The Strange Borders of Palace Crescent E-Book

E. Phillips Oppenheim

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Seitenzahl: 390

Beschreibung

Neither the day upon which Roger Ferrison, a tall sturdy young man of sufficiently pleasing appearance, presented himself at Mrs. Dewars Palace Crescent Boarding House, situated within a stones throw of the Hammersmith Road, nor the manner of his initiation presented any unusual incident. He stepped off a bus at the corner of the shabby but pretentious looking thoroughfare and, carrying a large kit bag in his hand, walked slowly along, scrutinising the numbers until he had found the one of which he was in search. He rang the bell of Number Fourteen, was peered at from the area below and, after a not unreasonable delay, was admitted by an elderly manservant of somewhat impressive appearance.

Leseprobe

THE STRANGE BOARDERS

OF PALACE CRESCENT

By

E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

© 2019 Librorium Editions

All rights reserved

CHAPTER I

Neither the day upon which Roger Ferrison, a tall sturdy young man of sufficiently pleasing appearance, presented himself at Mrs. Dewar’s Palace Crescent Boarding House, situated within a stone’s throw of the Hammersmith Road, nor the manner of his initiation presented any unusual incident. He stepped off a bus at the corner of the shabby but pretentious looking thoroughfare and, carrying a large kit bag in his hand, walked slowly along, scrutinising the numbers until he had found the one of which he was in search. He rang the bell of Number Fourteen, was peered at from the area below and, after a not unreasonable delay, was admitted by an elderly manservant of somewhat impressive appearance. He was thin but tall, and of athletic build. His striped jacket and carefully brushed black trousers conformed to type. He threw open the door hospitably and regarded the visitor’s bag with interest.

“You were wishing to see Mrs. Dewar, sir?” he enquired.

“I am the new boarder,” Roger Ferrison announced. “I called to see Mrs. Dewar the other day when, I understand, you were out. I should like to have a word with her before I go to my room, if she is disengaged.”

“Certainly, sir.”

The man carried the bag a few yards into the somewhat sombre and barely furnished hall, deposited it against the wall and led the way past the curtained-off apartment which seemed to be a sort of lounge, past a somewhat extensive hat-and-cloak room and through a green baize door a few yards along a much narrower passage on the left. He paused at a door on whose panel was painted the single word office, knocked in punctilious fashion and simultaneously ushered in the newcomer.

“Mr. Ferrison, Madam,” he announced. “Says he’s a new boarder. I have left his kit bag in the hall for the moment.”

The room was an epitome of uncouth untidiness and discomfort. Two hard cane chairs were set against the wall and a horsehair couch with a gaping wound in its side stood by the fireplace. Behind a cheap American roll-topped desk sat a woman who, though she lacked every form of feminine allure, seemed still in odd contrast to her unattractive surroundings. She was almost painfully thin—a defect which she accentuated by the plain black dress drawn tightly over her flat bosom. Her dark hair in which, curiously enough, there was not a streak of grey, was brushed severely back from her forehead. Her features were hard but regular, her grey eyes were almost stony in their calm. The sole adornment of her person was a singularly ugly cameo brooch. She looked at her visitor without any gleam of welcome in her face. It seemed impossible to believe, in fact, that her lips had ever been trained to smile. Nevertheless, her voice, when she spoke, startled the young man. He had seen something of several grades of life and he recognised it as what is mysteriously known as the voice of a lady.

“You are Mr. Ferrison, are you not?” she said. “You called last week and I showed you Number Sixteen which I think you agreed to take.”

“That’s right,” he assented. “It was arranged, you remember, that I should try it for a month at thirty-five shillings a week.”

“Including breakfast and dinner,” Mrs. Dewar amplified, “without coffee or any form of drink except water, and the first month to be paid in advance.”

“Quite so,” he agreed. “Here I am and here is the money.”

He produced a somewhat shabby pocketbook, came nearer to the desk and counted out seven limp-looking pound notes. The lady at the desk gathered them in, locked them in a small black cashbox and wrote out a receipt in a firm unhesitating hand. He watched her fingers as they gripped the pen. It seemed to him that they were like the talons of some bird of prey.

“I hope you will be comfortable, Mr. Ferrison,” she said. “We dine at half-past seven. My boarders generally assemble in the lounge, on the right as you came in, for a few minutes first. Apéritifs are supplied there, if you need one, at a low price. Are you in the habit of dressing for dinner?”

“I am afraid not,” Ferrison replied.

“That is of no consequence,” she continued, her tone remaining singularly monotonous. “My boarders do as they please. A place shall be allotted to you in the dining room.”

“If such a thing is possible,” he suggested, “I should like a table to myself. I drink nothing and am generally too tired at the end of the day to want to talk.”

Mrs. Dewar considered the matter.

“There is a small table just inside the door you might have,” she told him. “I will speak to Joseph about it. Joseph is our only manservant. He is not a wonderful waiter, but he is willing. You will just have time to wash your hands and look at your room once more before the gong goes. If your bag is heavy, I am afraid I must ask you to carry it up yourself.”

