covered his face with his hand for a moment. The question obviously distressed him.
“I can’t, Herbert,” he said, in a low tone. “You would scarcely think, would you, that I was the sort of man to live on irreconcilable terms with one of my own family? But there it is. Don’t think hardly of her. It is more the fault of circumstances than her fault. But I couldn’t go to see her—and she wouldn’t come to see me.”
Wrayson sighed.
“It is like the rest of this cursed mystery, utterly incomprehensible,” he declared. “I shall never—”
With his glass half raised to his lips, he paused suddenly in his sentence. His face became a study in the expression of a boundless amazement. His eyes were fastened upon the figures of two people on their way up the room, preceded by the smiling maître d’hôtel. Some words, or rather an exclamation, broke incoherently from his lips. He set down his glass hurriedly, and a stain of red wine crept unheeded across the tablecloth.
“Look,” he whispered hoarsely,—“look!”
XVII. A CONFESSION OF LOVE
The Colonel turned bodily round in his chair. The couple to whom Wrayson had drawn his attention were certainly incongruous enough to attract notice anywhere. The man was lank, elderly, and of severe appearance. He was bald, he had slight side-whiskers, he wore spectacles, and his face was devoid of expression. He was dressed in plain dinner clothes of old-fashioned cut. The tails of his coat were much too short, his collar belonged to a departed generation, and his tie was ready made. In a small Scotch town he might have passed muster readily enough as the clergyman or lawyer of the place. As a diner at Luigi’s, ushered up the room to the soft strains of “La Mattchiche,” and followed by such a companion, he was almost ridiculously out of place. If anything, she was the more noticeable of the two to the casual observer. Her hair was dazzlingly yellow, and arranged with all the stiffness of the coiffeur’s art. She wore a dress of black sequins, cut perilously low, and shorn a little by wear of its pristine splendour. Her complexion was as artificial as her high-pitched voice; her very presence seemed to exude perfumes of the patchouli type. She was the sort of person concerning whom the veriest novice in such matters could have made no mistake. Yet her companion seemed wholly unembarrassed. He handed her the menu and looked calmly around the room.
“Who are those people?” the Colonel asked. “Rather a queer combination, aren’t they?”
“The man is Bentham, the lawyer,” Wrayson answered. His eyes were fixed upon the lady, who seemed not at all indisposed to become the object of any stray attention.
“That Bentham!” the Colonel repeated, under his breath. “But what on earth—where the mischief could he pick up a companion like that?”
Wrayson scarcely heard him. He had withdrawn his eyes from the lady with an effort.
“I have seen that woman somewhere,” he said thoughtfully—“somewhere where she seemed quite as much out of place as she does here. Lately, too.”
“H’m!” the Colonel remarked, leaning back in his chair to allow the waiter to serve him. “She’s not the sort of person you’d be likely to forget either, is she?”
“And, by Heavens, I haven’t!” Wrayson declared, suddenly laying down his knife and fork. “I remember her now. It was at the inquest—Barnes’ inquest. She was one of the two women at whose flat he called on his way home. What on earth is Bentham doing with her?”
“You think,” the Colonel remarked quietly, “that there is some connection—”
“Of course there is,” Wrayson interrupted. “Does that old fossil look like the sort to take such a creature about for nothing? Colonel, he doesn’t know himself—where those securities are! He’s brought that woman here to pump her!”
The Colonel passed his hand across his forehead.
“I am getting a little confused,” he murmured.
“And I,” Wrayson declared, with barely suppressed excitement, “am beginning to see at least the shadow of daylight. If only you had some influence with your daughter, Colonel!”
The Colonel looked at him steadfastly. Wrayson wondered whether it was the light, or whether indeed his friend had aged so much during the last few months.
“I have no influence over my daughter, Wrayson,” he said. “I thought that I had already explained that. And, Herbert,” he added, leaning over the table, “why don’t you let this matter alone? It doesn’t concern you. You are more likely to do harm than good by meddling with it. There may be interests involved greater than you know of; you may find understanding a good deal more dangerous than ignorance. It isn’t your affair, anyhow. Take my advice! Let it alone!”
“I wish I could,” Wrayson answered, with a little sigh. “Frankly, I would if I could, but it fascinates me.”
“All that I have heard of it,” the Colonel remarked wearily, “sounds sordid enough.”
Wrayson nodded.
“I think,” he said, “that it is the sense of personal contact in a case like this which stirs the blood. I have memories about that night, Colonel, which I couldn’t describe to you—or any one. And now this young brother coming on the scene seems to bring the dead man to life again. He’s one of the worst type of young bounders I ever came into contact with. A creature without sentiment or feeling of any sort—nothing but an almost ravenous cupidity. He’s wearing his brother’s clothes now—thinks nothing of it! He hasn’t a single regret. I haven’t heard a single decent word pass his lips. But he wants the money. Nothing else! The money!”
“Do you believe,” the Colonel asked, “that he will get it?”
“Who can tell?” Wrayson answered. “That Morris Barnes was in possession of valuables of some sort, everything goes to prove. Just think of the number of people who have shown their interest in him. There is Bentham and his mysterious client, the Baroness de Sturm and your daughter, and—the person who murdered him. Apparently, even though he lost his life, Barnes was too clever for them, for his precious belongings must still be undiscovered.”
The Colonel finished his wine and leaned back in his chair.
“I am tired of this subject,” he said. “I should like to get back to the club.”
Wrayson called for the bill a little unwillingly. He was, in a sense, disappointed at the Colonel’s attitude.
“Very well,” he said, “we will bury it. But before we do so, there is one thing I have had it in my mind to say—for some time. I want to say it now. It is about your daughter, Colonel!”
The Colonel looked at him curiously.
“My daughter?” he repeated, under his breath.
Wrayson leaned a little forward. Something new had come into his face. This was the first time he had suffered such words to pass his lips—almost the first time he had suffered such thoughts to form themselves in his mind.
“I
