he said in a soft but distinct undertone.

The man’s face blanched suddenly, and a coin which he held in his large, white-gloved palm, slipped jingling to the pavement.

The young messenger stooped and caught it up dextrously.

“N.,” he whispered again, insistently.

“H.,” the answer came hoarsely. The man’s lips trembled.

“C.,” finished the boy promptly and with satisfaction. Under cover of returning the coin, he thrust a slip of white paper into the other’s hand.

Then he wheeled, ducked to the girl with a gay little swagger of impudence, threw a lightning glance of scrutiny at her young escort, and turning, was lost in the throng.

The whole incident occupied less than a minute, and presently the four were seated in their box, and the throbbing strains from the overture of I Pagliacci came floating up to them.

“I wish I were a little street gamin in London,” said the girl pensively, fingering the violets at her corsage. “Think of the adventures! Don’t you, Cord?”

“Don’t I wish you were?” Cord Van Ingen looked across at her with smiling significant eyes, which brought a flush to her cheeks.

“No,” he said softly, “I do not!”

The girl laughed at him and shrugged her round white shoulders.

“For a young diplomat, Cord, you are too obvious—too delightfully verdant. You should study indirection, subtlety, finesse—study Poltavo!”

At the name the boy’s brow darkened.

“Study the devil!” he muttered under his breath.

“That too, for a diplomat, is necessary!” she murmured sweetly.

“He isn’t coming here to-night?” Van Ingen asked in aggrieved tones.

The girl nodded, her eyes dancing with laughter.

“What you can see in that man, Doris,” he protested, “passes me! I’ll bet you anything you like that the fellow’s a rogue! A smooth, soft-smiling rascal! Lady Dinsmore,” he appealed to the older woman, “do you like him?”

“Oh, don’t ask Aunt Patricia!” cried the girl. “She thinks him quite the most fascinating man in London. Don’t deny it, auntie!”

“I shan’t,” said that lady calmly, “for it’s true! Count Poltavo,” she paused to inspect through her lorgnettes some newcomers in the opposite box, “Count Poltavo is the only interesting man in London. He is a genius.” She shut her lorgnettes with a snap. “It delights me to talk with him. He smiles and murmurs gay witticisms and quotes Talleyrand and Lucullus, and all the while in the back of his head, quite out of reach, his real opinions of you are being tabulated and ranged neatly in a row, like bottles on a shelf.”

“I’d like to take down some of those bottles,” said Doris thoughtfully. “Maybe some day I shall.”

“They’re probably labelled poison,” remarked Van Ingen, a little viciously. He looked at the girl with a growing sense of injury. Of late she had seemed absolutely changed toward him; and from being his dear friend, his childhood’s mate, with established intimacies, she had turned before his very eyes into an alien, almost an enemy, more beautiful than ever, to be true, but perverse, mocking, impish. She flouted him for his youth, his bluntness, his guileless transparency. But hardest of all to bear was the delicate derision with which she treated his awkward attempts to express his passion for her, to speak of the fever which had taken possession of him, almost against his will, and which at sight of her throbbed madly at his wrists and temples. And now, he reflected bitterly, with this velvet fop of a count looming up as a possible rival, with his savoir faire, and his absurd penchant for literature and art, what chance had he, a plain American, against such odds?—unless, as he profoundly believed, the chap was a crook. He determined to sound her father.

“Mr. Grayson,” he asked aloud, “what do you think—halloo!” He sprang up suddenly and thrust out a supporting arm.

Grayson had risen, and stood swaying slightly upon his feet. He was frightfully pale, and his countenance was contracted as if in pain. He lifted a wavering hand to his brow.

“I—I feel ill,” he said faintly. His hand fell limply to his side. He took a staggering step toward the door.

Van Ingen was beside him instantly.

“Lean on me, sir,” he urged quietly.

He passed a steadying hand through Grayson’s, and guided him toward the passage.

“We’ll have you out of this in a jiffy,” he said cheerfully. “It’s the confounded stifling air of these places! It’s enough to make a grampus faint! Lady Dinsmore, will you look after Doris?”

“No! No!” the girl exclaimed. Her face was white and strained and fear darkened her eyes. In her distress she had risen, and stood, clasping tightly her father’s arm.

