The Lost Million Part 24

"Why?"

He smiled grimly, but remained silent.

Even though he had admitted that he was not what he represented himself to be; even though I knew that he was an adventurer, and even though the dead man Arnold had urged me not to trust him implicitly, yet I somehow could not help liking him. He was always so full of quiet humour, and his small eyes twinkled merrily when those quaint remarks and caustic criticisms fell from his lips.

"I thought that the danger which existed that evening in Totnes had pa.s.sed," I remarked.

"Only temporarily, I fear. Thanks to your generous aid, Kemball, I was able to slip through their fingers, as I have done on previous occasions. But I fear that the meshes of the net may one day be woven a trifle too closely. I shouldn't really care very much if it were not for Asta. You know how devoted I am to her," he added, leaning his arms upon! the small table and bending towards me as he spoke.

"And if any little contretemps did happen to you?" I asked.

"Asta would, alas! be left alone," he said in a low, hoa.r.s.e voice.

"Poor girl! I--I fear she would find a great change in her circ.u.mstances."

It was upon the tip of my tongue to acknowledges to him how madly I loved her, and of my intention of asking her to be my wife, yet somehow I hesitated, fearing, I think, lest he might scorn such a proposition, for I remembered how, after all, she was his sole companion, and that without her he would be lonely and helpless. She was the one bright spot in his soured life, he had declared to me more than once. Though scarcely yet out of her teens, she directed the large household at Lydford with all the genius and economy of an experienced housewife.

Yes! hers had been a strange career--the adopted daughter of a man who was so often compelled to go into hiding in strange guises and in strange places.

"Let us hope nothing will happen," I said cheerfully. "Why should it?"

His face broadened into a meaning grin, and he readjusted his hideous round spectacles and lit a fresh cigar.

"Really, Mr Shaw," I said, "your dark forebodings and your strange declarations puzzle me. True, I have endeavoured to serve your interests, and I regard you as a friend, heedless of what I cannot help suspecting. Yet you are never open and frank with me concerning one thing--your friendship with Melvill Arnold."

He started at mention of the name--a fact which caused me to ponder.

"I hardly follow you."

"Well," I said. "Shortly before leaving England I received a visit from a certain Mrs Olliffe--a lady living near Bath. I believe you know her?"

"Yes!" he gasped, grasping the edge of the table and half rising from his seat. "Then she has seen you!" he cried. "What did she tell you?"

"Several things," I replied. "She alleges that you were not Arnold's friend--but his fiercest enemy."

"She has told you that!" he cried bitterly. "And what else has that woman said against me?"

"Nothing much."

"Come," he exclaimed boldly. "Tell me, Kemball, man to man, all that woman has said."

I saw that his manner had changed, his small eyes were flashing with fire, while upon his pale cheeks showed two scarlet patches.

Through my brain surged recollections of the woman's allegations, but, seeing him in such anger, I did not desire to irritate him further, therefore I declared that whatever the lady had said was in no way derogatory to him.

"You are not telling me the truth, Kemball," he declared, looking straight into my eyes. "I know her too well. She has lied to you about me."

"Probably," was my reply. "I happen by a curious chance to know the character of the lady, and it is hardly such as would inspire me with confidence."

"You know her then!" he exclaimed, staring at me hard.

"I know that at one time she pa.s.sed as Lady Lettice Lancaster, and was sentenced to penal servitude as an adventuress."

"Who told you that? How do you know that?" he asked quickly.

"It is surely common knowledge," was my reply. "Therefore please dismiss from your mind that anything she might say to your detriment would impair our friendship."

"Ah yes!" he cried suddenly, taking my hand and wringing it warmly. "I know, Kemball, that you, being my friend, will refuse to be influenced in any way by evil report. That woman is, as you rightly say, an unscrupulous adventuress. I knew her once--before her conviction--but I have since lost sight of her. Yet, I know she is my enemy, and--well, if it were to her interest she would have no compunction in giving me away to Scotland Yard."

"Then she is your enemy?"

"My worst enemy."

"Ah! Then I understand the reason of her allegations," I said, and a moment later the subject dropped.

We returned to the hotel just before midnight, and I ascended in the lift to my room. Shaw shook my hand and turned into his own room.

From my window I found that I commanded a wide, view of the great Place Carnot and the adjacent streets, picturesque with their many lights. I had not switched on my light, and was standing gazing below, when, of a sudden, I distinguished Shaw hurrying out of the hotel again and crossing the Place towards the Pont du Midi, the iron bridge on the right which spans the Rhone.

He had in a moment changed both hat and coat, I noticed, and therefore his sudden exit, after having led me to believe he was about to turn in, struck me as curious. So, without hesitation, I, too, slipped on another coat, and putting on a golf cap descended in the lift, and was soon speeding away in the direction he had taken.

When halfway across the bridge I saw him walking slowly before me, therefore I held back and watched. I followed him across the river, when he suddenly turned to the left along the Quai Claude Bernard, until at the foot of the next bridge, the Guillotiere, he turned to the left along the Cours Gambetta until he came to a small square, the Place du Pont.

There he suddenly halted beneath a lamp and glanced at his watch. Then he idled across to the corner of one of the half-dozen dark, deserted streets which converged there, as though awaiting some one.

For a quarter of an hour he remained there calmly smoking, and quite unsuspicious of my proximity.

But his patience was at last rewarded, because from the shadow there emerged a female figure in dark jacket and skirt, to which after a moment's hesitation he went forward with words of greeting.

They met beneath the light of a street lamp, and from where I stood, hidden in a doorway, I was sufficiently close to get a view of her countenance.

I held my breath.

It was that of the woman who had stood in the dock of the Old Bailey and been convicted of fraud--the woman who now lived in such style at Ridgehill Manor, and who was known in Bath as Mrs Olliffe.

For a moment they stood there in the night, their hands clasped, neither uttering a single word.

And yet Shaw had only an hour before declared her to be his most bitter and dangerous enemy!

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

FALLING SHADOWS.

I watched Shaw strolling slowly with, the woman through the ill-lit back streets of Lyons, speaking rapidly with her. She, however, appeared to listen in silent obstinacy.

He grew angry, yet she seemed to remain obdurate.

She was dressed plainly in tweed skirt and blouse _a la touriste_, and wore a hat with a long veil in the fashion so often adopted by American women visiting Europe.

They traversed the working-cla.s.s district on the eastern side of the Rhone, where from behind the dingy red blinds of the cafes came the sounds of music and laughter, and where many groups of factory hands were idling about enjoying the cool night air. It was a noisy bizarre district, which favoured me, for I could watch the pair un.o.bserved.