“I sha’n’t need any service of that sort,” Roger Ferrison assured her. “I have been in the colonies and I am quite used to doing things for myself.”

He left the room with a queer feeling that some one had been dropping cold water down his spine. Outside, Joseph was waiting. He had the air of one who has been listening.

“You will be staying here, sir?” he asked.

“I shall,” the new arrival answered. “You need not worry about my bag. I shall carry it up myself. You won’t find I shall be much trouble to you. I shave in cold water and I shall use the bathroom any time it is vacant after six o’clock.”

Joseph looked at him critically from underneath his bushy dark eyebrows—the most distinguishing feature of his face.

“Seems to me you are planning to be amongst the star boarders, sir,” he remarked.

“I don’t believe in giving trouble if I can help it,” Ferrison smiled.

“There’s one thing I’ve got to show you, sir,” the man confided, as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “It’s the only thing the old lady is really cranky about. You see this cloakroom, sir?”

He opened a door by the side of the lounge and displayed a long, narrow cupboard-like apartment. Upon one side of it was a row of hooks, a number painted above each and a slit below for a card. From most of the hooks were suspended keys.

“If you happen to have a card in your pocket, sir,” Joseph suggested, “I would be glad of it.”

“I have only a business card,” Roger Ferrison said, producing one.

“I’ll trim it up, sir, and make it fit,” the man replied. “The Missus will want to see that it’s in its place before she goes to bed to-night. The rule of the house is if you go out after dinner you take your key with you and come in silent. You come right in here and hang your key up. You are not supposed to take it up to your room or anything of that sort. Then, if Madam wants to see whether any of her boarders are out what she considers too late, she can come in here with a candle or a torch and see for herself.”

“Seems an odd idea,” the new boarder commented. “However, I won’t forget. I don’t suppose I shall use my key very often.”

“Them cinemas now,” Joseph observed, “they run away with a lot of money.”

“Quite right,” the young man agreed. “I very seldom go to them, myself. A book from the library and a quiet evening is more my form. I am on my feet most of the daytime.”

The butler glanced curiously at the kit bag.

“Any more luggage, sir?”

“I have a few odds and ends down at my office,” Roger told him. “If I decide to stay here I may bring them up.”

“Well, you may like it and you may not, sir,” Joseph remarked cryptically. “I’ve got to go and brush up now and bring the vermouth before dinner.”

He took his leave. Roger watched him for a moment with a certain degree of interest. There was something curiously inhuman about his appearance, with his thin neck, his heavy eyebrows and exceptionally smooth face, which looked as though he were relieved even from the necessity of using a razor. Roger Ferrison, as he marched up the stairs carrying his bag, decided that the pair of them—his landlady and the butler, the only two he had met of his new associates—were both human beings of an unusual type.

CHAPTER II

At a few minutes past seven o’clock that evening Roger Ferrison, having carefully brushed his brown business suit and indulged in the luxury of a clean collar, descended to the lounge. He entered without curiosity, without even that interest which a healthily minded young man of twenty-five might naturally be expected to feel in the little company of people who were to be his occasional associates for, at any rate, the next two weeks. Life had almost a stranglehold upon him in those days and he was living chiefly upon his courage. Nevertheless, a certain kindliness of disposition and a leaven of good manners kept him more or less in touch with the acquaintances of the moment. Mrs. Dewar came forward to greet him.

“I shall not introduce you to every one,” she announced. “You will soon find out who people are for yourself but you should perhaps know Mr. Luke, my oldest supporter here.”

A man of youthful middle age, pale, with light-coloured eves, greying hair, but with a certain amount of strength in his face, detached himself from a little group of men and held out his hand to Roger.

“Hope you will like it here, Mr. Ferrison,” he said. “We are not a very sociable crowd, I am afraid, but that too has advantages.”

Roger Ferrison shook hands and made some indeterminate speech. He was introduced to three or four others, commercial men apparently of his own standing but possibly more prosperous. Several ladies’ names were mentioned but in such a manner that a bow was sufficient. Then Mrs. Dewar led him a little further into the room. A girl, who on first appearance seemed to Roger to be startlingly beautiful, was seated in an easy-chair with three or four young men gathered around her. She was very thin and very pale, but her copper-coloured hair was beautifully coiffured, parted in the middle and brushed smoothly back. She had hazel eyes and artistically treated lips. She would have been noticeable anywhere but in the crowd which was gathered in Mrs. Dewar’s lounge she possessed a very rare and palpable distinction. She held out her hand with a smile to Roger.

“I hope you will like it here and stay with us a long time, Mr. Ferrison,” she said. “We need a few younger people. That is where Mrs. Dewar and I sometimes do not agree. She likes all these elderly, staid, successful professional and business people. Some of us would like a little more frivolity.”

“I’m afraid I sha’n’t be much of a help in that direction,” Roger Ferrison acknowledged, smiling. “I have to work very hard indeed, and where I live and what I do after business hours just now seems to make no difference to me. You like to dance and that sort of thing, I expect?”

There was a queer silence around the chair. A young man kicked him lightly on the foot. Suddenly Roger became aware of two large rubber-shod ebony sticks leaning against the chair. The colour mounted almost to his forehead. The young woman hastened to relieve his embarrassment.