“We’ll all go together! Please, dear!” Her voice and eyes pleaded. She seemed trying to convey a hidden meaning, a secret urgency.

“Nonsense!” Grayson, still pallid and frowning, leaned heavily upon Van Ingen’s shoulder. Tiny beads of perspiration stood out upon his temples but his voice was stronger.

“Don’t make a scene, my girl.” He nodded toward the stalls, where already curious lorgnettes were beginning to be levelled at their box.

“Sit down!”

Doris obeyed mutely, her mobile lips quivering as she sought to suppress her emotion. She was conscious of a shiver which seemed to spread from her heart throughout her limbs. The oppression of a nameless fear took possession of her; it weighed her down. She sat very still, gripping her fan.

“I’ll be around fit as ever in the morning. ‘Night, Lady Dinsmore. Take care of my girl.” Grayson spoke jerkily with a strong effort.

Lady Patricia Dinsmore regarded him coldly. She disliked the man cordially, and made no bones of it. In her heart she had never forgiven him for wedding her foolish younger sister, the family beauty, who had died at Doris’ birth far away from her kith and kin in the desolate wilds of New York.

“Good-night, Gerald,” she said drily. “Try to get a little sleep.” She turned to the younger man. “Put him to bed, Cord, and cut all the wires around the Savoy, so he won’t call up those wretched brokers. I think he’s trying to gobble the whole English market.”

She marked sharply the effect of her shaft.

Grayson turned a shade paler. He clutched Van Ingen’s arm.

“Get me out of here!” he whispered hoarsely.

Lady Patricia viewed their departing backs with a fleeting ironical smile.

“Your father, my dear,” she murmured to Doris, “is a very remarkable man.”

Out in the fresh air, Grayson revived amazingly. His feebleness disappeared as if by magic, and he stepped out briskly. He nodded to a hansom in the rank and the man drew in to the opening.

“The Savoy,” cried Grayson.

He sprang in hastily.

Van Ingen made as if to follow, but Grayson held the apron door securely.

“No need in the world for you to accompany me, dear boy,” he exclaimed, smiling. “Go back. I feel quite braced already. It was that devilish stuffiness inside—a momentary seizure. Good-night!” He waved his hand and sank back. The hansom started forward with a jerk, and the young man retraced his steps to the theatre, frowning thoughtfully.

Ten minutes later Grayson thrust up the trap.

“You may drop me here,” he called. He descended and paid his fare. “I’ll walk the rest of the way,” he remarked casually.

“Bit thickish on foot to-night, sir,” offered the driver respectfully. “Better let me set you down at the hotel.” But his fare was already lost in the enveloping gloom.

Grayson wrapped his muffler closely about his chin, pulled down his hat to shadow his eyes, and hurried along like a man with a set destination.

Presently he halted and signalled to a cab, crawling along close to the curb. Grayson scrutinised it keenly. The horse looked strong.

“Can you take me some distance?” he asked the driver.

“Take ye far’s you got the coin!”

Grayson glanced about him furtively. “As far as this?” He stepped forward and gave an address in a carefully lowered voice.

The driver leaned far down from his high box and peered into his fare’s face.

“Not there!” he muttered.

Grayson held out a sovereign silently.

The driver shook his head.

“It’s fair worth a man’s life on a night like this.”

Two sovereigns gleamed in Grayson’s bare outstretched palm.

“I’ll double it if you drive fast,” he offered.

“All right, sir,” answered the man at length, a bit sullenly. “Jump in.” He turned his horse round and drove rapidly toward the river.

CHAPTER II

A BUSINESS CONSULTATION

The fog was still heavy and the blurred street-lamps looked ghastly in the yellow mist when the young messenger, the first half of his mission performed, struck briskly riverward to complete his business. He disposed of his violets at a corner stand, hailed a passing hansom boldly, and after a low consultation with the driver, got in. They drove steadily for an hour. The gas-lamps grew fewer, and the streets more narrow and gloomy.

Suddenly the man drew up with a jerk.

“Here ye be,” he called huskily.

The boy sprang to the ground and peered about him. “It’ll do,” he announced, and then briefly, “Wait ‘arf an hour.”

