The Golden Face Part 12

"I saw you," she said. "What a topping car you have! Ours is a Rolls but an old pattern. I'm always pressing my husband to get rid of it and buy a new model. But he won't. Business men are all the same. They tot up figures and weigh the cost of everything," and she laughed lightly, showing a set of pearly teeth. "They weigh up everything one eats and wears. I hope you're not a business man?"

"No. I'm not," I replied with a smile. "If I were I might be a bit richer than I am."

"Money! Bah!" she exclaimed as she waved the big ostrich feather that served her as fan. "It's all very well in its way, but some men get stifled with their money-bags, just as Owen is. Their wealth is so great that its very heaviness presses out all their good qualities and only leaves avarice behind."

"But to have great wealth at one's command must be a source of great joy. Look how much good one could do!" I said philosophically.

"Good! Yes," she laughed. "The rich man can be philanthropic--if he is not a business man, Mr. Cottingham. The latter--if he tries to do good to his fellow-creatures--is dubbed a fool in his business circles and invariably comes to grief. At least that is what Owen tells me. He's double my age, and he ought to know," added the charming little woman.

I admitted that there was much truth in what she had said. Indeed, we had already grown to be such good friends that, at her invitation, the night being clear and moonlit, we strolled out of the hotel and along the promenade, half-way to the pier, and back.

Her companion, Miss Wallis, I had seen in the ballroom dancing with an elderly man who had "the City" stamped all over him. We chatted upon many subjects as we strolled in the balmy moonlit night.

"I expect my husband back in a day or two. He has been to Warsaw upon some financial business for the Government. When we leave here we go to Trouville for a week or so, and in the autumn I believe we go to America. My husband goes over each year."

Then I learned from her that they had a town house in Curzon Street, a country place in Berkshire, and a villa at Cannes. They had, it appeared, only recently been married.

"We generally manage to get to Cannes each winter for a month or two.

I love the Riviera," she said. "Do you know it?"

"Yes," I replied. "I've been there once or twice."

"The Villa Jaumont is out on the road to Nice, on the left. Perhaps if you happen to be there this winter you will call. I shall be most delighted to see you."

When presently we were back in the hotel and I had gone to my room, I realized that I had made rather good progress. I had ingratiated myself with her, and she had grown very confidential, inasmuch as I was already able to judge that she rather despised her elderly and parsimonious husband, and that she preferred to lead her own untrammelled life.

But what was the real object of my mission?

A few days later I received a scribbled note signed "Rudolph" to say that a friend of his, an Italian named Giulio Ansaldi, was arriving at the hotel and would meet me in strictest secrecy. I was to leave my bedroom door unlocked at midnight, when he would enter unannounced.

Enclosed was half one of Duperre's visiting-cards torn across in a jagged manner.

"Your visitor will present to you the missing half of the enclosed card as credential," he wrote. "If the two pieces fit, then trust him implicitly and act according to his instructions which he will convey from me."

I turned over the portion of the torn visiting-card, wondering what fresh instructions I was to receive in such strict secrecy.

I thought of Lola and wondered whether she had returned home from a visit she was paying in Devonshire, and whether, by her watchfulness, she had gained any inkling of the nature of this latest plot.

Little Lady Lydbrook had now become my constant companion. Her friend, Elsie Wallis, had apparently become on friendly terms with a tall, slim, dark-haired young man who often took her out in his car, while on several occasions Lady Lydbrook had accepted my invitation for an afternoon run and tea somewhere. The one fact that I did not like was that a quiet, middle-aged man seemed always to be watching our movements, for whether we chatted together in the lounge, went out motoring, walking on the promenade, or dancing, he always appeared somewhere in the vicinity. But on the day I received Rayne's note he had paid his bill and left the hotel, a fact by which my mind was much relieved.

That day I motored my pretty little friend over to Brighton, where we lunched at the Metropole and arrived back for tea. Her husband, she said, had that morning telegraphed to her from Hamburg regretting that he could not rejoin her at present as he was on his way to Italy.

"I suppose all our plans are upset again!" she remarked with a pretty pout, as she sat at my side while we went carefully through the old-world town of Lewes. She had become just a little inquisitive about myself. It seemed that she enjoyed her dances with me. Indeed, she admitted it, but I could discern that she was a good deal puzzled as to my means of livelihood. I had to be very circ.u.mspect, yet for the life of me I could not imagine why I had been ordered to carry on what was, after all, a mild flirtation with a very pretty young married lady.