“Of course, I should love to, Mr. Ferrison,” she said. “Just now, you see, I cannot. I have had an accident, but I like people to realise that I want to, all the same. Still, there are other things—theatres, cinemas, all manner of amusements, for which I think we young people ought to have more appetite than some of our elders.”

“I’m so sorry,” Roger apologised. “I had no idea.”

“Of course you hadn’t,” she interrupted. “And believe me, I’m not at all sensitive. Some day, I am convinced, something will happen—some great doctor will lay hands upon me and I shall throw away my sticks and you shall teach me all the new dances.”

“I hope you will find a better teacher,” he observed. “And indeed, Miss Quayne, it is so kind of you to make light of my blunder.”

She laughed happily at him.

“How on earth were you to know?” she questioned. “Come and talk to me after dinner, won’t you?”

He passed on. A slim pretty girl in a simple frock, a little shy and just a little shabby, reminded him somehow of himself, as he made his way across the hall. She was evidently of no great importance, however, for he did not remember that Mrs. Dewar had mentioned her name.

Roger found that his wish had been granted. He was seated at a very small, very uncomfortable table between the service entrance and the sideboard, but he shared it with no one. There was a carafe of water on his table in place of the usual bottle or half bottle of wine or whisky with their clip labels. The linen, he noticed, although coarse in quality, was clean and the table utensils bright and well polished. From his point of vantage he took stock of the assembled company. His first impressions were drab enough. The only person who stood out at all seemed to be the lame Miss Quayne. She was also the only one who shared her table with no other guest, but unlike his own, hers was in the best position, facing the door, on the other side of the room in a pleasant corner. She sat with a book in front of her in which she was apparently absorbed. She was served different food from the others on a different sort of china, and he admired the colour of the wine—a faint amber—which sparkled in her glass. Once she looked up and their eyes met. She smiled across the room at him, a smile that left him for a moment puzzled. She was trying to say something but his wits were not sufficiently acute to receive the message. He bit his lip in some discomfiture. He was rather a stupid person, he feared, amidst a crowd. He would have been better in a solitary room, even if he had been unable to afford regular meals. The shy little girl whom he had thought so pretty coming in seemed to him to have been watching his discomfiture. There was a touch of sympathy in her dark shaded eyes which he resented. Perhaps that was the reason why, when he entered the lounge after dinner, he ignored the fact that she was seated upon a divan by herself and joined the handful of young men who were hanging around Flora Quayne’s chair.

“How nice of you to come and talk to me, Mr. Ferrison,” she said. “Bring a chair up, won’t you? I am sure you are tired. You look as though you had had a long day’s work. Or sit here, won’t you?”

Roger, who had been on his feet since eight o’clock in the morning, glanced around but, finding no chair, accepted her gestured invitation and sat on the arm of her fauteuil.

“You must know these other kind friends of mine, Mr. Ferrison,” she went on. “This is Mr. Reginald Barstowe, our Beau Brummel, who is in a bank somewhere and sends me beautiful flowers. He has a great many friends and is a terrible gadabout, but I always feel we shall know all about him some day!”

Mr. Barstowe, a dark, olive-skinned young man, who was one of the few beside Mr. Luke who wore a dinner jacket, nodded to Roger and looked at the speaker speculatively.

“What do you expect to find out about me, Miss Quayne?” he enquired. “I am a very simple person and my life is an open book.”

“Oh, you are in finance and that is always mysterious,” Miss Quayne observed, “and you go rushing off to the continent and come back looking as though you had just saved the country from sudden terrible disaster. You talk gold. Mr. Bernascon too. What do we others know about gold?”

“What do I know, or Bernascon either, for that matter, about Walter Pater?” the young man demanded, turning over the book that lay in her lap. “We each have our way to travel in life. I dare say even from a very ordinary boarding house like this the roads branch out in many different ways.”

“I should like to compare notes with you all some day,” Flora Quayne remarked. “I think there is something very interesting about the day-by-day life of even the simplest human being. Look at Mr. Luke over there, reading a detective story all by himself in that corner. Does any one know what he does in life—what he is interested in? He talks a great deal and he talks about very interesting things, and we know that he belongs to the best clubs and is a very good golfer, but I have never heard him say a single self-revealing word as to what his tastes really are.”

Bernascon, a shrewd, powerful-looking man, carelessly dressed yet with something of an air, joined in the conversation.

“You never know what an Englishman’s business is,” he said “When I was living down at Forest Hill, I travelled up to London off and on in the same carriage with a neighbour for two years before I found out that during all that time he ought to have been a customer of mine. We lose a lot by our taciturnity.”

“Kind of self-consciousness, I suppose,” a young man named Lashwood observed, whom every one knew to be a manufacturer of leather trifles in the East End. “I do my own travelling and meet so many people I know in my job that I could not keep it quiet if I wanted to. On the other hand, present company excluded, I have been here two or three years and there have been at least a score of fellow boarders I have sat down and talked to and taken a drink with, exchanged cards and all that sort of thing. I have seen them walk down the street, hop on and off busses, run against them sometimes in the City, and yet I haven’t the faintest idea what line they are in.”

