The Avenger Part 49

She nodded.

"I was going to tell you. 'Look here, Agnes,' he said, 'I'm nervous to-night. I don't want to carry this about with me. I shall want it to-morrow and I'll come down for it. To-night's a dangerous night for me to be carrying it about.' Those were just about his last words. He gave me the packet and I begged him to be careful. Then he kissed me and off he went, smoking a cigar, and as cheerful as though he were going to a wedding."

She began to cry again, but Barnes broke in upon her grief.

"Didn't he tell you anything more about it?" he demanded.

"He told me--if anything happened to him," she sobbed, "to open it."

"We must do so," he declared. "We must do so at once. There must be a quarter's dividends overdue. We can get the money to-morrow, and then--oh! my G.o.d!" he exclaimed, as though the very antic.i.p.ation made him faint. "Where is the packet?"

"At the bottom of my tin trunk in my rooms," she answered. "I had to leave the house. I couldn't pay the rent any longer."

"Where are the rooms?" he demanded. "We'll go there now."

"In Labrador Street," she answered. "It's a poor part, but I've only a few shillings in the world."

"We'll have a cab," he declared, rising. "Mr. Wrayson will lend us the money, perhaps?"

"I will come with you," Wrayson said quietly.

"We needn't bother you to do that," Sydney Barnes declared, with a suspicious glance.

The young woman looked towards him appealingly. He nodded rea.s.suringly.

"I think," he said, "that it will be better for me to come. I am concerned in this business after all, you know."

"I don't see how," Barnes declared sullenly. "_If_ this young lady is my sister-in-law, surely she and I can settle up our own affairs."

Wrayson stood with his back to the door, facing them.

"I hope," he said, "that you will not, either of you, be disappointed in what you find in that packet. But I think it is only right to warn you. I have reason to believe that you will not find any securities or bonds there at all! I believe that you will find that packet to consist of merely a bundle of old letters and a photograph!"

Barnes spat upon the floor. He was shaking with fright and anger.

"I don't believe it," he declared. "What can you know about it?"

Wrayson shrugged his shoulders.

"Look here," he said, "the matter is easily settled. We will put this young lady in a cab and she shall bring the packet to my flat below. You and she shall open it, and if you find securities there I have no more to say, except to wish you both luck. If, on the other hand, you find the letters, it will be a different matter."

The girl had risen to her feet.

"I would rather go alone," she said. "If you will pay my cab, I will bring the packet straight back."

Wrayson and Barnes waited in the former's flat. Barnes drank two brandy and sodas, and walked restlessly up and down the room. Wrayson was busy at the telephone, and carried on a conversation for some moments in French. Directly he had finished, Barnes turned upon him.

"Whom were you talking to?" he demanded.

"A friend of yours," he answered. "I have asked her to come round for a few minutes."

"A friend of mine?"

"The Baroness!"

The colour burned once more in his cheeks. He looked down at his attire with dissatisfaction.

"I didn't want to see her again just yet," he muttered. Wrayson smiled.

"She won't look at your clothes," he remarked, "and I rather want her here."

Barnes was suddenly suspicious.

"What for?" he demanded. "What has she got to do with the affair? I won't have strangers present."

"My young friend," Wrayson said, "I may just as well warn you that I think you are going to be disappointed. I am almost certain that I know the contents of that packet. You will find that it consists, as I told you before, not of securities at all, but simply a few old letters."

Barnes' eyes narrowed.

"Whatever they are," he said, "they meant a couple of thousand a year to Morry, and they were worth his life to somebody! How do you account for that, eh?"

"You want the truth?" Wrayson asked.

"Yes!"

"Your brother was a blackmailer!"

The breath came through Barnes' teeth with a little hiss. He realized his position almost at once. He was trapped.

He walked up to Wrayson's side. His voice shook, but he was in deadly earnest.

"Look here," he said, "the contents of that packet, whatever they may be, are mine--mine and hers! You have nothing to do with the matter at all. I will not have you in the room when they are opened."

Wrayson shrugged his shoulders.

"The packet will be opened here," he said, "and I shall certainly be present."

Barnes ground his teeth.

"If you touch one of those papers or letters or whatever they may be, you shall be prosecuted for theft," he declared. "I swear it!"

Wrayson smiled.

"I will run the risk," he declared. "Ah! Baroness, this is kind of you,"

he added, throwing open the door and ushering her in. "There is a young friend of yours here who is dying to renew his acquaintance with you."

She smiled delightfully at Sydney Barnes, and threw back her cloak.

She had just come in from the opera, and diamonds were flashing from her neck and bosom. Her gown was exquisite, the touch of her fingers an enchantment. It was impossible for him to resist the spell of her presence.