The Sins of Severac Bablon Part 47

"Do not jest, m'sieur. Nothing but thirty."

"Twenty-eight is final. It is the price I had determined upon."

De Guise considered, bit his lip, glanced at the open cheque-book--always a potent argument--and bowed in his grand fashion.

Lepardo changed his spectacles for a larger pair, reached for a pen, peering, and overturned a ma.s.sive inkstand. The ink poured in an oily black stream across the leathern top of the table.

"Ah, clumsy!" he cried. "Blotting-paper, quick."

The other took some from a drawer and sopped up the ink. Lepardo rumbled apologies, and, when the ink had been dried up, made out a cheque for 28,000, payable to "The Count de Guise, in settlement for the entire effects contained in his flat, No. 59b Bedford Court Mansions," signed it "I. Levi," and handed it to de Guise, who was surveying his inky hands, usually so spotless, with frowning disfavour.

The Count took the cheque, and Lepardo stood up.

"One moment, m'sieur."

Lepardo sat down again.

"You have dated this cheque 1928."

"Ah," cried the other, "always so absent. I had in mind the price, m'sieur. Believe me, I shall lose on this deal, but no matter. Give it back to me; I will write out another."

The second cheque made out, correctly, Lepardo shuffled to the door, refusing de Guise's offer of refreshments. He was about to pa.s.s out on to the landing when:

"Heavens! I am truly an absent fool. I wear my writing gla.s.ses and have left my street gla.s.ses on your table. One moment. No, I would not trouble you."

He shuffled quickly back to the study, to return almost immediately, gla.s.ses in hand.

"Will seven-thirty in the morning be too early for my men to commence an inventory?"

"Not at all."

"Good night, m'sieur le Comte."

"Good night, M. Levi."

So concluded an act in this strange comedy.

Let us glance for a moment at Thomas Sheard, of the _Gleaner_, who sat in his study, his head resting upon his clenched hand, his pipe cold.

Twelve o'clock, and the household sleeping. He had spent the early part of the night at Moorgate Place, had written his account of the murder, seen it consigned to the machines, and returned wearily home. Now, in the stillness, he was listening; every belated cab whose pa.s.sing broke the silence of the night set his heart beating, for he was listening--listening for Severac Bablon.

His faith was shaken.

He had been content to know himself the confidant of the man who had taken from Park Lane to give to the Embankment; of the man who had kidnapped four great millionaires and compelled them each to bear an equal share with himself, towards salving a wrecked bank; of the man, who a.s.sisted by M. Lemage, the first detective in Europe, had hoodwinked Scotland Yard. But the thought that he had called "friend" the man who had murdered, or caused to be murdered, Douglas Graham--whatever had been the dead man's character--was dreadful--terrifying.

It meant? It meant that if Severac Bablon did not come, and come that night, to clear himself, then he, Sheard, must confess to his knowledge of him--must, at whatever personal cost, give every a.s.sistance in his power to those who sought to apprehend the murderer.

A key turned in the lock of the front door.

Sheard started to his feet. A soft step in the hall--and Severac Bablon entered.

The journalist could find no words to greet him; but he stood watching the fine masterful face. There was a new, eager look in the long, dark eyes.

Severac Bablon extended his hand. Sheard shook his head and resting his elbow on the mantelpiece, looked down into the dying embers of the fire.

"You, too, my friend?"

Sheard turned impulsively.

"Tell me you are in no way implicated in that ghastly crime!" he burst out. "Only tell me, and I shall be satisfied."

Severac Bablon stepped quickly forward, grasped him by both shoulders and looked hard into his eyes with that strange, penetrating gaze that seemed to pierce through all pretence into the mind beyond.

"Sheard, in the pursuit of what I--and my poor wisdom may be no better than a wiser man's folly--of what I consider to be Nature's one law--Justice, I have braved the laws of man, risked my honour and my liberty. I have dared to hold the scales, to weigh in the balance some of the affairs of men. But life, be it that of the lowliest insect, of the vilest sinner against every code of mankind, is sacred. I--with all my egotism, with all my poor human vanity--would not dare to rob a fellow creature of that gift which only G.o.d can give, which only G.o.d may take back."

"Then----"

"You, who knew me, doubted?"

Sheard grasped the proffered hand.

"Forgive my fears," he said warmly; "I should have known. But this horrible thing has shaken me. I cannot survey murdered corpses with the calmly professional eye of the Sheffields and Harbornes."

"It was the work of an enemy, Sheard. There are men labouring, even now, piecing a false chain together, link by link; searching, spying, toiling in the dark to prove that the robber, the incendiary, the iconoclast, is also a murderer. I have need of all my friends to-night."

With a weary gesture, almost pathetic, he ran his fingers through his black hair. The shaded light struck greenly venomous sparks from his ring.

"This is such a coward's blow as I never had foreseen," he continued; "but, as I believe, my resources are equal even to this."

"What! You know the murderer?"

"If the wrong man is not arrested by some one of the agents of Scotland Yard, of Mr. Oppner, of Julius Rohscheimer, of Heaven alone knows how many others that seek, I have hopes that within a few hours, at most, of the world's learning I am an a.s.sa.s.sin, the world will learn that I am not. Can you be ready to accompany me at any hour after 5 A.M. that I may come for you?"

Sheard stared.

"Certainly."

"Then--to bed, oh, doughty copy-hunter. You still are my friend. That is all I wished to know. For that alone I came like a thief in the night.

Until I return, au revoir."

CHAPTER XXIV

"V-E-N-G-E-N-C-E"

At half-past seven on the morning following M. Levi's visit the Count de Guise opened the door of 59b Bedford Court Mansions to that eccentric old art expert. M. Levi was accompanied by his partner, a tall, heavily bearded man, who looked like a Russian, and by two other strangers, one an alert-eyed, clean-shaven person in a tweed suit, the other a younger man, evidently Scotch, who carried a little brown bag. These two would commence an inventory, m'sieur being agreeable.