I could see that the other visitors at the hotel were whispering, and more especially had I incurred the displeasure of a Mrs. Glenbury, an elderly lady of distinctly out-of-date views, who with pathetic effort tried to ape youth.

Late in the evening after our return from Brighton, I took a long stroll alone along the lower promenade, close to the beach, which at night is very ill-lit, being below the level of the well-illuminated roadway. I suppose I had walked for quite a couple of miles when, on my return, I discerned in front of me two figures, a man and a woman.

A ray of light from the roadway above shone on them as they pa.s.sed, and I noticed that while the woman wore an ordinary dark cloth coat, the man was in tweeds and a golf cap.

An altercation had arisen between them.

"All right," he cried. "You won't live here very much longer--I'll see to that! You've tried to do me down, and very nearly succeeded. And now you refuse to give me even a fiver!"

Those words aroused my curiosity. I held back; for my feet fell noiselessly because of my rubber heels. I strained my ears to catch their further conversation.

"I've never refused you, Arthur!" replied the woman's voice.

I held my breath. The voice was Lady Lydbrook's. I could recognize it anywhere!

I watched. The young man's att.i.tude was certainly threatening.

"I don't intend now that you'll get off lightly. You'll have to pay me not a fiver but fifty pounds to-night. So go back to the hotel and bring me out a cheque. I'll wait at the Wish Tower. But mind it isn't a dud one. If it is, then, by gad! I'll tell them right away. And won't the fur fly then, eh?"

He spoke in a refined voice, though his appearance was that of a loafer.

His companion was evidently in fear. She tried to argue, to cajole, and to appear defiant, but all was useless. He only laughed triumphantly at her as they walked along the deserted promenade in the direction of the hotel.

Suddenly they halted. I held back at once. They conversed in lower tones--intense words that I could not catch. But it seemed to me that the frail little woman who was so often my companion was cowed and terrified. Why? What did she fear?

She left him, while he drew back into the shadow. I waited also in the shadow for nearly ten minutes, then I pa.s.sed on, ascended some steps and reentered the hotel. In the lounge I sank into a seat in a hidden corner and lit a cigarette. Presently I heard the swish of a woman's skirt behind me, and rising, peered out. It was Lady Lydbrook on her way out. She was carrying the cheque to the mysterious stranger!

Alone in my room that night I threw myself into a chair and pondered deeply. I had learned that Lady Lydbrook was under the influence of that ill-dressed man who spoke so well, and whom I at first took to be an undergraduate or perhaps a hospital student.

It was a point to report to Rayne. Somehow I felt a rising antagonism towards the young man who had successfully extracted fifty pounds from my dainty little companion who was so pa.s.sionately fond of jewels and who frequently wore some exquisite rings and pendants. What hold could the fellow have upon her?

Next morning she appeared bright and radiant at breakfast--which, of course, she took with her rather retiring friend Elsie Wallis--and I smiled across at her. She was, after all, a bright up-to-date little married woman possessed of great wealth and influence, her whole life being devoted to self-enjoyment at the expense of her elderly and despised husband. She was a typical girl of society who had married an old man for his money and afterwards sought younger male society. We have them to-day in hundreds on every side.

After breakfast we went together along the sea-front where the band was playing. The weather was glorious and Eastbourne looked at its best.

I now regarded her as a mystery after what I had witnessed on the previous night.

"I'm horribly bored here!" she declared to me, as in her white summer gown she strolled by my side towards the town. "Owen is not coming, so I think I shall soon get away somewhere."

"What about your friend Elsie?" I asked, wondering whether her decision had any connection with the unwelcome arrival of that mysterious young man in tweeds.

"Oh, she's going back to London to-day--so I shall be horribly lonely," she replied.

I recollected her nervousness and apprehension before she had paid the man who had undoubtedly blackmailed her, and became more than ever puzzled.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CAT'S TOOTH

That night I went to my room at about ten minutes before midnight, and waited for the appearance of my secret visitor.

Just as midnight struck the handle of the door slowly turned and a well-dressed, dark-mustached man of about thirty-five entered silently and bowed.