The Man with the Double Heart Part 24

"I'm sorry." He stood up, stiff and straight. "You're quite right--I lost my head!" For the shrewder side of his nature swung him back once more into safe balance. He switched on the electric light and glanced openly at the clock.

"I'm afraid, too, I'm keeping you up. I'd no idea it was so late."

His voice was frigidly polite, a mask to hide his deep anger. For there she stood, with Jill's letter--Jill's of all people on earth!--that note of hers yet unread, caught up at the Club before he started.

He held out his hand for it.

Silently she gave it up. For once the woman in her quailed before the wrath in his blue eyes.

"Thank you." He placed it in his pocket and smiled, his young face still hard.

"Now we're quits ... eh! Fantine."

She began to realize her mistake.

"Quits?" she pouted. With one hand she smoothed the tumbled laces about her. "I think ... that you're unkind, Pierrot."

To his dismay she began to cry.

For indeed her nerve had given out, and the tears, at first a.s.sumed, grew real. She sobbed on, her head in her hands.

"You're not going?--oh--Pierrot! ... don't go ... Mon Dieu! ... Mon Dieu! ... I didn't mean ... I only ... tease ... oh! unkind..." she choked on the word.

McTaggart's heart began to soften.

"Why! Fantine ... why--my dear ...! I'm _not_ cross ... honour bright! But it's getting deuced late, you know ... there ... there ...

don't cry."

He soothed her like a fractious child.

"You go to bed---you're dog-tired. That's it--I'm a selfish a.s.s! ..."

He tried to thrust the thought aside of what was really troubling her.

And in his friendly voice she read the failure of her deep-laid plans, conscious too that their early return had thrown out the scheme of time. Well, it was over--no! postponed...

She lifted her tear-stained face, oddly swayed between relief and infinite discouragement.

"Good night, Pierrot--I'm ... so tired! I'll go to bed--you're quite right. But come and see me very soon. Promise, Pierrot."

He smiled at her.

"Rather!--why! what d'you think?"

But once outside the front door he felt a sudden sense of blankness.

He hated tears and shrank from scenes with the wholesome distrust of perfect nerves. And then--that letter! His face darkened ... What an end to the evening! The unexpected with a vengeance. He started to descend the stairs when a sound below made him pause.

Some one was coming slowly up. The steps pa.s.sed the third floor and moved toward the last flight.

McTaggart glanced quickly round. He felt a curious distaste to be found there at this hour, and his eyes fell on the lift, level with Fantine's door. He remembered he had brought her up, working the ropes himself, and there it stood in semi-darkness offering a hiding-place.

He stepped inside and sat down in the far corner, holding his breath, as a tall man came into sight m.u.f.fled in an overcoat.

"He's going to the opposite flat. Jolly lucky the lift being here."

McTaggart's soliloquy stopped short. He gave a little gasp of wonder.

For the man pa.s.sed him, unaware of his presence, making straight for Fantine's door, with a light, noiseless step that seemed to the other oddly furtive.

Arrived there he paused a moment, then bent down and with his finger lifted up the narrow flap of the letter box and peered through.

Instantly McTaggart was on the defensive. He thought of Mrs. Merrod alone, without a single soul to guard her, and the opportunity it offered.

But the next moment the pseudo-thief produced a latch-key from his pocket, fitted it softly in the lock, and the light shone out through the opened door. Here the first check greeted him. For the key stuck and, as he turned, McTaggart caught a glimpse of his face with a sudden and bewildering shock.

The square-cut beard had been shaved away, but above it gleamed those evil eyes and the hooked nose slightly bent of the man in the faded photograph!

"Gustave"--"Alger"--The two words flashed into remembrance. Here in the flesh was Fantine's husband--the dead returned! No doubt of it!

The man, with a shrug of his narrow shoulders, ceased to wrestle with the lock, and through the door left ajar McTaggart, his face glued to the gla.s.s of the lift, could see him cross the narrow hall, still on tiptoe, and bend to listen at the opposite key-hole.

What did it mean? A sudden suspicion shot through McTaggart's brain.

He caught dimly the thread of the plot and a cold chill ran down his spine.

The next moment the bedroom door was flung wide, and Fantine stood, half dressed, her white face sharp and haggard, but undismayed.

A quick volley of words pa.s.sed, unintelligible, in French. The sudden draught caught the outer door, and it slammed to with a loud bang.

Alone, in the darkness of the lift, McTaggart crouched, his brain on fire. A single word from the woman's lips had reached him and vaguely repeated itself.

"Rate...!" He found no meaning to it. With the consciousness of his equivocal position came the desire to escape. His hand groped for the cords and the lift slid down to the ground floor.

He fumbled with the heavy door, and was outside in the cold night air.

Like a thief himself, he took to his heels, running down the deserted street, hailed a belated four-wheeler and arrived at length at his own chambers.

Once inside his sitting-room, he seemed to awaken from his stupor. He caught a glimpse of himself in the gla.s.s, forced a laugh at his white face and helped himself to a stiff drink.

Blackmail. The ugly word supplied the link that was missing.

Blackmail--that was it. And Fantine? He felt suddenly sick. But as the brandy sent a glow through his cold disgusted frame, another memory returned to set the seal on his doubts.

He crossed to his bookcase and drew out from a pile of tattered French novels a shabby book bound in leather, thumbed and torn by days of school.

With nervous haste he turned the pages. "P," "Q," "R"--here it was!

His eyes strained down the narrow print.

"Rater--(verb) to miss fire."