The Loot of Cities (Mystery Classics Series). Bennett Arnold

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The Loot of Cities (Mystery Classics Series) - Bennett Arnold

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      And then Thorold noticed that the new journalist was softly weeping.

      V.

      The Door opened.

      "Miss Kitty Sartorius," said the erstwhile liftman, who was now in plain clothes and had mysteriously ceased to squint.

      A beautiful girl, a girl who had remarkable loveliness and was aware of it (one of the prettiest women of the Devonshire), ran impulsively into the room and caught Miss Fincastle by the hand.

      "My dearest Eve, you're crying. What's the matter?"

      "Lecky," said Thorold aside to the servant. "I told you to admit no one."

      The beautiful blonde turned sharply to Thorold.

      "I told him I wished to enter," she said imperiously, half closing her eyes.

      "Yes, sir," said Lecky. "That was it. The lady wished to enter."

      Thorold bowed.

      "It was sufficient," he said. "That will do, Lecky."

      "Yes sir."

      "But I say, Lecky, when next you address me publicly, try to remember that I am not in the peerage."

      The servant squinted.

      "Certainly, sir." And he retired.

      "Now we are alone," said Miss Sartorius. "Introduce us, Eve, and explain."

      Miss Fincastle, having regained self-control, introduced her dear friend the radiant star of the Regency Theatre, and her acquaintance the millionaire.

      "Eve didn't feel quite sure of you," the actress stated; "and so we arranged that if she wasn't up at my flat by nine o'clock, I was to come down and reconnoitre. What have you been doing to make Eve cry?"

      "Unintentional, I assure you―" Thorold began.

      "There's something between you two," said Kitty Sartorius sagaciously, in significant accents. "What is it?"

      She sat down, touched her picture hat, smoothed her white gown, and tapped her foot. "What is it, now? Mr. Thorold, I think you had better tell me."

      Thorold raised his eyebrows and obediently commenced the narration, standing with his back to the fire.

      "How perfectly splendid!" Kitty exclaimed. "I'm so glad you cornered Mr. Bowring. I met him one night and I thought he was horrid. And these are the notes? Well, of all the―"

      Thorold proceeded with his story.

      "Oh, but you can't do that, Eve!" said Kitty, suddenly serious. "You can't go and split! It would mean all sorts of bother; your wretched newspaper would be sure to keep you hanging about in London, and we shouldn't be able to start on our holiday to-morrow. Eve and I are starting on quite a long tour to-morrow, Mr. Thorold; we begin with Ostend."

      "Indeed!" said Thorold. "I, too, am going in that direction soon. Perhaps we may meet."

      "I hope so," Kitty smiled, and then she looked at Eve Fincastle. "You really mustn't do that, Eve," she said.

      "I must, I must!" Miss Fincastle insisted, clenching her hands.

      "And she will," said Kitty tragically, after considering her friend's face. "She will, and our holiday's ruined. I see it— I see it plainly. She's in one of her stupid conscientious moods. She's fearfully advanced and careless and unconventional in theory, Eve is; but when it comes to practice! Mr. Thorold, you have just got everything into a dreadful knot. Why did you want those notes so very particularly?"

      "I don't want them so very particularly."

      "Well, anyhow, it's a most peculiar predicament. Mr. Bowring doesn't count, and this Consolidated thingummy isn't any the worse off. Nobody suffers who oughtn't to suffer. It's your unlawful gain that's wrong. Why not pitch the wretched notes in the fire?" Kitty laughed at her own playful humour.

      "Certainly," said Thorold. And with a quick movement he put the fifty trifles in the grate, where they made a bluish yellow flame.

      Both the women screamed and sprang up.

      "Mr. Thorold!"

      "Mr. Thorold!" ("He's adorable!" Kitty breathed.)

      "The incident, I venture to hope, is now closed," said Thorold calmly, but with his dark eyes sparkling. "I must thank you both for a very enjoyable evening. Some day, perhaps, I may have an opportunity of further explaining my philosophy to you."

      Chapter II.

       A Comedy on the Gold Coast.

       Table of Contents

      It was five o'clock on an afternoon in mid-September, and a couple of American millionaires (they abounded that year, did millionaires) sat chatting together on the wide terrace which separates the entrance to the Kursaal from the promenade. Some yards away, against the balustrade of the terrace, in the natural, unconsidered attitude of one to whom short frocks are a matter of history, certainly, but very recent history, stood a charming and imperious girl; you could see that she was eating chocolate while meditating upon the riddle of life. The elder millionaire glanced at every pretty woman within view, excepting only the girl; but his companion seemed to be intent on counting the chocolates.

      The immense crystal dome of the Kursaal dominated the gold coast, and on either side of the great building were stretched out in a straight line the hotels, the restaurants, the cafés, the shops, the theatres, the concert-halls, and the pawnbrokers of the City of Pleasure— Ostend. At one extremity of that long array of ornate white architecture (which resembled the icing on a bride-cake more than the roofs of men) was the palace of a king; at the other were the lighthouse and the railway signals which guided into the city the continuously arriving cargoes of wealth, beauty, and desire. In front, the ocean, grey and lethargic, idly beat up a little genteel foam under the promenade for the wetting of pink feet and stylish bathing-costumes. And after a hard day's work, the sun, by arrangement with the authorities during August and September, was setting over the sea exactly opposite the superb portals of the Kursaal.

      The younger of the millionaires was Cecil Thorold. The other, a man fifty-five or so, was Simeon Rainshore, father of the girl at the balustrade, and president of the famous Dry Goods Trust, of exciting memory. The contrast between the two men, alike only in extreme riches, was remarkable: Cecil still youthful, slim, dark, languid of movement, with delicate features, eyes almost Spanish, and an accent of purest English; and Rainshore with his nasal twang, his stout frame, his rounded, bluish-red chin, his little eyes, and that demeanour of false briskness by means of which ageing men seek to prove to themselves that they are as young as ever they were. Simeon had been a friend and opponent of Cecil's father; in former days those twain had victimised each other for colossal sums. Consequently Simeon had been glad to meet the son of his dead antagonist, and, in less than a week of Ostend repose, despite a fundamental disparity of temperament, the formidable president and the Europeanised

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