Jason Part 18

You see, of course, the significance of all this. If David Stewart dies, as he's likely to do, before young Arthur's return, Captain S. gets the money.

The second fact I learned was that Miss Benham did not tell her uncle about her semi-engagement to you or about your volunteering to search for the boy. She thinks her grandfather must have told him. I didn't say so to her, but that is hardly possible in view of the fact that Stewart came on here to your rooms very soon after you had reached them yourself.

So that makes two lies for our gentle friend--and serious lies, both of them. To my mind, they point unmistakably to a certain conclusion.

_Captain S. has been responsible for putting his nephew out of the way_.

He has either hidden him somewhere and is keeping him in confinement, or he has killed him.

I wish we could talk it over to-day, but, as you see, I'm helpless.

Remain in to-night, and I'll come as soon as I can get rid of these confounded people of mine.

One word more. Be careful! Miss B. is, up to this point, merely puzzled over things. She doesn't suspect her uncle of any crookedness, I'm sure.

So we shall have to tread softly where she is concerned.

I shall see you to-night. R.H.

Ste. Marie read the closely written pages through twice, and he thought how like his friend it was to take the time and trouble to put what he had learned into this clear, concise form. Another man would have scribbled, "Important facts--tell you all about it to-night," or something of that kind. Hartley must have spent a quarter of an hour over his writing.

Ste. Marie walked up and down the room with all his strength forcing his brain to quiet, reasonable action. Once he said, aloud:

"Yes, you're right, of course. Stewart has been at the bottom of it all along." He realized that he had been for some days slowly arriving at that conclusion, and that since the night before he had been practically certain of it, though he had not yet found time to put his suspicions into logical order. Hartley's letter had driven the truth concretely home to him, but he would have reached the same truth without it--though that matter of the will was of the greatest importance. It gave him a strong weapon to strike with.

He halted before one of the front windows, and his eyes gazed unseeing across the street into the green shrubbery of the Luxembourg Gardens.

The lace curtains had been left by the femme de menage hanging straight down, and not, as usual, looped back to either side, so he could see through them with perfect ease, although he could not be seen from outside.

He became aware that a man who was walking slowly up and down a path inside the high iron palings was in some way familiar to him, and his eyes sharpened. The man was inconspicuously dressed, and looked like almost any other man whom one might pa.s.s in the streets without taking any notice of him; but Ste. Marie knew that he had seen him often, and he wondered how and where. There was a row of lilac shrubs against the iron palings just inside and between the palings and the path, but two of the shrubs were dead and leafless, and each time the man pa.s.sed this spot he came into plain view; each time, also, he directed an oblique glance toward the house opposite. Presently he turned aside and sat down upon one of the public benches, where he was almost, but not quite, hidden by the intervening foliage.

Then at last Ste. Marie gave a sudden exclamation and smote his hands together.

"The fellow's a spy!" he cried, aloud. "He's watching the house to see when I go out." He began to remember how he had seen the man in the street and in cafes and restaurants, and he remembered that he had once or twice thought it odd, but without any second thought of suspicion. So the fellow had been set to spy upon him, watch his goings and comings and report them to--no need of asking to whom.

Ste. Marie stood behind his curtains and looked across into the pleasant expanse of shrubbery and greensward. He was wondering if it would be worth while to do anything. Men and women went up and down the path, hurrying or slowly, at ease with the world--laborers, students, bonnes with market-baskets in their hands and long bread loaves under their arms, nurse-maids herding small children, bigger children spinning diabolo spools as they walked. A man with a pointed black beard and a soft hat pa.s.sed once and returned to seat himself upon the public bench that Ste. Marie was watching. For some minutes he sat there idle, holding the soft felt hat upon his knees for coolness. Then he turned and looked at the other occupant of the bench, and Ste. Marie thought he saw the other man nod, though he could not be sure whether either one spoke or not. Presently the new-comer rose, put on the soft hat again, and disappeared down the path going toward the gate at the head of the rue du Luxembourg.

Five minutes later the door-bell rang.

XIII

THE VOYAGE TO COLCHIS

Ste. Marie turned away from the window and crossed to the door. The man with the pointed beard removed his soft hat, bowed very politely, and asked if he had the honor to address M. Ste. Marie.

"That is my name," said Ste. Marie. "Entrez, Monsieur!" He waved his visitor to a chair and stood waiting.

