effort to restrain, he strolled down the corridor, turning his eager gaze into the various little palm-lined alcoves, most of which were empty with the lights turned on. It was as quiet and solitary there as if it had been miles from Piccadilly, and no sound to break the silence but the distant murmur of the band.
There, at the far end of the corridor, in one of the tiny retreats, dimly lighted by a solitary lamp, it seemed to Wendover that he could see a smudge of scarlet with a suggestion of dazzling white here and there, bending over some blurred object that lay hidden behind a clump of ferns. There was something so sinister about the whole thing that Wendover rushed in and stood there, with startled eyes.
For there, behind that screen of greenery, lay the dead body of a man in evening dress. He lay there with his eyes turned upwards, lay there with a cruel gash in the centre of his dazzling expanse of shirt front, on which the crimson stain stood out vividly. And standing over him, frozen with horror, was the girl in the red dress.
“You cannot believe it,” she whispered. “You cannot believe that I—I–-“
“Of course not,” Wendover said. “Such a thought is impossible. But you know who the man is?”
“Yes. It’s Detmar—Leo Detmar. The man I came here to warn all too late.”
From the distance came the dreamy music of the band, and between those two and the dim alcove lay the body of the murdered man. Wendover was the first to recover himself.
“I must get you away from this,” he whispered.
III - “A FRIEND IN NEED”
A glorious gratitude swam into Zena’s eyes.
“Then you are going to help me?” she whispered.
“Of course I am,” replied Wendover. “What could the average man do less? I find you here in bitter distress, and there is nothing else for me to do. Oh, you need not look at me like that. Do you suppose, for a moment, that I can associate you with a deed of violence that has resulted in the death of the man who lies there? Of course not. No one in his senses could. But then you know who he is.”
The girl seemed to hesitate for a moment, not that there was any sign of hesitation or confusion about her. She was terribly moved and shaken in every limb, but, withal, she displayed a quiet courage that compelled Wendover’s admiration. And then the incongruity of the scene forced itself upon him. At any moment they might be discovered by some passing reveller, at any moment some loving couple might intrude upon their privacy. And then, of course, awkward questions might be asked, and the beautiful woman in the red dress find herself in a position of deadly peril.
Wendover already knew that she had not a friend in the world, knew that she depended upon her personal endeavours for her daily bread. And yet, here she was in this exclusive gathering, beautifully dressed and looking as if she and poverty had never even been nodding acquaintances. No doubt she would be able to explain presently, for Wendover was sufficiently a man of the world not to judge by outward appearances.
“You must come away,” he said hurriedly. “You must come with me back to the ballroom, anywhere away from here, for it seems to me that it would spoil everything now if a lot of awkward questions were asked, and, besides, you have nothing whatever to do with this crime. Come with me, and let us go away from it as far as possible.”
They stepped out into the corridor side by side, and Wendover noted with a sigh of relief that the place was as quiet and deserted still as it had been a quarter of an hour before. It was quite evident to him that no one had seen Zena Corroda enter the alcove, and his movements had been unmarked by anyone. He drew the girl’s shaking arm through his, and led her back to the lights and the music, and the chatter of the frivolous crowd with a feeling that all this was a dream, and that he would wake from it presently.
Sooner or later the body lying in the alcove would be discovered, but that was no reason why he or she should be identified with it. Indeed, such a course would go a long way to hinder him, and thwart the discovery of the crime and rascality that he was already tracking down. And the girl appealed to him. That wondrous and pathetic beauty of hers touched him as he had never been touched before. He was more than half in love with Zena Corroda already, without knowing it.
He seated her in the quietest corner of the ballroom he could find, and insisted that she should take a glass of champagne. He watched the color creeping back into the olive-tinted cheeks, and the frightened, haunted fear dying out of those dark eyes of hers.
“You are indeed a friend,” she whispered.
“Until death,” Wendover said, with a tinge of passion in his voice. “I want you to believe that there is nothing in the world I would not do for you. And perhaps a little later on you may like to confide in me.”
“Then you implicitly trust me?” Zena asked.
“Absolutely and implicitly,” Wendover said. “Still, this is a serious business, and I have more than an impression that you know something about it. I am more than certain that you do. When the man who lies dead yonder passed you just now in the ballroom, I was watching you. I have been watching you more or less, all the afternoon. I saw you in Fleet-street. I saw that man stop you, and I followed you into the tea shop. Don’t ask me why, Miss Corroda, because I cannot tell you. I really don’t know. Why does a man who takes only a general interest in women suddenly find himself arrested by a face in the crowd? Why does a man find himself irresistibly attracted towards a woman he has never spoken to? But these problems can wait. When the dead man passed you you turned pale, and your eyes were full of trouble. Then you followed him, to warn him, probably.”
“Oh, I did,” Zena said. “The man was in great danger, how great a peril you have seen for yourself. More than that I cannot tell you at present.”
“Oh, I think you can. I think you must. And there was another man, too, who followed directly afterwards, another man who went down the corridor, and who either turned into one of those alcoves or into one of the rooms at the end of the corridor. Did you see him?”
“No,” Zena explained, “but I know that he must have been there. It was against him that I went to warn the man who is dead. And the other man, who was responsible for the crime, no doubt, disappeared in the way you have suggested. And now, Mr. Wendover, I am going to tell you something. Because you are my friend, and because my heart tells me that I can trust you. Beyond that locked door at the end of the corridor lies the whole secret. Beyond that door is the fortune that my father made, and which would have been mine had he been left to himself. When I came here to-night, partly with the intention of enjoying myself, I had forgotten for the moment, that the Brotherhood meets in this hotel once a year to discuss the future, after supping together. It was my father who founded the Brotherhood, and all that remains of them now are John Garcia, Leon de Vince, Nikolo Petroff, and Leo Detmar, the man who lies in the corridor there, stabbed to the heart, and two others whose names I forget. As I told you just now it had escaped my recollection for the moment that the Brotherhood meet to hold their annual supper and conference in this hotel. You must understand that my father has been dead over a year now, and these people, for the most part, ignore my existence. It is quite clear to me that Detmar was lured here and murdered in that alcove by one of his own colleagues–-“
“Murdered by John Garcia, you mean,” Wendover suggested.
Once more the look