He plunged down a dark and crabbed way, glancing warily behind him now and then to see if he was being followed.

Here, between invisible walls, the fog hung thick and warm and sticky, crowding up close, with a kind of blowsy intimacy that whispered the atmosphere of the place. Occasionally, close to his ear, snatches of loose song burst out, or a base, coarse face loomed head-high through the reek.

But the boy was upon his native heath and scuttled along, whistling softly between closed teeth, as, with a dexterity born of long practice, he skirted slush and garbage sinks, held around the blacker gulfs that denoted unguarded basement holes, and eluded the hideous shadows that lurched by in the gloom.

Hugging the wall, he presently became aware of footsteps behind him. He rounded a corner, and turning swiftly collided with something which grappled him with great hands. Without hesitation, the lad leaned down and set his teeth deep into the hairy arm.

The man let go with a hoarse bellow of rage, and the boy, darting across the alley, could hear him stumbling after him in blind search of the narrow way.

Thin shivers of excitement rippled up and down his spine and his blood crinkled in his veins. Squatting close to the sloppy wall, he thrust out one leg and waited. He could feel the quarry come on, the big blowing body of him, the groping, outstretched arms. His leg stiffened rigid as a bar of iron. With a crash the man fell headlong across it. The boy laughed aloud and sheered aside, barely missing a knife which hurtled past and stuck quivering in the opposite wall.

As he sped along, a door suddenly opened in the blank wall beside him, and a stream of ruddy light gushed out, catching him square within its radiance, mud-spattered, starry-eyed, vivid.

A man stood framed in the doorway.

“Come in,” he commanded briefly.

The boy obeyed. Surreptitiously he wiped the wet and mud from his face and tried to reduce his wild breathing.

The room which he entered was meagre and stale-smelling, with bare floor and stained and sagging wall-paper; unfurnished save for a battered deal table and some chairs.

He sank into one of them and stared with frank curiosity past his employer, who had often entrusted him with messages requiring secrecy, past his employer’s companion, to the third figure in the room. A prostrate figure which lay quite still under the heavy folds of a long dark ulster with its face turned to the wall.

“Well?” It was a singularly agreeable voice which aroused him, softly modulated but with a faint foreign accent. The speaker was his employer, a slender dark man, with a finely carved face, immobile as the Sphinx. He had laid aside his Inverness and top hat, and showed himself in evening dress with a large buttonhole of Parma violets, which sent forth a faint, delicious fragrance.

Of the personality of the man the messenger knew nothing more than that he was an aristocratic young nob, eccentric in a quiet way, who lived in a grand house near Portland Place, and who rewarded him handsomely for his occasional services.

He related his adventures of the evening, not omitting to mention his late pursuer. “The keb’s waitin’ now, outside, sir,” he concluded.

The man listened quietly, brooding, his elbows upon the table, his inscrutable face propped in the crotch of his hand. A ruby, set quaintly in a cobra’s head, gleamed from a ring upon his little finger. Presently he roused.

“That’s all to-night, my boy,” he said gravely. “You’ve served me well.”

He drew out his purse, extracted two sovereigns, and laid them in the messenger’s hand.

“And this,” he said softly, holding up a third gold piece, “is for—discretion! You comprehend?”

The boy shot a swift glance, not unmixed with terror, at the still, recumbent figure in the corner, mumbled an assent, and withdrew. Out in the dampness of the fog, he took a long, deep breath. After all, he reflected, such affairs were not in the province of a night-messenger. They belonged to Scotland Yard. And certainly the man paid well.

As the door closed behind him, his employer leaned back in his chair, and smiled into the sombre eyes of his companion.

“At last!” he breathed softly. “The thing moves. The wheels are beginning to revolve!”

His friend nodded gloomily, his glance straying off toward the corner of the room.

“They’ve got to revolve a mighty lot more before the night’s done!” he replied with heavy significance.

He was a tall, lean man and wore a brown overcoat with the collar turned up sharply about his throat, and a derby hat still glistening from the mist. His voice, which was flat and rasping, betrayed his transatlantic origin.