“Wonderful place, the City,” Mr. Bernascon reflected. “Millions of us crawling about like flies and not one of us has the slightest conception of what the man he jostles in the crowd is thinking about, or who he is or what he is making out of life.”

Flora Quayne smiled.

“I think,” she said, “that there is a certain dignity about reticence. I like to think that all my friends, at any rate, have a secret side to their lives, one which they don’t talk about. What do you think, Mr. Ferrison?”

Ferrison, whose thoughts for a moment had flashed into a dingy, barely furnished office, half of which had been converted into a sort of carpenter’s shop, and who had spent more than an hour that day with his partner, plotting how to avert the bankruptcy which seemed to be waiting around the corner, was prompt in his acquiescence.

“Other people’s affairs do not really interest anybody,” he agreed. “We pretend to be interested sometimes but it is mostly politeness. If you’ve got hold of a good thing and are making a lot of money, they are generally jealous and hate you if you mention it; and if you are desperately hard up and are fool enough to acknowledge it they think you want to borrow, and sheer off. I am all for every man minding his own business.”

“You look like that,” Flora Quayne declared approvingly. “I rather admire independence.”

“It is more difficult,” Mr. Bernascon meditated, “to keep quiet about your good luck than your bad. I once knew about the same time a friend who had won three thousand pounds in one of those sweeps and another who had made a bad debt in his business of about the same amount. I had always looked upon them as being men of the same temperament but you don’t suppose the fellow who had made that big loss went around talking about it. He kept his mouth closed as tight as wax. But, my God, we used to run when we saw the other chap coming!”

“Talking of good fortune,” Flora Quayne remarked, “Some kind friend has sent me a box for the Carlton Cinema to-morrow night. Every one says it is such a good film. Who would like to be my escort?”

“All of us,” they promptly declared.

“Then you will all be disappointed,” she continued, smiling. “I am going to ask our latest comer—Mr. Ferrison. Mr. Ferrison, will you be my escort, please? It doesn’t commence until half-past nine. Morning clothes will be quite all right,” she added hastily.

Ferrison shook his head.

“It is very kind of you, Miss Quayne,” he said. “I couldn’t possibly go.”

Her eyebrows slowly went up. Her fingers were twitching. The others, who knew her better, recognised the signs. Ferrison, on the other hand, never for a moment imagined that hers was a deliberate choice or that she would be disappointed in any way at his refusal.

“To tell you the truth,” he explained, “I am being a little worried just now. My work has been terribly hard. I should find no pleasure in attempting to amuse myself.”

Mr. Reginald Barstowe straightened his tie.

“I’m longing to see that film,” he said hopefully.

“I sha’n’t go myself,” Flora Quayne declared pettishly. “I shall send the tickets back. I am sorry to have put you to the discourtesy of refusing my invitation, Mr. Ferrison,” she added. “Mr. Barstowe, will you help me, please? I am going to that divan on the other side of the room. There is a draught here.”

The young man stepped eagerly forward. The girl shook out her skirts and rose. She looked very elegant and beautiful in the shaded lamplight. The light waft of perfume from the handkerchief which she had pressed to her lips reminded Roger of lilac and spring crocuses. He looked after her blankly. Mr. Luke turned towards him. One of his imperturbable smiles flickered at the corners of his lips.

“You will get used to Miss Quayne’s moods in time, if you stay here, Mr. Ferrison,” he remarked. “We all spoil her because of her affliction. And if,” he went on, “you will pardon my saying so, it is diplomatic to keep friends with her. She is what in our world we call a star boarder. She pays Mrs. Dewar twice as much as any one else, has the best room, specially cooked food and is altogether quite a power in the place.”

“Thanks very much for your advice,” the young man said ruefully. “I never dreamed that she would care whether I went or not. I have not known her more than an hour or so. Seems to me,” he went on, “she is rather an unusual sort of young woman to meet at a cheap boarding house.”

Mr. Luke, who was standing with his hands behind his back, looked out into vacancy.

“Boarding houses,” he pronounced, “are strange places. I read a successful novel lately about an hotel. The idea was the lifting of the roofs in the various rooms, seeing something of people when they were really themselves and not as they wished other people to see them—in character, as well as behaviour. Most interesting book. I sometimes think even in a fourth-rate struggling establishment like this one might get a few shocks if anything of the same sort happened. We seem a very ordinary lot of people but I expect we too have our eccentricities. I think,” he added, as he moved away, “I shall have an hour with the Times before I turn in. The financial situation abroad makes one feel very nervous these days.”

Roger Ferrison had a queer fancy as he watched the unhurried departure of the slim grey man with the colourless complexion and eyes. It came and went like a flash. The crisis in his own affairs was too acute for outside fancies. Nevertheless, he went up to his room with the conviction that if he had time or inclination to be interested in them, he should find his fellow boarders in Palace Crescent a queer lot.

