not the case, settle with him for your passage, and take his receipt. The money will doubtless be refunded at New York. Here is a fifty-pound note, and you can carry out the transaction much better than I. But stop a moment. Do you remember how much you paid for the room?”
“Twenty-five pounds.”
“That will leave you only the remaining twenty-five for New York, which is an expensive place, so we must make the loan a hundred pounds. Leave me your address, and if you do not hear from your people before that loan is expended, you may have whatever more you need. You will, of course, repay me at your convenience. I will give you the name of my New York agents.”
The eyes had by this time brimmed over, and the girl could not speak. Stranleigh took from his pocket-book several Bank of England notes. Selecting two for fifty pounds each, he handed them to her.
“Good-night!” he said hurriedly.
“Good-night!” she whispered.
After dinner on the day the liner left Queenstown, Lord Stranleigh sat in a comfortable chair in the daintily furnished drawing-room of his suite. A shaded electric light stood on the table at his elbow, and he was absorbed in a book he had bought before leaving London. Stranleigh was at peace with all the world, and his reading soothed a mind which he never allowed to become perturbed if he could help it. He now thanked his stars that he was sure of a week undisturbed by callers and free from written requests. Just at this moment he was amazed to see the door open, and a man enter without knock or other announcement. His first thought was to wonder what had become of Ponderby – how had the stranger eluded him? It was a ruddy-faced, burly individual who came in, and, as he turned round to shut the door softly, Stranleigh saw that his thick neck showed rolls of flesh beneath the hair. His lordship placed the open book face downwards on the table, but otherwise made no motion.
“Lord Stranleigh, I presume?” said the stranger.
Stranleigh made no reply, but continued gazing at the intruder.
“I wish to have a few words with you, and considered it better to come to your rooms than to accost you on deck. What I have to say is serious, and outside we might have got into an altercation, which you would regret.”
“You need have no fear of any altercation with me,” said Stranleigh.
“Well, at least you desire to avoid publicity, otherwise you would not be travelling under an assumed name.”
“I am not travelling under an assumed name.”
The stout man waved his hand in deprecation of unnecessary talk.
“I will come to the point at once,” he said, seating himself without any invitation.
“I shall be obliged if you do so.”
The new-comer’s eyes narrowed, and a threatening expression overspread his rather vicious face.
“I want to know, Lord Stranleigh, and I have a right to ask, why you gave a hundred pounds to my wife.”
“To your wife?” echoed Stranleigh in amazement.
“Yes. I have made a memorandum of the numbers, and here they are – two fifty-pound notes. Bank of England. Do you deny having given them to her?”
“I gave two fifty-pound notes to a young lady, whose name, I understood, was Trevelyan – a name which I also bear. She informed me, and somehow I believed her, that her purse containing steamship ticket and money, had been lost or stolen.”
A wry smile twisted the lips of the alleged husband.
“Oh, that’s the story is it? Would you be surprised if the young lady in question denied that in toto?”
“I should not be astonished at anything,” replied his lordship, “if you are in possession of the actual bank-notes I gave to her.”
“She describes your having taken these flimsies from a number of others you carry in your pocket. Would you mind reading me the number of others you carry in your pocket. Would you mind reading me the number of the next note in your collection?”
“Would you mind reading me the numbers on the notes you hold?” asked Stranleigh, in cool, even tones, making no sign of producing his own assets.
“Not at all,” replied the other; whereupon he read them. The notes were evidently two of a series, and the numbers differed only by a single unit. Stranleigh nonchalantly took out his pocket-book, and the intruder’s eyes glistened as he observed its bulk. Stranleigh glanced at the number on the top bank-note, and replaced his pocket-book, leaning back in his easy chair.
“You are quite right,” he said. “Those are the notes I gave to Miss Trevelyan.”
“I asked why.”
“I told you why.”
“That cock-and-bull story won’t go down,” said the other. “Even the richest men do not fling money about in such reckless fashion. They do it only for a favour given or a favour expected.”
“I dare say you are right. But come to the point, as you said you would.”
“Is that necessary?”
“I don’t know that it is. You want money – as large an amount as can be squeezed from a man supposedly wealthy. You use your good-looking wife as a decoy – ”
“You are casting aspersion on a lady quite unknown to you!” cried his visitor, with well-assumed indignation.
“Pardon me, you seem to be casting aspersion on her whom you say is your wife. I don’t know how these notes got into your hands, but I’d be willing to stake double the amount that the lady is quite innocent in the matter. She certainly is so far as I am concerned. If the lady is your wife, what is her name? She told me she was travelling under a different title from that written on the lost ticket.”
“I am not ashamed of my name, if you are of yours. My name is Branksome Poole.”
“Ah, then she is Mrs. Branksome Poole?”
“Naturally.”
Stranleigh reached out and drew towards him a passenger list. Running his eye down the column of cabin passengers, he saw there the names: “Mr. and Mrs. Branksome Poole.”
“Well, Mr. Poole, we come to what is the final question – how much?”
“If you give me the roll of Bank of England notes which you exhibited a moment ago, I shall say nothing further about the matter, and, understand me, there is no coercion about my request. You may accept or decline, just as you like. I admit that my wife and I do not get along well together, and although I consider I have a grievance against you, I am not assuming the injured husband rôle at all. If you decline, I shall make no scandal aboard ship, but will wait and take action against you the moment we arrive in New York.”
“Very considerate of you, Mr. Poole. I understand that in New York the fountains of justice are perfectly pure, and that the wronged are absolutely certain of obtaining redress. I congratulate you on your choice of a battle-ground. Of course, you haven’t the slightest thought of levying blackmail, but I prefer to spend my money on the best legal talent in America rather than trust any of it to you. It’s a mere case of obstinacy on my part. And now, if you will kindly take your departure,
