The Sins of Severac Bablon Part 28

"There is an old house which I have rented for a time at Richmond. It is known as 'The Cedars,' and overlooks the Thames. The grounds are fairly extensive, and bordered by two very quiet roads. In fact, it is an ideal spot for my purpose. I will send you further particulars"--he glanced towards the window--"in writing. We meet there on Wednesday at nine-thirty. Can I rely upon you?"

"Yes," said Sheard, wondering at the other's indiscretion, "unless I wire you to the contrary. I might be unable to turn up at the last moment, of course."

"You are nervous!" Severac Bablon smiled, and slipped from the room.

"On the contrary," said Sheard, addressing the window. "There is nothing I enjoy better than an evening in a haunted house!"

(Perhaps, he argued, Alden was not absolutely certain of his visitor's ident.i.ty. He did not know at what point in the conversation the telephone device had come into action. It was a pity to waste words; he might as well endeavour to throw the eavesdropper off the scent, in addition to covering Severac Bablon's retreat.)

"Let us hope, Professor," he resumed, with this laudable intention, "that the Society for Psychical Research will be the richer in knowledge for our experiment on Wednesday evening!"

Mr. Aloys. X. Alden, with his ear to the ingenious little "electric eavesdropper," experienced an unpleasant chill upon hearing the visitor within addressed as "Professor."

He had conceived the idea that Sheard--whom he strongly suspected, might hold interviews with the mysterious and elusive Severac Bablon in the small hours of the morning, at his own house, when the rest of the household were retired.

Mr. Alden had watched for five nights when he knew the pressman to be at home. On four of them Sheard's light had been extinguished before midnight. To-night, the fifth, it had remained burning, and long vigilance had been rewarded.

A car had drawn up at some distance from the house, and its occupant had proceeded forward on foot. He had been admitted so rapidly that Alden had been unable to ascertain by whom. The car, too, had been driven off immediately. He had had no chance of taking the number; but was astute enough to know that in any event it would have availed him little, since, if the car were Bablon's the number would almost certainly be a false one.

For once in a way, Mr. Alden became excited. Whom could so late a visitor be, save one who wished to keep secret his visit? In attaching his eavesdropper he had clumsily raised his head above the level of the window-ledge, but he had hoped that this gross error of strategy had pa.s.sed unnoticed. For a time he had failed to pick up the conversation until his ear became attuned to the subdued tone in which it was conducted. Thus, he had lost the key to its purport and had had to improvise one.

But, even so, words had pa.s.sed which had amply confirmed his suspicions; so much so that, whilst he listened, all but breathlessly, he was devising a scheme for capturing Sheard's visitor, single-handed, as he left the house. Furthermore, he was devising a way out of the difficulty in the event of the captive proving to be another than Severac Bablon.

The latter part of the duologue had puzzled him badly. The visitor seemed to have ceased talking altogether, and Sheard's remarks had in some inexplicable way drifted into quite a different channel. They appeared to appertain to what had preceded them but remotely. The relation seemed forced.

Still the visitor said nothing. Sheard continued to talk, and in upon the mind of the detective shone a light of inspiration.

He detached the cunning little instrument, crawled across the lawn and slunk out at the gate. Then he _ran_ around to the rear of the house. A narrow lane there was, and into its black mouth he plunged without hesitation.

The gate of the tradesmen's entrance was unbolted.

Alden was perfectly familiar with the nightly customs of the Sheard establishment, and knew this to be irregular. He tilted his hat back and scratched his head reflectively.

Then, from somewhere down the road, on the other side of the house, came the sound of a curious whistle, an eerie minor whistle.

Like an Indian, Alden set off running. He rounded the corner as a car whirled into view five hundred yards further along, and from the next turning on the right. It stopped. One of its doors slammed.

It was off again. It had vanished.

Mr. Alden carefully extracted a cheroot from his case and lighted it with loving care.

CHAPTER XIV

ZOE DREAMS

If you know the Astoria, you will remember that all around the north-west side of the arcade-like structure, which opens on the Old Supper Room, the Rajah Suite, the Louis Ballroom, the Edwardian Banqueting Hall, and the Persian Lounge, are tiny cosy-corners. In one of these you may smoke your secluded cigar, cigarette or pipe, wholly aloof from the bustle, with its marked New Yorkist note, which characterises the more public apartments of the giant _caravanserai_.

