The Avenger Part 24

The boy nodded, and hurried out after them. Wrayson kept the Colonel back under the pretence of lighting a fresh cigar. When at last they strolled forward, they met the boy returning. He touched his hat to Wrayson.

"Alhambra, sir!" he said, quietly. "Gone off alone, sir, in a hansom.

Gentleman walked."

The Colonel kept silence until they were in the street.

"Coming to the club?" he asked, a little abruptly.

"No!" Wrayson answered.

"You are going after that woman?" the Colonel exclaimed.

"I am going to the Alhambra," Wrayson answered. "I can't help it. It sounds foolish, I suppose, but this affair fascinates me. It works on my nerves somehow. I must go."

The Colonel turned on his heel. Without another word, he crossed the Strand, leaving Wrayson standing upon the pavement. Wrayson, with a little sigh, turned westwards.

CHAPTER XVIII

AN AMATEUR DETECTIVE

Wrayson easily discovered the object of his search. She was seated upon a lounge in the promenade, her ample charms lavishly displayed, and her blackened eyes mutely questioning the pa.s.sers-by. She welcomed Wrayson with a smile which she meant to be inviting, albeit she was a little suspicious. Men of Wrayson's stamp and appearance were not often such easy victims.

"Saw you at Luigi's, didn't I?" he asked, hat in hand.

She nodded, and made room for him to sit down by her side.

"Did you see the old stick I was with?" she asked. "I don't know why I was fool enough to go out with him. Trying to pump me about poor old Barney, too, all the time. Just as though I couldn't see through him."

"Old Barney!" Wrayson repeated, a little perplexed.

She laughed coa.r.s.ely.

"Oh! come, that won't do!" she declared. "I'm almost sure you're on the same lay yourself. Didn't I see you at the inquest?--Morris Barnes'

inquest, of course? You know whom I mean right enough."

"I know whom you mean now," Wrayson admitted. "Yes! I was there. Queer affair, wasn't it?"

The lady nodded.

"I should like a liqueur," she remarked, with apparent irrelevance.

"Benedictine!"

They were seated in front of a small table, and were at times the object of expectant contemplation on the part of a magnificent individual in livery and knee-breeches. Wrayson summoned him and ordered two Benedictines.

"Now I don't mind telling you," the lady continued, leaning over towards him confidentially, "that I'm dead off that old man who came prying round and took me out to dinner, to pump me about poor Barney! He didn't get much out of me. For one thing, I don't know much. But the little I do know I'd sooner tell you than him."

"You're very kind," Wrayson murmured. "He used to come to these places a good deal, didn't he?"

She nodded a.s.sent.

"He was always either here or at the Empire. He wasn't a bad sort, Barney, although he was just like all the rest of them, close with his money when he was sober, and chucking it about when he'd had a drop too much. What did you want to know about him in particular?"

"Well, for one thing," Wrayson answered, "where he got his money from."

She shook her head.

"He was always very close about that," she said. "The only story I ever heard him tell was that he'd made it mining in South Africa."

"You have really heard him say that?" Wrayson asked.

"Half a dozen times," she declared.

"That proves, at any rate," he remarked thoughtfully, "that there was some mystery about his income, because I happen to know that he came back from South Africa a pauper."

"Very likely," she remarked. "Barney was always the sort who would rather tell a lie than the truth."

"Did he say anything to you that night about being in any kind of danger?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"No! I don't think so. I didn't take particular notice of what he said, because he was a bit squiffy. I believe he mentioned some thing about a business appointment that night, but I really didn't take much notice."

"You didn't tell them anything about that at the inquest," Wrayson remarked.

"I know I didn't," she admitted. "You see, I was so knocked over, and I really didn't remember anything clearly, that I thought it was best to say nothing at all. They'd only have been trying to ferret things out of me that I couldn't have told them."

"I think that you were very wise," Wrayson said. "You don't happen to remember anything else that he said, I suppose?"

"No! except that he seemed a little depressed. But there's something else about Barney that I always suspected, that I've never heard mentioned yet. Mind you, it may be true or it may not, but I always suspected it."

"What was that?" Wrayson demanded.

"I believe that he was married," she declared impressively.

"Married!"

Wrayson looked incredulous. It certainly did not seem probable.

"Where is his wife then?" he asked. "Why hasn't she turned up to claim his effects? Besides, he lived alone. He was my neighbour, you know. His brother has taken possession of his flat."

The lady rather enjoyed the impression she had made. She was not averse, either, to being seen in so prominent a place in confidential talk with a man of Wrayson's appearance. It might not be directly remunerative, but it was likely to do her good.

"He showed me a photograph once," she continued. "A baby-faced chit of a girl it was, but he was evidently very proud of it. A little girl of his down in the country, he told me. Then, do you know this? He was never in London for Sunday. Every week-end he went off somewhere; and I never heard of any one who ever saw him or knew where he went to."

"This is very interesting," Wrayson admitted; "but if he was married, surely his wife would have turned up by now!"