Some hours later he stood downstairs in the cloakroom, an electric torch in his hand, staring at the long row of pegs opposite in blank amazement. A restless night and a loose bulb had forced him downstairs into the lounge for matches. On his way back a sudden impulse came to him to glance at that row of keys. He had heard the good nights, he had heard the footsteps upon the stairs, yet from five out of sixteen of those pegs the keys were absent! Five of the boarders from Palace Crescent, at two o’clock in the morning, had either broken the rule of the establishment and taken their keys up into their rooms or were spending the early hours of the morning threading the secret byways of the sleepless City.

CHAPTER III

“There’s a note for you in the rack, Mr. Ferrison,” Joseph informed him on his arrival at Palace Crescent soon after six the following evening. “Don’t forget to hang your key up before you go upstairs.”

Roger Ferrison looked at him sharply.

“Why is it so important for me to hang my key up?” he demanded.

Joseph seemed a little taken aback.

“No offence, sir,” he apologised. “Only it is the rule of the house and the only one, it seems to me, that Madam sets much store by. The moment you come in, you hang your key up. Any one telephones or asks if Mr. Ferrison is in, just a glance at the board and we know if you are here. It is convenient in many ways.”

Ferrison drew his key from his pocket and hung it on the hook marked Number Sixteen.

“There you are then,” he pointed out. “Now, tell me—does every one obey Mrs. Dewar’s request?”

“I should say that the gentlemen are perfectly wonderful at it, sir. They have got into it now as a matter of habit. As soon as they enter the house up goes the key.”

“Really? And suppose they go out again in the evenings?”

“Simple matter to pull it down again, sir.”

“And when they come in at night—supposing they are a little tired or thinking about other things?”

“Makes no difference, sir. I must say they are most respectful in doing what they are asked. If by any chance any one is out late at a theatre, or a bit of supper afterwards, or anything of that sort, the key’s hanging up there before they go to bed.”

Roger remembered last night and felt that he was being watched. For some undefined reason he held his peace. He had been on the point of referring to those five empty hooks. Something in the man’s stealthy regard made him change his mind.

“Let’s hope I will fall into line with the rest,” he observed, “if ever I am out late. Must be a mistake about that note, Joseph. There’s not a soul knows my address except my partner and I have just left him.”

“The note is from Madam, sir.”

Roger felt a sudden sinking of the heart. If for any reason he had displeased any one? If he was to be turned out? If even a portion of the seven pounds was to be impounded? He strode to the letter rack, took down the note and read it rapidly. After all, it seemed harmless enough.

Dear Mr. Ferrison, (he read)

Would you be so kind as to step in and see me for a moment if you are home from business before six-thirty this evening.

Faithfully yours,

Hannah Dewar

“Is Mrs. Dewar in her room?” Ferrison asked.

“She is there and she will be there for another half an hour, sir,” the man confided. “At seven o’clock punctual she goes to dress. There never was such a lady for punctuality as Mrs. Dewar.”

Roger pushed open the baize door, walked down the passage, knocked at the door of the office and was immediately bidden to enter. Mrs. Dewar, sphinxlike as ever, was seated at her desk, adding up some figures in a small ledger before her. She set down the pen at his entrance.

“Won’t you sit down for a moment, Mr. Ferrison?” she invited.

“You won’t want me for long, will you, Mrs. Dewar?” he replied, seating himself gingerly, however, on the edge of one of the cane chairs. “Hope I have not been doing anything wrong—breaking any of the rules of the house or anything of that sort?”

“Certainly not, Mr. Ferrison. I am sure your behaviour has been everything that could be expected. What I am going to ask you is more in the light of a favour.”

Mrs. Dewar had not in the least the appearance of a woman to whom the asking of favours was a usual thing. If there was any change in her at all, it was a certain hesitancy which seemed to denote a distaste for the situation.

“You made the acquaintance last night,” she began, “of a young lady—Miss Quayne.”

“Yes,” Roger admitted briefly.

“Miss Quayne,” his landlady continued, “is a very valued client of this establishment. She is very much liked and respected by all my boarders. They have, perhaps, got into the habit of spoiling her. Miss Quayne’s affliction makes her very sensitive.”

“Well?”

“She invited you, Mr. Ferrison, to accompany her to the cinema, to-night I think it was, or to-morrow. This was meant as a compliment to you because you are the newest arrival here. You found yourself unable to accept her invitation.”

“I thought it was remarkably kind of her,” Roger acknowledged, “but I am not in a position to accept that sort of invitation at present.”

“Might one enquire why not?”

Roger’s eyebrows were slightly upraised.

“Isn’t that rather an unusual request?” he queried, “Need I do more than say that it does not suit me to accept any invitations for the present?”

The chill immoveability of the woman was disturbed. One might almost have said that there was a certain amount of pleading in her cold eyes as she turned towards him.

“Mr. Ferrison,” she explained, “the welfare of this house is largely dependent upon the caprices of Miss Quayne. I think that my other clients understand this. They do their best to humour her. She was very much upset at your refusal to go to the cinema.”

“But, my dear Mrs. Dewar,” he protested, “it is perfectly natural, surely, that I might find myself unable to go?”

“Why?”

He half rose to his feet, then he sat down again with a little laugh.