“It’s my opinion,” he continued bluntly, “that you stick right here at this end of the line and see the game through. You can present your excuses to Lady Dinsmore to-morrow. I needn’t tell you that we must move in this venture with extreme caution. A single misstep at the outset, the slightest breath of suspicion, and pff! the entire superstructure falls to the ground.”

“That is doubtless true, Mr. Baggin,” murmured his companion pleasantly. He leaned down to inhale the fragrant scent of the violets. “But you forget one little thing. This grand superstructure you speak of—so mysteriously—” he hid a slight smile, “I know it not. You have seen fit, in your extreme caution, to withhold all knowledge of it from me.”

He paused and regarded his companion with a level, steady gaze. A faint, ironical smile played about the corners of his mouth.

“Is it not so, my friend?” he asked softly. “I am—how you say—left out in the cold?”

His countenance was serene and unruffled, and it was only by his slightly quickened breathing that an acute observer might have said that the conversation held any unusual significance.

The American stirred uneasily in his chair. A dull flush mounted to his temples.

“There are some financial matters——” he muttered sullenly.

“You admit it, then—this high scheme has to do with finance, with the finance of nations—the finance of the world!”

“Hush!” whispered Baggin hoarsely. He glanced about, half-fearfully.

The younger man ignored the outburst. He laid a persuasive hand upon his companion’s arm.

“My friend,” he said gravely, “let me give you a bit of good advice. Believe me, I speak disinterestedly. Take me into your counsels. As a Russian nobleman and distant kinsman of his Imperial Majesty the Tsar, I have the entrée to the most exclusive houses of London. Politics I know a little, and the politicians extremely well. Twice I have been a guest at Sandringham. I am a person of diplomacy, resolution, power. In brief, Mr. Baggin, I am intelligent, and I know too little or too much for you. Too much for an outsider, too little for a friend and—ah—conspirator. With half my knowledge, I could make you, or break you like glass. Candidly, I have not the heart for the latter. I would be rather a—a friendly power.” He leaned forward suddenly. “Make me,” he said softly, “a member of your Committee of Nine.”

Baggin shrank back. “You—you know that?” he gasped.

“I know many things,” was the quiet reply, “but not all.”

The American looked at him doubtfully. The man seemed limpid. Was he, in truth, as Grayson had once said, as deep as the bottomless pit? Grayson, he knew, had favoured him.

“You have no money,” he objected, finally.

“I have something better.”

“What?” In Baggin’s mouth the question was an insult.

“Genius!” returned the young man simply.

He disregarded Baggin’s scornful ejaculation, and continued impersonally, as if reading aloud from a book.

“Genius, my friend! Genius is as high above mere money as the stars wheeling in their celestial courses are above the earth. It is human electricity—the motive power of the world. With my power, the spark I feel within me here”—he touched his white shirt-front—”I could wipe out kingdoms and principalities, change the map of Europe more drastically than Napoleon—and bloodlessly! Think of it a moment, my prosaic, financial friend! I who sit here in this room, with you and a dead man, can do these things! Just one little pawn in the game is missing. Money. A few million pounds for running expenses and for salaries to my—er—myrmidons! That item, Mr. Baggin, I expect to be supplied by you.”

He laughed outright at Baggin’s frowning, mistrustful face, crossed one leg over the other, and clasped his silk-clad ankle with a shapely hand.

Baggin noted the boyish action. It at once irritated him and determined his course.

“Unfortunately,” he replied drily, “we have already chosen our president and voted upon the immediate use of the fund. The map of Europe, I fear, must for the present remain unaltered——” He glanced up and added hurriedly, “I—regret this—— Perhaps at our next meeting—— The membership, as you perhaps know, is—er—limited.”

The young man sprang to his feet. His face was bronze.

“It is of no consequence, my friend.” He laughed softly. “Simply, the scheme appealed to me. It fired my imagination. I am, as you know, a dreamer.

“’If you can dream, and not make dreams your master,’” he murmured.

He walked over to the corner of the room, picked up his Inverness, and stood looking composedly down upon the figure which it had concealed.

“Salve, my friend! You go down the river tonight, wiser than all the kings of earth.”

He slipped into his coat and turned toward Baggin, who had also risen.

