The False Faces Part 30

Beyond question, whether or not naturally a man of studious and conscientious temper, Mr. Blensop figured to admiration in the role of such an one.

Seated, the shaded lamplight an aureole for his fair young head, he wrought industriously with a beautiful gold-mounted fountain pen for fully five minutes after Lanyard had stolen into the draped recess of the French window, pausing only now and again to take a fresh sheet of paper or consult one of the sheaves of doc.u.ments that lay before him.

At length, however, he hesitated with pen lifted and abstracted gaze focussed upon vacancy, shook a bewildered head, and rose, moving directly toward the windows.

For as long as thirty breathless seconds Lanyard remained in doubt; there was the barest chance that in his preoccupation Blensop might pa.s.s through to the garden without noticing that dark figure flattened against the inswung half of the window, in the dense shadow of the portiere. Otherwise the game was altogether up; Lanyard could see no way to avoid the necessity of staggering Blensop with a blow, racing for freedom, abandoning utterly further effort to learn the motive of "Karl's" impersonation of d.u.c.h.emin.

He gathered himself together, waited poised in readiness for any eventuality--and blessed his lucky stars to find his apprehensions idle.

Three paces from the windows, Mr. Blensop made it plain that he was after all not minded to stroll in the garden. Pausing, he swung a high-backed wing chair round to face the corner of the room, switched on a reading lamp, sat down and selected a volume of some work of reference from the well-stocked book shelves.

For several minutes, seated within arm's length of the trespa.s.ser, he studied intently, then with a cluck of satisfaction replaced the volume, extinguished the light, and went back to his writing.

But presently he checked with a vexed little exclamation, shook his pen impatiently, and fixed it with a frown of pained reproach.

But that did no good. The cussedness of the inanimate was strong in this pen: since its reservoir was quite empty it mulishly refused more service without refilling.

With a long-suffering sigh, Mr. Blensop found a filler in one of the desk drawers, and unscrewed the nib of the pen.

This accomplished, he paused, listened for a moment with head c.o.c.ked intelligently to one side, dropped the dismembered implement, and got up alertly. At the same moment the door to the hallway opened, and two women entered, apparently sisters: one a lady of mature and distinguished charm, the other an equally prepossessing creature much her junior, the one strongly animated with intelligent interest in life, the other a listless prey to habitual ennui.

To these fluttered Mr. Blensop, offering to relieve them of their wraps.

"Permit me, Mrs. Arden," he addressed the elder woman, who tolerated him dispa.s.sionately. "And Mrs. Stanistreet ... I say, aren't you a bit late?"

"Frightfully," a.s.sented Mrs. Stanistreet in a weary voice. "It must be all of midnight."

"Hardly that, Adele," said Mrs. Arden with a humorous glance.

"Dinner, the play, supper, and home before twelve!" commented Blensop, shocked. "I say, that is going some, you know."

"George would insist on hurrying home," the young wife complained.

"Frightfully tiresome. We were so comfy at the Ritz, too...."

"The Crystal Room?" Dissembled envy poisoned Blensop's accents.

"Frightfully interestin'--everybody was there. I did so want to dance--missed you, Arthur."

"I say, you didn't, did you, really?"

"Poor Mr. Blensop!" Mrs. Arden interjected with just a hint of malice.

"What a pity you must be chained down by inexorable duty, while we fly round and amuse ourselves."

"I must not complain," Blensop stated with humility becoming in a dutiful martyr, a pose which he saw fit quickly to discard as another man came briskly into the room. "Ah, good evening, Colonel Stanistreet."

"Evening, Blensop."

With a brusque nod, Colonel Stanistreet went straightway to the desk, stopping there to take up and examine the work upon which his secretary had been engaged: a gentleman considerably older than his wife, of grave and st.u.r.dy cast, with the habit of standing solidly on his feet and giving undivided attention to the matter in hand.

"Anything of consequence turned up?" he enquired abstractedly, running through the sheets of pen-blackened paper.

"Three persons called," Blensop admitted discreetly. "One returns at midnight."

Stanistreet threw him a keen look. "Eh!" he said, making swift inference, and turned to his wife and sister-in-law. "It is nearly twelve now. Forgive me if I hurry you off."

"Patience," said Mrs. Arden indulgently. "Not for worlds would I hinder your weighty affairs, dear old thing, but I sleep more sound o' nights when I know my trinkets are locked up securely in your safe."

With a graceful gesture she unfastened a magnificent necklace and deposited it on the desk.

"Frightful rot," her sister commented from the doorway. "As if anybody would dare break in here."

"Why not?" Mrs. Arden enquired calmly, stripping her fingers of their rings.

"With a watchman patrolling the grounds all night--"

"Letty is sensible," Stanistreet interrupted. "Howson's faithful enough, and these American police dependable, but second-storey men happen in the best-guarded neighbourhoods. Be advised, Adele: leave your things here with Letty's."

"No fear," his wife returned coolly. "Too frightfully weird...."

She drifted across the threshold, then hesitated, a pretty figure of disdainful discontent.

"But really, Colonel Stanistreet is right," Blensop interposed vivaciously.

"What do you imagine I heard to-night? The Lone Wolf is in America!"

"What is that you say?" Mrs. Arden demanded sharply.

"The Lone Wolf ... Fact. Have it on most excellent authority."

"The Lone Wolf!" Mrs. Stanistreet drawled. "If you ask me, I think the Lone Wolf nothing in the world but a scapegoat for police stupidity."

"You wouldn't say that," Mrs. Arden retorted, "if you had lived in Paris as long as I. There, in the dear old days, we paid that rogue too heavy a tax not to believe in him."

"Frightful nonsense," insisted the other. "I'm off. 'Night, Arthur. Shall you be long, George?"

"Oh, half an hour or so," her husband responded absently as she disappeared.

With a little gesture consigning her jewellery, heaped upon the desk, to the care of her brother-in-law, Mrs. Arden uttered good-nights and followed her sister.

Blensop bowed her out respectfully, shut the door and returned to the desk.

"What's this about the Lone Wolf?" Stanistreet enquired, sitting down to con the papers more intently.

"Oh!" Blensop laughed lightly. "I was merely repeating the blighter's own a.s.sertion. I mean to say, he boasted he was the Lone Wolf."

"Who boasted he was the Lone Wolf?"

"Chap who called to-night, giving the name of d.u.c.h.emin--Andre d.u.c.h.emin. Had French pa.s.sports, and letters from the Home Office recommending him rather highly. Useful creature, one would fancy, with his knowledge of the right way to go about the wrong thing. What? Ought to be especially helpful to us in hunting down the Hun over here."