“Well, I’m not sure that it will not be better for me to answer that question,” he said, “although it seems to me rather an unusual one. Fact number one, then. I not only have not evening clothes fit to be seen in with a young lady at night, but I haven’t another suit of clothes to my name,—even my stock of linen is practically exhausted. You have seven pounds of mine, which is very nearly all I had left and, if I don’t succeed in what I am trying to do by the time my month is up, I shall be completely and utterly broke. I couldn’t pay for a programme for Miss Quayne. I couldn’t pay for a taxi. I couldn’t offer her supper afterwards, or any of the amenities which she would have a right to expect. How can I accept an invitation from a young lady under those conditions?”

“Is that all?” Mrs. Dewar asked, and he fancied that there was a note of relief in her tone.

“Of course it is all. Isn’t it enough?”

“It is a matter of pride, then,” she said. “I sympathise with you because I have been proud myself in the days when I had sufficient courage. Could I not appeal to you, Mr. Ferrison, to put your pride in your pocket for the sake of doing a good action? Miss Quayne is not quite like other young ladies.”

He deliberated for a moment, then he laughed again.

“The thing is not worth talking about,” he decided. “If, under all the circumstances, Miss Quayne desires my escort, I will go with pleasure—this once. I don’t mind what I do once but nothing would induce me to make a habit of it. Not that she is likely to ask me again, anyway.”

It appeared to him that the relief in his landlady’s face was immeasurable. He failed to understand it. It was another of the small mysteries which seemed to multiply in this place.

“Would you be so kind, Mr. Ferrison,” she begged, “as to step down to her room and tell her that you will be pleased to go? It is the next but one to this, on the same side. She has had rather a bad day. She suffers a good deal of pain sometimes. It wouldn’t take you a minute.”

He rose brusquely to his feet. He was looking forward with distaste to the whole enterprise.

“Very good,” he conceded. “I’ll do as you ask.”

He left the room, knocked at the second door on the left and was at once bidden to enter. His eyebrows were raised in surprise as he crossed the threshold. Here was an apartment utterly different to anything the mind could have conceived in connection with Palace Crescent. His feet sank into a beautiful Turkey rug of one of those faint Eastern shades something between mauve and blue. The silk curtains were of the same colour. There was Louis Quinze furniture in the room—genuine—two great bowls of flowers upon the table, a pile of books, a wood fire burning in the grate, although it was already May. Flora Quayne, who had been lying upon a couch, sat up and held out her hands.

“How sweet of you to come and see me, Mr. Ferrison!” she exclaimed. “It means you have changed your mind about the cinema, doesn’t it? Or the opera—or the theatre—anything you like. I have so many kind friends—they send me boxes for everything. Do sit down there. It is a real man’s chair. Unless you like to go on holding my hands—I don’t mind.”

He backed away a little awkwardly—all the more so because he fancied her eyes were inviting him to remain where he was. He sank into the depths of a very comfortable easy-chair.

“If it really gives you any pleasure, Miss Quayne,” he said, “I would love to go to the cinema with you. Frankly, I refused because this is the only suit of clothes I possess in the world and I shall have to treat you to my last collar. I cannot send you flowers. I can do no more than pay your taxi and buy your programme. As for supper afterwards, that’s out of the question. I should have accepted your invitation with pleasure if I had been able to treat you properly in these ways.”

She laughed softly.

“What an idiot you are,” she crooned. “As though they mattered, anyhow! I am not poor, but it is not to my credit. The money I have has been left or given to me. Don’t think of that again, please.”

“All right,” he muttered, none too graciously. “On those conditions I shall be delighted.”

“I cannot offer to buy you a suit of clothes,” she went on, “but those you have look very nice. I shall be ready half an hour after dinner this evening and please, Mr. Ferrison, there will be no expenses at all. As I dare say you don’t know, I own a car, so no taxicab will be necessary. My maid always sees me into the theatre or wherever I go, so I never have to look about for silver. I am terribly sorry, of course,” she concluded, “to hear that you are going through a bad time, but it doesn’t make the faintest particle of difference.”

He looked at her, glanced round the room and looked back at her again. There was luxury everywhere—in the drooping roses, a great bunch of orchids in the background, the books and magazines, the little jewelled knickknacks on her table. He felt a sudden admiration for her restraint. He was perfectly certain that it was owing to her sense of the fitness of things that she came in to dinner so simply dressed and without jewellery.

“Well,” she remarked, with an amused little smile, “you seem to be rather taking stock of me.”

“Perhaps in a way I was,” he admitted. “I was sorry, by the way, to hear from Mrs. Dewar that you were not well.”

“I am never well,” she told him, “when I don’t get my own way. Look at those lines under my eyes. They are there just because I was angry. When I come into dinner, you will see nothing of them. Don’t you feel a magician?”

The words of common sense were upon his lips but he suddenly remembered her infirmity. She must be young, too, he decided.

“I am only too glad,” he said, “that Mrs. Dewar explained matters to me. If it gives you any pleasure to have me take you out to-night, I shall be delighted.”