“You will see that it gets into the morning papers,” he said. “I could wish to write it myself,” he added pensively, drawing on his gloves. “It has possibilities. So: ‘Grayson a suicide. Great financier shows himself at the opera, bids the gay world good-night, and throws himself in the Thames. A flying rumour breathes money troubles as a cause for the tragedy.’ Wait!” he fumbled in his breast pocket, “I’ll write a note to pin to his clothes.”

He scribbled hastily in his memorandum book, tore out the leaf, and handed it to his companion. “He confesses his sins and commends his soul to ‘le bon Dieu.’” He laid a hand upon the door.

“You will leave me here—alone?” asked Baggin.

“But yes! Nothing can harm you from within, and you bolt the door from without—until the preconcerted signal. It should not be long now.” He drew out his watch.

“But—I wish you to remain—I command it!” Despite his efforts at composure, Baggin’s voice quavered.

His companion laughed. “A Roland for your Oliver, my friend!” he cried. “Favour for favour! You grant my small request?”

Baggin shook his head.

“You will be king, eh?—and alone? Good!”

He put on his top hat, adjusted his silk muffler about his throat, and with an amiable nod to his companion, stepped out into the night.

The fog had thinned to a nebulous haze, fine as a lady’s veil, and the young man strode along briskly. Ten minutes brought him to the waiting hansom.

“Covent Garden,” he directed the driver. He sprang in and leaned back against the cushions.

“So Baggin would be king!” He smiled with a certain grimness.

CHAPTER III

IN WHICH A CERTAIN MOMENTOUS QUESTION IS ASKED

At precisely ten o’clock, as the curtain came reefing slowly down upon the first act of I Pagliacci, Lady Dinsmore turned with outstretched hand to greet a newcomer who had just entered the box.

“My dear count,” she exclaimed, “I am disappointed in you! Here I have been paying you really quite tremendous compliments to these young people—which for an old woman, you know, is very proper—and you show your complete indifference to me by committing the worst crime in the calendar!”

“I am desolated!” The stranger who was bowing over her hand, a trifle lower than an Englishman would have done, was slender and distinguished looking, faultlessly dressed, and wearing a bunch of Parma violets. He had a way of looking at one gravely with an air of concentrated attention, as if he were seeing through the words, into the very soul of the speaker. He was, indeed, a wonderful listener, and this quality, added to a certain boyish candour of temperament, accounted perhaps for Count Poltavo’s popularity in society.

“Before I ask you to name the crime, Lady Dinsmore,” he said, “or to inform me if the calendar is a lady’s, permit me to offer my humblest apologies for my lateness.”

Lady Dinsmore shook her head at him.

“You are incorrigible!” she declared. “But sit down and make your excuses at your leisure. You know my niece, and I think you have met Mr. Van Ingen. He is one of our future diplomats.”

The count bowed and sank into a chair beside his hostess.

Van Ingen, after a frigidly polite acknowledgment, resumed his conversation with Doris rather eagerly, and Lady Dinsmore turned to her companion.

“Now for the explanation,” she exclaimed briskly. “I shall not let you off! Unpunctuality is a crime, and your punishment shall be to confess its cause.”

Count Poltavo bent toward her with bright, smiling eyes.

“A very stupid and foolish business engagement,” he replied, “which required my personal attendance. Shall I give you the details? I warn you in advance they will bore you frightfully! They did me.”

Lady Dinsmore threw up a protesting hand. “Pray spare me,” she begged. “Business has no charms to soothe my savage breast! Grayson,” she lowered her voice confidentially, “can talk of nothing else. When he was with me, he was forever telegraphing, cabling to America, or decoding messages. There was no peace in the house, by day or by night. Finally I made a stand. ‘Gerald,’ I said, ‘you shall not pervert my servants with your odious tips, and turn my home into a public stock-exchange. Take your bulls and bears over to the Savoy and play with them there, and leave Doris to me.’ And he did!” she concluded triumphantly.

Count Poltavo looked about, as if noting for the first time the man’s absence. “Where is he now?” he enquired.

Lady Dinsmore shrugged her shoulders.

“He is—ill! Frankly, I think he had a slight indisposition, and magnified it in order to escape. He hates music. Doris has been quite distrait ever since. The child adores her father.”

