The Primadonna Part 26

'What do you mean?' asked Logotheti, surprised.

'No--really--it's too awful,' Margaret said slowly, to herself.

'Besides,' she added, 'one has no right to believe an anonymous letter.'

'The writer was well informed about you, at least,' observed Logotheti. 'You say that the details are true.'

'Absolutely. That makes the other thing all the more dreadful.'

'It's not such a frightful crime, after all,' Logotheti answered with a little surprise. 'Long before he fell in love with you he may have liked some one else! Such things may happen in every man's life.'

'That one thing--yes, no doubt. But you either don't know, or you don't realise just what all the rest has been, up to the death of that poor girl in the theatre in New York.'

'He was engaged to her, was he not?'

'Yes.'

'I forget who she was.'

'His partner's daughter. She was called Ida Bamberger.'

'Ida? Like the little girl?'

'Yes. Bamberger divorced his wife, and she married Senator Moon. Don't you see?'

'And the girls were half-sisters--and--?' Logotheti stopped and stared.

'Yes.' Margaret nodded slowly again and poked the fire.

'Good heavens!' The Greek knew something of the world's wickedness, but his jaw dropped. 'Oedipus!' he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

'It cannot be true,' Margaret said, quite in earnest. 'I detest him, but I cannot believe that of him.'

For in her mind all that she knew and that Griggs had told her, and that Logotheti did not know yet, rose up in orderly logic, and joined what was now in her mind, completing the whole hideous tale of wickedness that had ended in the death of Ida Bamberger, who had been murdered, perhaps, in desperation to avert a crime even more monstrous. The dying girl's faint voice came back to Margaret across the ocean.

'He did it--'

And there was the stain on Paul Griggs' hand; and there was little Ida's face on the steamer, when she had looked up and had seen Van Torp's lips moving, and had understood what he was saying to himself, and had dragged Margaret away in terror. And not least, there was the indescribable fear of him which Margaret felt when he was near her for a few minutes.

On the other side, what was there to be said for him? Miss More, quiet, good, conscientious Miss More, devoting her life to the child, said that he was one of the kindest men living. There was Lady Maud, with her clear eyes, her fearless ways, and her knowledge of the world and men, and she said that Van Torp was kind, and good to people in trouble and true to his friends. Lord Creedmore, the intimate friend of Margaret's father, a barrister half his life, and as keen as a hawk, said that Mr. Van Torp was a very decent sort of man, and he evidently allowed his daughter to like the American. It was true that a scandalous tale about Lady Maud and the millionaire was already going from mouth to mouth, but Margaret did not believe it. If she had known that the facts were accurately told, whatever their meaning might be, she would have taken them for further evidence against the accused. As for Miss More, she was guided by her duty to her employer, or her affection for little Ida, and she seemed to be of the charitable sort, who think no evil; but after what Lord Creedmore had said, Margaret had no doubt but that it was Mr. Van Torp who provided for the child, and if she was his daughter, the reason for Senator Moon's neglect of her was patent.

Then Margaret thought of Isidore Bamberger, the hard-working man of business who was Van Torp's right hand and figure-head, as Griggs had said, and who had divorced the beautiful, half-crazy mother of the two Idas because Van Torp had stolen her from him--Van Torp, his partner, and once his trusted friend. She remembered the other things Griggs had told her: how old Bamberger must surely have discovered that his daughter had been murdered, and that he meant to keep it a secret till he caught the murderer. Even now the detectives might be on the right scent, and if he whose child had been killed, and whose wife had been stolen from him by the man he had once trusted, learnt the whole truth at last, he would not be easily appeased.

'You have had some singular offers of marriage,' said Logotheti in a tone of reflection. 'You will probably marry a beggar some day--a nice beggar, who has ruined himself like a gentleman, but a beggar nevertheless!'

'I don't know,' Margaret said carelessly. 'Of one thing I am sure. I shall not marry Mr. Van Torp.'

Logotheti laughed softly.

'Remember the French proverb,' he said. '"Say not to the fountain, I will not drink of thy water."'

'Proverbs,' returned Margaret, 'are what Schreiermeyer calls stupid stuff. Fancy marrying that monster!'

'Yes,' a.s.sented Logotheti, 'fancy!'

CHAPTER IX

Three weeks later, when the days were lengthening quickly and London was beginning to show its better side to the cross-grained people who abuse its climate, the gas was lighted again in the dingy rooms in Hare Court. No one but the old woman who came to sweep had visited them since Mr. Van Torp had gone into the country in March, after Lady Maud had been to see him on the evening of his arrival.