“You would not care to come and sit at my table for dinner, I suppose?” she invited.

“Do you mind if I don’t?” he begged. “I have my own way of doing things here and I don’t want to interfere with them. In a few months’ time things may be different and then I’ll take you to the Ritz and give you the best dinner I can order and take you to any show you like afterwards.”

“I should love that,” she told him, “but I should be just as glad to be hostess. I won’t press you about dinner to-night. We will meet in the lounge afterwards.”

At nine o’clock she escaped from the little circle of men, who seemed always to surround her after dinner, and came across to him. He felt himself for the moment touched by the obvious efforts at simplicity which her toilette betrayed. She was wearing a very plain black dress of some material which looked to him like velvet, and a small hat to match. The only ornament was a diamond clasp with which it was fastened. She handed him opera glasses and her bag.

“Now for our expedition,” she exclaimed gaily. “Of course, you know you have all sorts of things to do for me. I hope you won’t mind. I have to be carried down these steps. That’s the reason Mr. Luke will never take me out.”

“If I were a young Goliath like Mr. Ferrison,” Mr. Luke said, “there is nothing I should glory in so much as showing you my strength.”

They made their way into the hall. The maid, who was fussing round, gave him a hint or two and he carried her like a child through the door, down the steps and into the waiting limousine. She sank into her corner with a sigh of pleasure.

“You held me as though I were a bag of feathers,” she laughed.

“You can’t pretend that you are much of a weight, can you?”

She pouted a little.

“I have known men quite as strong as you who have been out of breath when they set me down. Marie,” she went on, speaking to her maid, “you will ride with George in front to the Carlton Picture House and show Mr. Ferrison how to help me. Then you can go and see your sister, if you like, but be back at twelve o’clock.”

“Very good, Madam.”

She held his hand all the way to the theatre. Her fingers felt to him hot and feverish.

“You must not think,” she said, “that because I need so many attentions I am a helpless invalid. I am really nothing of the kind. My leg is not withered or anything of that sort. This lameness of mine is simply the result of an accident. Once or twice I have almost been able to walk alone. A doctor in Vienna is sending me a masseuse next month and she and my London man are hoping to make a tremendous difference.”

“I am very glad,” he assured her. “I wish that you could be cured altogether. I hope that you will be some day.”

“I think I shall be,” she confided. “I am not ambitious for great things. I just want to live my life as other women live theirs. They all say there is no reason why I shouldn’t.”

“I don’t know much about it,” he admitted, “but I can’t imagine why you shouldn’t.”

“If I marry the sort of man that I should like to marry,” she said, “I hope that we shall live in Italy. I do need more warmth and a drier climate; then I should be quite all right.”

“Would it be awfully impertinent of me if I asked you why on earth you stay at Palace Crescent?”

She was silent for a moment.

“I have known Mrs. Dewar all my life,” she confided. “She has had great misfortunes. I fancy that my being there helps a little. She does a great deal for me too—it is not all one-sided—and my rooms are very nice. You must come and look at them again when you are not in such a hurry. Do you mind carrying my small bag when we get to the theatre? You will find any quantity of small silver in there which you must use as it is necessary. Tell me, Mr. Ferrison,” she went on, changing the conversation suddenly, “are you engaged—perhaps even married or anything of that sort? Have you any very serious ties?”

He shook his head.

“I haven’t had much time to think of that sort of thing,” he said. “My family history is not worth knowing. My father was a furniture manufacturer in the Midlands, but the war and the aftermath of the war ruined his business and we all had to do what we could for ourselves. Fortunately I have no one dependent upon me. I went out to Canada. Stuck it for two years, but I couldn’t make a living. Then I came back and I’ve settled down to see if I can do anything in London. It doesn’t seem easy, though. My only brother is in the Civil Service in India and doing moderately well. My only sister married a rich man, thank heavens. I see her sometimes but she is absorbed in her home and her children. One gets like that, you know.”

“So you are really quite alone?”

“Absolutely and entirely, and likely to be. Sometimes I think I’ll have to chuck it all and go back to Canada. It is a man’s life there, at any rate.”

Her fingers gripped his tightly.

“You must not do anything of the sort,” she insisted. “You must just stay here where you are. Perhaps not for long. I never make promises. I tire of people so easily. I don’t think I should tire of you, though. I am like all partially disabled and weakly people. I adore strength. The way you lifted me! Well, I’d better not talk about it,” she broke off, with a little laugh. “I might make you shy. You are shy, I believe, aren’t you?”

“I am not used to young people or women or social stunts of any sort, if that’s what you mean,” he confessed. “You see Canada takes that out of you pretty well.”

“What made you come to Palace Crescent?” she asked abruptly.

“An advertisement in the Weekly Despatch,” he answered. “In a way, I would rather have had a room than a boarding house, because I am not used to people but, to be quite frank,” he admitted, a gleam of humour in his eyes, “I could not get enough to eat anywhere except at a boarding house. Food is awfully dear when you have to buy only enough for one, and a decent room takes up quite a lot of money.”

“I wonder why you chose Palace Crescent,” she meditated. “Anyhow, I’m glad you did. I’ll tell Mrs. Dewar that you are to be fed up.”

