CHAPTER V

A WOMAN SCORNED

Mr Burton might have been awaiting Mr Holland. He did not seem at all surprised to see him there, even at that hour of the night, or, rather, morning, for midnight had long since chimed.

'How do, dear boy? So you haven't been letting the grass grow under your feet. That's where you beat me; you are so energetic.'

And Mr Burton smiled. That smile was his most prominent feature. It was always there. Not that it necessarily denoted mirth. Not at all. It might mean anything, or nothing. When he was in a rage he smiled, and when he was in the best of tempers; when he wished to be agreeable, and when he wished to be nasty--and he could be nasty. He was not a bad-looking man, in his way, though there was something about him a little suggesting the worst side of the Semite, which rather detracted from the general effect. It was difficult to say exactly what it was. Whether it was that his nostrils were unduly thick, or that so much of his mouth as his heavy moustache suffered to be visible was animal, or that his eyes, which were fine of their kind, had an odd trick of intently observing you when you were not looking at him, and of wandering away into space when you were, it would have needed an acute physiognomist to determine, and then that physiognomist might have been in error. Certainly there was something about Mr Horace Burton which nearly always caused an experienced man of the world, on first making his acquaintance, to glance at him a first, a second, and again a third time, and then start thinking. Perhaps it was that, in spite of his moustache, his chronic smile displayed his teeth, which were not nice ones; or because of his soft, purring voice, which, when he became excited, had a squeak in it; or because of his feline trick of touching a person, with whom he might be conversing, with his fingertips, and stroking him, when he got near enough to do it.

Mr Holland regarded his cousin in silence. The encounter did not appear to astonish him, nor to add to his pleasure either. Mr Burton continued.

'Well--have you got it?'

'Have I got what?'

'Ah--you've answered. You haven't. I see. Thanks. It was rather sharp work to raid the girl at this hour of the night, don't you think? But you always were so keen. Was she nice to you? She used to be, didn't she? You've been a lucky chap. I never could make out what women saw in you to like. A lot of them have seen something. There's Miss Broad, for instance--'

'Don't mention that lady's name.'

'Not mention her name? My dear chap!' Mr Burton placed the finger-tips of his right hand against Mr Holland's chest, to have them brushed aside as if they were some noxious insect. He went on unmoved. 'She's to be my cousin; so I'm told. Unless you've jerked her up. I hear her father kicked you out of the house; perhaps you anticipate more kicking; in a case like that you can't kick back again. So perhaps you're wise to chuck the girl. I tell you what, dear boy.' The finger-tips returned, again to be displaced. 'Marry the Bewicke girl. Get a special license to marry the girl out of hand. Then you'll get the ruby and the money too. It's the only way you will. Hearken to the words of a wise man.'

'Mr Burton, although I am so unfortunate as to be a relative of yours, I have on a previous occasion been compelled to inform you that I decline to hold communication with, or afford you recognition of any sort or kind. I repeat that intimation now. With my reasons you are well acquainted; their name is Legion. Have the goodness, therefore, to let me pass.'

'But, my dear Guy, how about our uncle's money?'

'What about my uncle's money?'

'Our uncle's; forgive the plural, Guy. Hadn't we better come to some friendly arrangement while there still is time. You'll never get the ruby out of the Bewicke woman; I know her; she's a daughter of the horse-leech; she'll see you damned first. Relinquish the chase at once--you'll have to in a few hours, anyhow--and throw yourself on my magnanimity. There's a suggestion, Guy! Give it up; withdraw at once from what you know is a lost game, and I'll present you with a thousand pounds. Push the thing through to the bitter end, and you'll get nothing.'

'A thousand?--out of a quarter of a million?'

'It would be a gift, Guy--a free gift. It isn't every man who'd present a cousin who'd used him as you've used me with a free gift of a thousand pounds.'

'Mr Burton, if the money is to be yours, I'll have none of it. I'm not disposed to be beholden to your charity, nor to you in any way, as you are aware. If it is to be mine, you'll have none of it; I know your tastes, and will not pander to their gratification. Let me pass.'

'See how different we are. If the money is to be mine--and it will be; it's as good as mine already--I'll give you a few coppers every time we meet; I'll even send you some occasionally through the post. Good-night! My love to both the ladies!'