There is a nicely shaded light, if you wish to read, or to write, at night. But you control this by a switch, conveniently placed, so that the darkness which aids reflection is also at your command. Then there is the window, opening right down to the floor, from which, if it please you, you may study the activity of the roofless ant-hill beneath, the restless febrility of West End London.

To such a nook Zoe Oppner retired, after a dinner but little enjoyed in solitary splendour amid the gaiety of one of the public dining-rooms.

Her father had been called away by some mysterious business, too late in the evening for her to make other arrangements. So she had descended and dined, a charming, but lonely figure, at the little corner table.

In some strange way, she had more than half antic.i.p.ated that Severac Bablon would be there. But, although there were a number of people present whom she knew, the audacious Mr. Sanrack was not one of them.

Zoe had nodded to a number of acquaintances, but had not encouraged any of them to disturb her solitude. The long and tiresome meal dealt with, she had fled to the nook I have mentioned, and, with an Egyptian cigarette between her lips, lay back watching, from the perfumed darkness, the lights of London below.

The idea of calling upon Mary Evershed had occurred to her. Then she had remembered that Mary was at some semi-official function of her uncle's, Mr. Belford's. Sheila Vignoles would be at home, but Zoe began to feel too deliciously lazy to think seriously of driving even so short a distance.

In a big, cane lounge-chair packed with cushions she curled up luxuriously and began to reflect.

Her reflections, it is needless to say, centred around Severac Bablon.

Why, she asked herself, despite his deeds, did she admire and respect him? Her mind refused to face the problem, but she felt a hot blush rise to her cheeks. She was a traitor to her father; she could not deny it.

But at any rate she was a frank traitor, if such a state be possible.

Only that morning she had explained her position to him.

"Severac Bablon," she had maintained, "only makes you rich men do what you ought to do with some of your money! Even if the object weren't a good one, even were it a ridiculous one, like making Dutchmen and Americans buy British airships, it does make you _spend_ something. And that's a change!"

Mr. Oppner was used to these outspoken critcisms from his daughter. He had smiled grimly, wryly.

"I guess," had been his comment, "you'd stand up for the Bablon man, then, if he ever came your way?"

"Sure!" Zoe had cried. "You spend too much on me, and on Pinkertons, and not enough on people who really want it."

"You ought to join the staff of the _Gleaner_, Zoe! They specialise in that brand of junk, and they're in the popular market at the moment, too. They'll win the next election hands down, I'm told."

"Why don't you start a fund for Canadian emigrants?" Zoe had proceeded.

"You've made a heap of money out of Canada. Then you wouldn't have to buy any airships, maybe!"

"I don't have to! No Roman Emperor was watched closer'n me! If that guy gets me held up he's earnin' his money! Zoe, you're a durned unnatural daughter!"

The thought of that conversation made her smile. To her it seemed so ridiculous that her father should guard his expenditure like one who has but a few dollars between himself and starvation. The gold fever was an incomprehensible disease to the daughter of the man who was more savagely bitten with it than almost any other living plutocrat.

Musing upon these matters, Zoe slept, and dreamed.

She dreamed that she stood in the gateway of an ancient city, amid a throng of people attired in the picturesque garb of the East. About her, the city was _en fete_. Before her stretched the desert, an undulating ocean of greyness, a dry ocean parched by a merciless sun.

Barbaric music sounded; the clashing of cymbals and quiver of strange instruments rendering it unlike any music she had ever heard. A procession was issuing from the gateway with much pomp. There were venerable, white-bearded priests, and there were girls, too, arrayed in festive garb, their hair bedecked with flowers. Their gay ranks, amid which the slow-pacing patriarchs struck a sombre note, pa.s.sed out across the sands.

They were met by what seemed to be the advance guard of a great army. A man whose golden armour glittered hotly in the blazing sun descended from a chariot to receive them.

Then, amid music and shouting and the beating of drums, the procession returned, surrounding the chariot in which the golden one rode. It was filled to the brim with flowers.

As it pa.s.sed in at the gate, the occupant stooped, took up a huge lily and threw it to Zoe. His eyes met hers. And, amid that panoply of long-ago, she recognised Severac Bablon.

She dreamed on.