The man with the beard bowed once more. He said:

"I have not the great honor of Monsieur's acquaintance, but circ.u.mstances, which I will explain later, have put it in my power--have made it a sacred duty, if I may be permitted to say the word--to place in Monsieur's hands a piece of information."

Ste. Marie smiled slightly and sat down. He said:

"I listen with pleasure--and antic.i.p.ation. Pray go on!"

"I have information," said the visitor, "of the whereabouts of M. Arthur Benham."

Ste. Marie waved his hand.

"I feared as much," said he. "I mean to say, I hoped so. Proceed, Monsieur!"

"And learning," continued the other, "that M. Ste. Marie was conducting a search for that young gentleman, I hastened at once to place this information in his hands."

"At a price," suggested his host. "At a price, to be sure."

The man with the beard spread out his hands in a beautiful and eloquent gesture which well accompanied his Ma.r.s.eillais accent.

"Ah, as to that!" he protested. "My circ.u.mstances--I am poor, Monsieur.

One must gain the livelihood. What would you? A trifle. The merest trifle."

"Where is Arthur Benham?" asked Ste. Marie.

"In Ma.r.s.eilles, Monsieur. I saw him a week ago--six days. And, so far as I could learn, he had no intention of leaving there immediately--though it is, to be sure, hot."

Ste. Marie laughed a laugh of genuine amus.e.m.e.nt, and the man with the pointed beard stared at him with some wonder. Ste. Marie rose and crossed the room to a writing-desk which stood against the opposite wall. He fumbled in a drawer of this, and returned holding in his hand a pink-and-blue note of the Banque de France. He said:

"Monsieur--pardon! I have forgotten to ask the name--you have remarked quite truly that one must gain a livelihood. Therefore, I do not presume to criticise the way in which you gain yours. Sometimes one cannot choose. However, I should like to make a little bargain with you, Monsieur. I know, of course, being not altogether imbecile, who sent you here with this story and why you were sent--why, also, your friend who sits upon the bench in the garden across the street follows me about and spies upon me. I know all this, and I laugh at it a little. But, Monsieur, to amuse myself further, I have a desire to hear from your own lips the name of the gentleman who is your employer. Amus.e.m.e.nt is almost always expensive, and so I am prepared to pay for this. I have here a note of one hundred francs. It is yours in return for the name--the _right_ name. Remember, I know it already."

The man with the pointed beard sprang to his feet quivering with righteous indignation. All Southern Frenchmen, like all other Latins, are magnificent actors. He shook one clinched hand in the air, his face was pale, and his fine eyes glittered. Richard Hartley would have put himself promptly in an att.i.tude of defence, but Ste. Marie nodded a smiling head in appreciation. He was half a Southern Frenchman himself.

"Monsieur!" cried his visitor, in a choked voice, "Monsieur, have a care! You insult me! Have a care, Monsieur! I am dangerous! My anger, when roused, is terrible!"

"I am cowed," observed Ste. Marie, lighting a cigarette. "I quail."

"Never," declaimed the gentleman from Ma.r.s.eilles, "have I received an insult without returning blow for blow! My blood boils!"

"The hundred francs, Monsieur," said Ste. Marie, "will doubtless cool it. Besides, we stray from our sheep. Reflect, my friend! I have not insulted you. I have asked you a simple question. To be sure, I have said that I knew your errand here was not--not altogether sincere, but I protest, Monsieur, that no blame attaches to yourself. The blame is your employer's. You have performed your mission with the greatest of honesty--the most delicate and faithful sense of honor. That is understood."

The gentleman with the beard strode across to one of the windows and leaned his head upon his hand. His shoulders still heaved with emotion, but he no longer trembled. The terrible crisis bade fair to pa.s.s. Then, abruptly, in the frank and open Latin way, he burst into tears, and wept with copious profusion, while Ste. Marie smoked his cigarette and waited.

When at length the Ma.r.s.eillais turned back into the room he was calm once more, but there remained traces of storm and flood. He made a gesture of indescribable and pathetic resignation.

"Monsieur," he exclaimed, "you have a heart of gold--of gold, Monsieur!

You understand. Behold us, two men of honor! Monsieur," he said, "I had no choice. I was poor. I saw myself face to face with the misere. What would you? I fell. We are all weak flesh. I accepted the commission of the pig who sent me here to you."

Ste. Marie smoothed the pink-and-blue bank-note in his hands, and the other man's eye clung to it as though he were starving and the bank-note was food.

"The name?" prompted Ste. Marie.