Her companion glanced across to the subject of their remarks. The girl sat in the front of the box, slim and elegant, her hands clasped loosely in her lap. She was watching the brilliant scene with a certain air of detachment, as if thinking of other things. Her usual lightness and gay banter seemed for the moment to have deserted her, leaving a soft brooding wistfulness that was strangely appealing.

The count looked long at her.

“She is very beautiful,” he murmured under his breath.

Something in his voice caught Lady Dinsmore’s attention. She eyed him keenly.

The count met her look frankly.

“Is—is she engaged to her young friend?” he asked quietly. “Believe me, it is not vulgar curiosity which prompts the question. I—I am—interested.” His voice was as composed as ever, but a slight pallor spread across his countenance.

Lady Dinsmore averted her gaze hurriedly and thought with lightning rapidity.

“I have not her confidence,” she replied at length in a low tone. “She is a wise young woman and keeps her own counsel.” She appeared to hesitate. “She dislikes you,” she added. “I am sorry to wound you, but it is no secret.”

Count Poltavo nodded. “I know,” he said simply. “Will you be my very good friend and tell me why?”

Lady Dinsmore smiled. “I will do better than that,” she said kindly. “I will be your very good friend and give you a chance to ask her why. Cord,” she bent forward and tapped the young man upon the shoulder with her fan, “will you come over here and tell me what your chief means by permitting all this dreadful war-talk with Japan. Is it true that you Americans are going to fight those pleasant little men?”

The count resigned his seat courteously, and took the vacant place beside the girl. A silence fell between them, which presently the man broke.

“Miss Grayson,” he began gravely, “your aunt kindly gave me this opportunity to ask you a question. Have I your permission also?”

The girl arched her brows at him. Her lip curled ever so slightly.

“A question to which you and my Aunt Patricia could find no answer between you! It must be subtle indeed! How can I hope to succeed?”

He ignored her sarcasm. “Because it concerns yourself, mademoiselle.”

“Ah!” She drew herself up and regarded him with sparkling eyes. One small foot began to tap the floor ominously. Then she broke into a vexed little laugh.

“I am no match for you with the foils, count. I admit it, freely. I should have learned by this time that you never say what you mean, or mean what you say.”

“Forgive me, Miss Grayson, if I say that you mistake me utterly. I mean always what I say—most of all to you. But to say all that I mean—to put into speech all that one hopes or dreams—or dares—” his voice dropped to a whisper—”to turn oneself inside out like an empty pocket to the gaze of the multitude—that is—imbecile.” He threw out his hands with an expressive gesture.

“But to speak concretely—I have unhappily offended you, Miss Grayson. Something I have done or left undone—or my unfortunate personality does not engage your interest? Is it not true?”

There was no mistaking his almost passionate sincerity now, held in check by the man’s invincible composure.

But the girl still held aloof, her blue eyes cool and watchful. For the moment her face, in its young hardness, bore a curious resemblance to her father’s.

“Is that your question?” she demanded.

The count bowed silently. His lips were pale.

“Then I will tell you!” She spoke in a low voice surcharged with emotion. “I will give you candour for candour, and make an end of all this paltry masquerade.”

“That,” he murmured, “is what I most desire.”

Doris continued, heedless of the interruption. “It is true that I dislike you. I am glad to be able to say it to you, openly. And yet, perhaps, I should use another word. I dislike you and fear you in equal parts. I dislike your secrecy—something dark and hidden within you—and I fear your influence over my father.” Her voice faltered over the last word, and she paused.

Lady Dinsmore’s cheerful tones broke across the silence.

“Doris,” she charged, “you are preaching to the count. He is looking quite sulky and bored.”

He shook his head at her, smiling.

“My unfortunate face, it belies me. I was, in truth, deeply interested. Miss Grayson was speaking of her father.”

He turned back to the girl. “You will continue the—how you say—arraignment?” he asked gravely. “I would know the worst. I influence your father for evil—but how?”

Doris looked at him sombrely.

“I don’t know—exactly,” she admitted. “But you are somehow connected with the—the scheme—a terrible illegal scheme,” her voice was only just audible. “That I know to a certainty. Father spoke to me one day of you——”