“For heaven’s sake, don’t do anything of the sort,” he begged. “Besides, for what they charge, I think it’s wonderful. I have not been so well looked after for a long time.”

“You are nice looking, you know,” she said suddenly.

“Don’t be absurd,” he protested. “My hands are hard and rough. My skin is baked dry with the sun.”

“Your hands are a man’s hands, anyhow,” she interrupted, “and I like that lean, hard face of yours. You won’t let me fall in love with you, will you, Mr. Roger Ferrison?”

“You couldn’t if you tried,” he assured her.

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “I am very susceptible. . . . Isn’t it absurd that we are there already?”

This time there was no carrying. With Roger on one side and the maid on the other, she limped gracefully across the pavement, down the corridor and into the box. With a little sigh of content she established herself in an easy-chair and made Roger draw his seat up to her side.

“There is only rubbish going on now,” she explained. “The real thing starts in ten minutes. Sit close to me and tell me some nice things. Tell me how you are going to stop my falling in love with you if I want to.”

“By not falling in love with you,” he answered.

Her silence chilled him. He suddenly felt that he was a boor. He ought to have remembered that she was ultra-sensitive. He laughed awkwardly.

“Make allowances for me, please,” he begged. “I am a rough man of the woods. I have scarcely a penny in the world and I may have to go out and earn my labourer’s wage at any moment. Being with you here in surroundings like this makes me feel—well, like a bull in a china shop. You will have to forgive me for everything I say that is wrong and remember only that I am terribly grateful to you for being so sweet to me and,” he went on, with a sudden influx of courage, “in that gown and hat I think you look simply adorable.”

She leaned towards him and slipped her fingers in his.

“You have said exactly the right thing,” she whispered.

There was very nearly another outburst about his steady refusal to go anywhere, even to a grillroom, for supper, but on the whole the evening passed without any of the threatened storms. The chauffeur took the key and opened the door of the boarding house and Roger carried her up. He would have taken her into the lounge but she tugged at his neck.

“Don’t go there,” she insisted. “There are people sitting up. You must carry me to my room.”

He obeyed. The lights were turned on there and a wood fire had been made up. From the adjoining room, the door of which was open, there came the pleasant sound of the bath being filled and the odour of bath salts. In front of the fire, also, on a small table, was set a silver plate of sandwiches, a small bottle of champagne in a bucket, whisky and a syphon. She threw off her hat and made him draw up her couch to the table.

“You are lucky to-night,” she told him. “If it had been Marie’s night out, you would have had to help me with my frock. As it is, she will be back in a quarter of an hour or so. Do help yourself to sandwiches and—which do you prefer—wine or whisky? I thought so,” she went on, as he chose the latter without hesitation. “Please open the champagne for me then and help yourself.”

None too skilfully, he did as he was bidden. Her ease and graciousness, however, did much towards putting him at his ease. She was seated upright on the sofa at the other side of the small table and there was amusement, as well as something which seemed to be affection, in her beautiful eyes as she watched him.

“I believe,” she laughed, “that this is the first time you have ever had supper alone with a girl in her own room.”

“I am quite sure it is,” he answered emphatically. “In Canada we had a man’s mess—never saw the women except an odd waitress now and then.”

“Were they very attractive, the waitresses?” she asked.

“One never looked at them,” he replied. “The work and the outdoor life seemed to reduce one to a sort of coma. All one thought of was going to sleep at the end of the day.”

“Well, I’m glad I have no rivals across the sea, then,” she smiled. “Would you be very sweet, please, and go and turn my bath off? Marie will be here in a few minutes but that may be too late.”

He rose to his feet impetuously, nearly upsetting the small table, made his way across the room with its various treasures, into a bathroom such as he had never seen before in his life. The bath itself, which was within a few inches of running over, was sunken and fashioned of marble which matched the colour of the hangings. Indefinable and nebulous garments were laid out a short distance away. He turned off the tap and hurried back. She looked at him with an amused smile.

“Did you like my bathroom?” she asked.

“Looks like something out of a fairy tale,” he answered.

“You didn’t look about you too much, I hope?”

“I saw—a few things,” he confessed, “and I dipped my fingers in the water—the perfume was so wonderful.”

“Silly! Give me some more wine, please.”

He obeyed. She took one of his hands and stroked the long brown fingers.

“Yes, your hands are hard,” she meditated, “and your nails are shocking. Never mind. I’ll manicure them one day.”

“It wouldn’t be worth while,” he assured her. “I do several hours’ carpentering every day and I should only break my nails.”

“I like your fingers, anyway,” she went on. “They are so strong. I am like all people who have been invalids—I don’t consider myself an invalid any longer because my leg is so much better—I adore strength. I suppose we are all the same—it is something to cling to. . . . There, if you have finished your sandwiches, take a cigarette and give me one. Light it for me if you will.”

He performed his task with some trepidation. She leaned back upon the couch.

“Do you know,” she confided, “that you are the first of Mrs. Dewar’s boarders—except Mr. Luke, and he only once—who has seen my rooms? What do you think of them?”