As then, the fire was laid in the grate, but the man in black who sat in the shabby arm-chair had not put a match to the shavings, and the bright copper kettle on the movable hob shone coldly in the raw glare from the incandescent gaslight. The room was chilly, and the man had not taken off his black overcoat or his hat, which had a broad band on it. His black gloves lay on the table beside him. He wore patent leather boots with black cloth tops, and he turned in his toes as he sat. His aquiline features were naturally of the melancholic type, and as he stared at the fireplace his expression was profoundly sad. He did not move for a long time, but suddenly he trembled, as a man does who feels the warning chill in a malarious country when the sun goes down, and two large bright tears ran down his lean dark cheeks and were quickly lost in his grizzled beard. Either he did not feel them, or he would not take the trouble to dry them, for he sat quite still and kept his eyes on the grate.

Outside it was quite dark and the air was thick, so that the chimney-pots on the opposite roof were hardly visible against the gloomy sky. It was the time of year when spring seems very near in broad daylight, but as far away as in January when the sun goes down.

Mr. Isidore Bamberger was waiting for a visitor, as his partner Mr.

Van Torp had waited in the same place a month earlier, but he made no preparations for a cheerful meeting, and the cheap j.a.panned tea-caddy, with the brown teapot and the chipped cups and saucers, stood undisturbed in the old-fashioned cupboard in the corner, while the lonely man sat before the cold fireplace and let the tears trickle down his cheeks as they would.

At the double stroke of the spring door-bell, twice repeated, his expression changed as if he had been waked from a dream. He dried his cheeks roughly with the back of his hand, and his very heavy black eyebrows were drawn down and together, as if the tension of the man's whole nature had been relaxed and was now suddenly restored. The look of sadness hardened to an expression that was melancholy still, but grim and unforgiving, and the grizzled beard, clipped rather close at the sides, betrayed the angles of the strong jaw as he set his teeth and rose to let in his visitor. He was round-shouldered and slightly bow-legged when he stood up; he was heavily and clumsily built, but he was evidently strong.

He went out into the dark entry and opened the door, and a moment later he came back with Mr. Feist, the man with the unhealthy complexion whom Margaret had seen at the Turkish Emba.s.sy. Isidore Bamberger sat down in the easy-chair again without ceremony, leaving his guest to bring up a straight-backed chair for himself.

Mr. Feist was evidently in a very nervous condition. His hand shook perceptibly as he mopped his forehead after sitting down, and he moved his chair uneasily twice because the incandescent light irritated his eyes. He did not wait for Bamberger to question him, however.

'It's all right,' he said, 'but he doesn't care to take steps till after this season is over. He says the same thing will happen again to a dead certainty, and that the more evidence he has the surer he'll be of the decree. I think he's afraid Van Torp has some explanation up his sleeve that will swing things the other way.'

'Didn't he catch her here?' asked the elder man, evidently annoyed.

'Didn't he find the money on this table in an envelope addressed to her? Didn't he have two witnesses with him? Or is all that an invention?'

'It happened just so. But he's afraid there's some explanation--'

'Feist,' said Isidore Bamberger slowly, 'find out what explanation the man's afraid of, pretty quick, or I'll get somebody who will. It's my belief that he's just a common coward, who takes money from his wife and doesn't care how she gets it. I suppose she refused to pay one day, so he strengthened his position by catching her; but he doesn't want to divorce the goose that lays the golden egg as long as he's short of cash. That's about the measure of it, you may depend.'

'She may be a goose,' answered Feist, 'but she's a wild one, and she'll lead us a chase too. She's up to all sorts of games, I've ascertained. She goes out of the house at all hours and comes home when she's ready, and it isn't to meet your friend either, for he's not been in London again since he landed.'

'Then who else is it?' asked Bamberger.

Feist smiled in a sickly way.

'Don't know,' he said. 'Can't find out.'

'I don't like people who don't know and can't find out,' answered the other. 'I'm in a hurry, I tell you. I'm employing you, and paying you a good salary, and taking a great deal of trouble to have you pushed with letters of introduction where you can see her, and now you come here and tell me you don't know and you can't find out. It won't do, Feist. You're no better than you used to be when you were my secretary last year. You're a pretty bright young fellow when you don't drink, but when you do you're about as useful as a painted clock--and even a painted clock is right twice in twenty-four hours. It's more than you are. The only good thing about you is that you can hold your tongue, drunk or sober. I admit that.'

Having relieved himself of this plain opinion Isidore Bamberger waited to hear what Feist had to say, keeping his eyes fixed on the unhealthy face.

'I've not been drinking lately, anyhow,' he answered, 'and I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Bamberger, and that is, that I'm just as anxious as you can be to see this thing through, every bit.'