An Amiable Charlatan Part 38

shops," Mr. Bundercombe replied.

"Where are you spending most of your time?" I asked, determined to take the bull by the horns.

Mr. Bundercombe set down his gla.s.s.

"I've been expecting this," he remarked pleasantly. "Eve's been setting you on to pump me, eh?"

I nodded.

"That's exactly it," I admitted. "We are due to be married in ten days. We are neither of us anxious for anything in the way of an unfortunate incident."

Mr. Bundercombe appeared to view with surprise the advent of a second tumbler. He reconciled himself to its arrival, however, and handed money to the attendant.

"I realize the position entirely, my dear fellow," he a.s.sured me. "I am glad you have opened the subject up. I have been bursting to tell you all about it; but I have hesitated for fear of being misunderstood."

I glanced at his nails.

"Of course," I observed slowly, "the position of an elderly gentleman with a marriageable daughter and a wife," I went on bravely, "who finances a young lady interested in manicuring in an establishment in Bond Street is liable to misinterpretation."

Mr. Bundercombe was a little taken aback. He hid his face for a moment behind the newly arrived tumbler.

"Kind of observant, aren't you?" he remarked.

"I saw you in Bond Street this morning," I told him, "you and a paper parcel. You were entering the establishment, I believe, of Mademoiselle Blanche, whoever she is."

"Small place, London!" Mr. Bundercombe sighed. "Were you--er--alone?"

"I was with Eve," I replied; "but she did not see you and I did not mention the matter."

"My boy," Mr. Bundercombe decided, "I shall take you wholly into my confidence. I am engaged in a big affair!" My heart sank.

"I can only pray to Heaven," I said fervently, "that the denouement of this affair will not take place within the next ten days."

"On the contrary," Mr. Bundercombe answered, leaning back in his chair and looking at me, with the flat of one hand laid on the table and the palm of the other on his left knee, "on the contrary," he repeated, "the denouement is due to-morrow."

"Glad you didn't consider us," I observed gloomily.

Mr. Bundercombe smiled.

"I find myself in this last affair," he remarked airily, "occupying what I must confess, for me, is a somewhat peculiar position. I am on the side of the established authorities. I am in the cast-iron position of the man who falls into line with the law of the land. In other words, you behold in me, so far as regards this affair, respectability and rect.i.tude personified. I may even choose to give our friend Mr. Cullen a leg up."

I was relieved to hear it and told him so.

"I presume," I said, "that Mademoiselle Blanche, of Bond Street, is identical with the young lady who talked to us at Stephano's the other night?"

"Say, you're becoming perfectly wonderful at the art of deduction!" my future father-in-law declared. "Same person!"

"She seems quite attractive," I admitted, "with a taste for pink roses, I think."

Mr. Bundercombe appeared to regard my remark as frivolous. He moved his chair, however, and brought it closer to mine.

"I dare say you remember," he went on, "how the young lady proposed to me that night that I should finance a little venture in which she and her sleepy-eyed friend opposite were interested."

I nodded.

"Yes, I remember that."

"From that," Mr. Bundercombe continued, "she went on to suggest that I should help her in the ambition of her life, which, it seems, was to take a single room for manicuring a few clients. In an ordinary way I should have refused that, too; and, if she had been hard up, begged to be allowed to oblige her with a trifling loan--and ended the matter in that way. The reason I didn't was simply because I felt convinced that her desire to require a single room in the manicure business was somehow a.s.sociated with the scheme she had at first suggested. Therefore I temporized. I appeared to be interested. I asked her in what locality she wished to commence business. She never hesitated. There was only one place she wanted and that was the room she's got. Just to test her I took her to see really slap-up premises in another part of Bond Street. She pretended to look at them, but never took the slightest interest. It was just one room she wanted--and one room only.

"I realized that both she and her friend were either too desperately hard up to engage that room or else they were particularly anxious to do it in some one else's name. That was quite enough for me. I engaged the room."

I glanced once more at Mr. Bundercombe's nails. "You, at any rate," I remarked, "have been a faithful customer."

"Paul," Mr. Bundercombe continued, "I am playing a part. I am playing the part of a silly old fool. It isn't easy sometimes, but I am keeping it up.

I spend a good part of my time in that beastly little parlor, having my nails done over and over again. The girl is bored to death; and I--though I flatter myself I don't show it--I guess I'm bored to death too. I've kept it up all right until now and the job comes off to-morrow. Miss Blanche is convinced that my interest in her is sentimental and she has occasionally not been quite so careful as she might have been. I have picked up here and there certain small details that enable me to form a very fair idea as to the nature of this venture in which I was invited to partic.i.p.ate. The last few days I have been hesitating whether I should take you into my confidence or not. As it happens you have forced it. Have you anything particular to do to-morrow?"

I thought for a moment. "Nothing very much until the late afternoon, when I go down to the House," I replied.

"Then to-morrow you shall see the end of this thing with me," Mr.

Bundercombe promised. "If luck goes our way you will find we shall have quite a pleasant few minutes."

Eve put her head in at the tent and we hastened to join her. She drew me a little on one side.

"I think it's all right," I told her.

"I am so glad," she replied. "And, Paul, hadn't you better drop dad a hint that Mrs. Bundercombe will be home to-morrow? I think he'd better have the shine taken off his nails!"

At twelve o'clock the next morning I met Mr. Bundercombe by appointment in the Burlington Arcade. We strolled slowly round into Bond Street. Mr.

Bundercombe was, for him, unusually serious. He looked about him all the time with swift, careful glances. As we turned into Bond Street his pace became slower and slower. Within a yard or two of the spot where I had first seen him disappear he paused, and under pretense of talking earnestly to me he looked up and down and across the street with keen, careful glances.

At last, with a sudden turn he led the way into the pa.s.sage. Together we ascended the stairs. On a door almost opposite to us at the end of the landing was another little bra.s.s plate, on which was engraved the name of Mademoiselle Blanche. Mr. Bundercombe took a latchkey from his pocket and opened the door, which he carefully closed after him.

"No one here!" I remarked.

"Not yet!" Mr. Bundercombe said, a little grimly. "From now onward you will be able to understand certain things. Miss Blanche informed me that to-day she had an invitation to go into the country. It was the only way I could discover the day in which they were planning to bring off the coup.

If I had been an occasional visitor she might have risked my coming and finding her away. Since, however, I presented myself every morning at eleven o'clock she was forced to tell me. You understand as much as that?"

"Perfectly."

"You see where we are then," Mr. Bundercombe continued. "Has any reason occurred to you for the young lady's unalterable decision that no other spot in the whole of London would do for her manicure parlor?"

I looked out the window.

"We are next door to Tarteran's," I observed.

Mr. Bundercombe smiled approvingly.