how I do hate that word!” she exclaimed. “Who is there, indeed, who wishes that you would be faithful? How much we poor women do suffer from that! Why can you never understand that a woman would be cared for very, very much, with all the strength and all the passion you can conceive, but let it not last for too long. It gets weary. It gets stale. It is as you say,—the Englishman he cares very little, perhaps, but he cares always; and the woman, if she be an artiste and a woman, she tires. But good afternoon, Mr. Laverick! I must not keep you here on the pavement talking of these frivolous matters. You come to-night?”
“You are very kind,” Laverick said. “If I may come until eleven o’clock, it would give me the greatest pleasure.”
“As you will,” she declared. “We shall see. I expect you, then. You ask for your box.”
“If you wish it, certainly.”
She smiled and waved her hand.
“You will tell him, please,” she directed, “to drive to Bond Street.”
Laverick re-entered his office, pausing for a minute to give his clerk instructions for the purchase of stocks for Mademoiselle Idiale. He had scarcely reached his own room when he was told that Mr. James Shepherd wished to speak to him for a moment upon the telephone. He took up the receiver.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“It is Shepherd,” was the answer. “Is that Mr. Laverick?”
“Yes!”
“You were outside the restaurant here a few minutes ago,” Shepherd continued. “You had with you a lady—a young, tall lady with a veil.”
“That’s right,” Laverick admitted. “What about her?”
“One of the two men who watch always here was reading the paper in the window,” Shepherd went on hoarsely. “He saw her with you and I heard him mutter something as though he had received a shock. He dropped his glass and his paper. He watched you every second of the time you were there until you had disappeared. Then he, too, put on his hat and went out.”
“Anything else?”
“Nothing else,” was the reply. “I thought you might like to know this, sir. The man recognized the lady right enough.”
“It seems queer,” Laverick admitted. “Thank you for ringing me up, Shepherd. Good morning!”
Laverick leaned back in his chair. There was no doubt whatever now in his mind but that Mademoiselle Idiale, for some reason or other, was interested in this crime. Her wish to see the place, her introduction to him last night and her purchase of stocks, were all part of a scheme. He was suddenly and absolutely convinced of it. As friend or foe, she was very certainly about to take her place amongst the few people over whom this tragedy loomed.
XXII. ACTIVITY OF AUSTRIAN SPIES
Louise left her brougham in Piccadilly and walked across the Green Park. Bellamy, who was waiting, rose up from a seat, hat in hand. She took his arm in foreign fashion. They walked together towards Buckingham Palace—a strangely distinguished-looking couple.
“My dear David,” she said, “the man perplexes me. To look at him, to hear him speak, one would swear that he was honest. He has just those clear blue eyes and the stolid face, half stupid and half splendid, of your athletic Englishman. One would imagine him doing a foolishly honorable thing, but he is not my conception of a criminal at all.”
Bellamy kicked a pebble from the path. His forehead wore a perplexed frown.
“He didn’t give himself away, then?”
“Not in the least.”
“He took you out and showed you the spot where it happened?”
“Without an instant’s hesitation.”
“As a matter of curiosity,” asked Bellamy, “did he try to make love to you?”
She shook her head.
“I even gave him an opening,” she said. “Of flirtation he has no more idea than the average stupid Englishman one meets.”
Bellamy was silent for several moments.
“I can’t believe,” he said, “that there is the least doubt but that he has the money and the portfolio. I have made one or two other inquiries, and I find that his firm was in very low water indeed only a week ago. They were spoken of, in fact, as being hopelessly insolvent. No one can imagine how they tided over the crisis.”
“The man who was watching for you?” she inquired.
“He makes no mistakes,” Bellamy assured her. “He saw Laverick enter that passage and come out. Afterwards he went back to his office, although he had closed up there and had been on his homeward way. The thing could not have been accidental.”
“Why do you not go to him openly?” she suggested. “He is, after all, an Englishman, and when you tell him what you know he will be very much in your power. Tell him of the value of that document. Tell him that you must have it.”
“It could be done,” Bellamy admitted. “I think that one of us must talk plainly to him. Listen, Louise,—are you seeing him again?”
“I have invited him to come to the Opera House to-night.”
“See what you can do,” he begged. “I would rather keep away from him myself, if I can. Have you heard anything of Streuss?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Nothing directly,” she replied, “but my rooms have been searched—even my dressing-room at the Opera House. That man’s spies are simply wonderful. He seems able to plant them everywhere. And, David!—”
“Yes, dear?”
“He has got hold of Lassen,” she continued. “I am perfectly certain of it.”
“Then the sooner you get rid of Lassen, the better,” Bellamy declared.
“It is so difficult,” she murmured, in a perplexed tone. “The man has all my affairs in his hands. Up till now, although he is uncomely, and a brute in many ways, he has served me well.”
“If he is Streuss’s creature he must go,” Bellamy insisted.
She nodded.
“Let us sit down for a few minutes,” she said. “I am tired.”
She sank on to a seat and Bellamy sat by her side. In full view of them was Buckingham Palace with its flag flying. She looked thoughtfully at it and across to Westminster.
“Do they know, I wonder, your country-people?” she asked.
“Half-a-dozen of them, perhaps,” he answered gloomily,
