rapid in your love affairs, my dear Mr. Wrayson, is it not so? So she has left you planté là!”
“I—was mad,” Wrayson muttered.
The Baroness helped herself to whisky and soda.
“Come again and make your peace, my friend,” she said. “You will see no more of her to-night.”
Wrayson accepted the hint and went.
XI. FALSE SENTIMENT
With his nerves strung to their utmost point of tension Wrayson walked homeward with the unseeing eyes and mechanical footsteps of a man unable as yet fully to collect his scattered senses. But for him the events of the evening were not yet over. He had no sooner turned the key in the latch of his door and entered his sitting-room, than he became aware of the fact that he had a visitor. The air was fragrant with tobacco smoke; a man rose deliberately from the easy-chair, and, throwing the ash from his cigarette into the fire, turned to greet him. Wrayson was so astonished that he could only gasp out his name.
“Heneage!” he exclaimed.
Heneage nodded. Of the two, he was by far the more at his ease.
“I wanted to see you, Wrayson,” he said, “and I persuaded your housekeeper—with some difficulty—to let me wait for your arrival. Can you spare me a few minutes?”
“Of course,” Wrayson answered. “Sit down. Will you have anything?”
Heneage shook his head.
“Not just now, thanks!”
Wrayson took off his hat and coat, threw them upon the table, and lit a cigarette.
“Well,” he said, “what is it?”
“I have come,” Heneage said quietly, “to offer you some very good advice. You are run down, and you look it. You need a change. I should recommend a sea voyage, the longer the better. They say that your paper is making a lot of money. Why not a voyage round the world?”
“What the devil do you mean?” Wrayson asked.
Heneage flicked off the ash from his cigarette, and looked for a moment thoughtfully into the fire.
“Three weeks ago last Thursday, I think it was,” he began, reflectively, “I had supper with Austin at the Green Room Club, after the theatre. He persuaded me, rather against my will, I remember, for I was tired that night, to go home with him and make a fourth at bridge. Austin’s flat, as you know, is just below here, on the Albert Road.”
Wrayson stopped smoking. The cigarette burned unheeded between his fingers. His eyes were fixed upon his visitor.
“Go on,” he said.
“We played five rubbers,” Heneage continued, still looking into the fire; “it may have been six. I left somewhere in the small hours of the morning, and walked along the Albert Road on the unlit side of the street. As I passed the corner here, I saw a hansom waiting before your door, and you—with somebody else, standing on the pavement.”
“Anything else?” Wrayson demanded.
“No!” Heneage answered. “I saw you, I saw the lady, and I saw the cab. It was a cold morning, and I am not naturally a curious person. I hurried on.”
Wrayson picked up the cigarette, which had fallen from his fingers, and sat down. He could scarcely believe that this was not a dream—that it was indeed Stephen Heneage who sat opposite to him, Heneage the impenetrable, whose calm, measured words left no indication whatever as to his motive in making this amazing revelation.
“You are naturally wondering,” Heneage continued, “why, having seen what I did see, I kept silence. I followed your lead, because I fancied, in the first place, that the presence of that young lady was a personal affair of your own, and that she could have no possible connection with the tragedy itself. You were evidently disposed to shield her and yourself at the same time. I considered your attitude reasonable, if a little dangerous. No man is obliged to give himself away in matters of this sort, and I am no scandalmonger. The situation, however, has undergone a change.”
Wrayson looked up quickly.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“To-night,” Heneage said calmly, “I recognized your nocturnal visitor with the Baroness de Sturm.
“And what of that?” Wrayson demanded.
Heneage, who was leaning back in his chair, looking into the fire with half closed eyes, straightened himself, and turned directly towards his companion.
“How much do you know about the Baroness de Sturm?” he asked.
“Nothing at all,” Wrayson answered. “I met her for the first time to-night.”
Heneage looked back into the fire.
“Ah!” he murmured. “I thought that it might be so. The young lady is perhaps an old friend?”
“I cannot discuss her,” Wrayson answered. “I can only say that I will answer for her innocence as regards any complicity in the murder of Morris Barnes.”
Heneage nodded sympathetically.
“Still,” he remarked, “the man was murdered.”
“I suppose so,” Wrayson admitted.
“And in a most mysterious manner,” Heneage continued. “You have gathered, I dare say, from your knowledge of me, that these affairs always interest me immensely. I am almost as great a crank as the Colonel. I have been thinking over this case a great deal, but I must confess that up to to-night I have not been able to see a gleam of daylight. I had dismissed the young lady from my mind. Now, however, I cannot do so.”
“Simply because you saw her with the Baroness de Sturm?” Wrayson asked.
“They are living together,” Heneage reminded him, “a condition which naturally makes for a certain amount of intimacy.”
“Do you know anything against the Baroness?” Wrayson demanded.
“Against her?” Heneage repeated thoughtfully. “Well, that depends.”
“Do you mean to insinuate that she is an adventuress?” Wrayson asked bluntly.
“Certainly not,” Heneage replied. “She is a representative of one of the oldest families in Europe, a persona grata at the Court of her country, and an intimate friend of Queen Helena’s. She is by no means an adventuress.”
“Then why,” Wrayson asked, “should you attach such significance to the fact of her friendship with Miss Deveney?”
“Because,” Heneage remarked, lighting another cigarette, “I happen to know that the Baroness is at present under the
