filled his heart at the sight of her. If she had been beyond his reach before, the gulf, in some incomprehensible manner, had widened now.
With a sinking heart he realised the gulf between this daughter of the Lenleys and Inspector Wembury.
“Why, Alan, what a pleasant sight!” Her sad eyes were brightened with laughter. “And you’re bursting with news! Poor Alan! We read it in the morning newspaper.”
He laughed ruefully.
“I didn’t know that my promotion was a matter of world interest,” he said.
“But you’re going to tell me all about it.” She slipped her arm in his naturally, as she had in the days of her childhood, when the gardener’s son was Mary Lenley’s playmate, the shy boy who flew her kite and bowled and fielded for her when she wielded a cricket bat almost as tall as herself.
“There is little to tell but the bare news,” said Alan. “I’m promoted over the heads of better men, and I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry!”
He felt curiously self-conscious and gauche as they paced the untidy lawn together.
“I’ve had a little luck in one or two cases I’ve handled, but I can’t help feeling that I’m a favourite with the Commissioner and that I owe my promotion more to that cause than to any other.”
“Rubbish!” she scoffed. “Of course you’ve had your promotion on merit!”
She caught his eyes looking at the house, and instantly her expression changed.
“Poor old Lenley Court!” she said softly. “You’ve heard our news, Alan? We’re leaving next week.” She breathed a long sigh. “It doesn’t bear thinking about, does it? Johnny is taking a flat in town, and Maurice has promised me some work.”
Alan stared at her.
“Work?” he gasped. “You don’t mean you’ve got to work for your living?”
She laughed at this.
“Why, of course, my dear — my dear Alan. I’m initiating myself into the mysteries of shorthand and typewriting. I’m going to be Maurice’s secretary.”
Meister’s secretary!
The words had a familiar sound. And then in a flash he remembered another secretary, whose body had been taken from the river one foggy morning, and he recalled Colonel Walford’s ominous words.
“Why, you’re quite glum, Alan. Doesn’t the prospect of my earning a living appeal to you?” she asked, her lips twitching.
“No,” he said slowly, and it was like Alan that he could not disguise his repugnance to the scheme. “Surely there is something saved from the wreck?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing — absolutely nothing! I have a very tiny income from my mother’s estate, and that will keep me from starvation. And Johnny’s really clever, Alan. He has made quite a lot of money lately — that’s queer, isn’t it? One never suspected Johnny of being a good business man, and yet he is. In a few years we shall be buying back Lenley Court.”
Brave words, but they did not deceive Alan!
Chapter 3
He saw her look over his shoulder, and turned. Two men were walking towards them, Though it was a warm day in early summer, and the Royal Courts of Justice forty miles away, Mr. Meister wore the conventional garb of a successful lawyer. The long-tailed morning coat fitted his slim figure faultlessly, his black cravat with its opal pin was perfectly arranged. On his head was the glossiest of silk hats, and the yellow gloves which covered his hands were spotless. A sallow, thin-faced man with dark, fathomless eyes, there was something of the aristocrat in his manner and speech. “He looks like a duke, talks like a don and thinks like a devil,” was not the most unflattering thing that had been said about Maurice Meister.
His companion was a tall youth, hardly out of his teens, whose black brows met at the sight of the visitor. He came slowly across the lawn, his hands thrust into his trousers pockets, his dark eyes regarding Alan with an unfriendly scowl.
“Hallo!” he said grudgingly, and then, to his companion: “You know Wembury, don’t you, Maurice — he’s a sergeant or something in the police.”
Maurice Meister smiled slowly.
“Divisional Detective Inspector, I think,” and offered his long, thin hand. “I understand you are coming into my neighbourhood to add a new terror to the lives of my unfortunate clients!”
“I hope we shall be able to reform them,” said Alan good-humouredly. “That is really what we are for!”
Johnny Lenley was glowering at him. He had never liked Alan, even as a boy and now for some reason, his resentment at the presence of the detective was suddenly inflamed.
“What brings you to Lenley?” he asked gruffly. “I didn’t know you had any relations here?”
“I have a few friends,” said Alan steadily.
“Of course he has!” It was Mary who spoke. “He came to see me, for one, didn’t you, Alan? I’m sorry we can’t ask you to stay with us, but there’s practically no furniture left in the house.”
John Lenley’s eyes snapped at this.
“It isn’t necessary to advertise our poverty all over the kingdom, my dear,” he said sharply. “I don’t suppose Wembury is particularly interested in our misfortunes, and he’d be damned impertinent if he was!”
He saw the hurt look on his sister’s face, and his unreasonable annoyance with the visitor was increased. It was Maurice Meister who poured oil upon the troubled water.
“The misfortunes of Lenley Court are public property, my dear Johnny,” he said blandly. “Don’t be so stupidly touchy! I, for one, am very glad to have the opportunity of meeting a police officer of such fame as Inspector Alan Wembury. You will find your division rather a dull spot just now, Mr. Wembury. We have none of the excitement which prevailed when I first moved to Deptford from Lincoln’s Inn Fields.”
Alan nodded.
“You mean, you’re not bothered with The Ringer?” he said.
It was a perfectly innocent remark, and he was quite unprepared for the change which came to Meister’s face. He blinked quickly as though he had been confronted with a brilliant light. The loose mouth became in an instant a straight, hard line. If there was not fear in those inscrutable eyes of his, Alan Wembury was very wide of the mark.
“The Ringer!” His voice was husky. “Ancient history, eh? Poor beggar, he’s dead!”
He said this with almost startling emphasis. It seemed to Alan that the man was trying to persuade himself that this notorious criminal had passed beyond the sphere of human activity.