Mr Burton hailed a passing hansom and was driven off. Mr Holland continued his promenade, but had not gone far before he was accosted from behind.

'Mr Holland! Mr Holland!' exclaimed a female voice, as if the speaker were in distress for want of breath.

'Who's that?' He turned to see. A feminine figure was hastening towards him. 'This promises to be a night of adventure. Has that little hussy become humanised and changed her mind?'

The caller approached, holding her hand to her side.

'I wish to speak to you. You know me?'

They stood close to a lamp. Mr Holland looked her up and down.

'I seem to have seen you before. You are the person who rushed into the house as I came out.'

'That is it; I rushed--from him!'

She threw out her hand with a dramatic gesture, pointing down the street.

'From whom?'

'From your cousin--from Mr Horace Burton. Oh, he is a nice fellow! If I had stayed with him much longer I should have killed him; so to save myself from killing him I rushed away.'

'My cousin's concerns are not mine. I cannot assume responsibility for anything he may do or have done. You are mistaken if you suppose I can.'

'I am not mistaken; I know all that. You men are all the same; you hang together. If your own brother drives a woman into the gutter, you say it is no affair of yours; you pass on, you leave her there. Before you open your mouth I know you cannot be responsible for what he has done. But you can make me to be revenged on him.'

'Even that I cannot do.'

'You can! I say you can!'

The woman spoke, not loudly, but with such passion and intensity of meaning that Mr Holland was conscious of a curious sensation as he heard her. She was tall and thin, about thirty, not bad looking, but precisely the type of woman the ordinary rake, seeking for a victim, would, if he had his senses about him, have left severely alone. She was distinctly not a person to be trifled with. Apparently a foreigner, because, although she spoke fluent English, there was now and then a slight accent and a curious idiom which betrayed her. Written large all over her was what, to a practised eye, was unmistakable evidence that she was of the number of those who take all things seriously, even rakes. One could easily believe that to her a promise was a promise, though it came from the mouth of a man; and since there are men who regard promises made to women as a sort of persiflage, one would have thought that gentlemen who take that standpoint would carefully avoid an individual who eyed matters of the kind from such an inconveniently different point of view. Mr Horace Burton, however, was in some respects an unusual specimen even of his class. Possibly the consciousness that he ran the risk of burning his own fingers by playing tricks with this particular fire was the lure which drew him on.

Anyhow, Mr Holland told himself that this time his cousin had caught a Tartar, and became more and more convinced of it as the woman went on.

'My name is Louise Casata; I am Corsican, as he will find, your cousin. I am the companion of Miss May Bewicke.' Mr Holland pricked up his ears at this, which the woman, with her keen instinct, perceived. 'Now do you not remember me? I was with her when you used to make love to her. I used to think you did it very well. But in those days you were fond of her. Now it is of another woman you are fond. Although you may have forgotten, do not believe she has.'

This time Mr Holland winced.

'I think that now I do remember you. You used to write letters for her and that kind of thing.'

'All sorts of kinds of things. I do everything she tells me to; I am a Jack-of-all-trades. I would act for her one day; I can act, but I am too large a size. But that does not matter; nor does it matter what your cousin has done to me, though you can guess. But you cannot guess how he has lied and juggled.'

'I think I can.'

'Then you must know him very well. In which case you have my sympathy. What does matter is what you are going to do to him.'

'I am going to do nothing to him.'

'We will see; you will see; they all will see. Be still! Let me speak. He has told me about your uncle's will--about the ruby which Miss Bewicke has. How, if you get it from her, you are to have all the money; how, if you don't, he is to have it all. I know! Very well; you will get the ruby. That's what you will do to him. He will be ruined, body and soul; though, for his soul, that was lost long ago. If he wishes to keep his body out of prison he will have to be quick out of England. He will not find it easy. There are those who are watching for him too well.'

'Are you sure of what you say?'

'Am I sure! Do I not know? It is only because they think he will get his uncle's money that he has not been in prison before. I tell you there is a convict's uniform waiting for him in more than one place. You will fit it on his back. I shall be revenged. I will go and see him when he is in gaol. Every three months he will be allowed to receive a visit. I will be his visitor. To see me will give him pleasure. I shall have such nice things to say. Oh, yes!'

Mr Holland shivered. There was that about this woman which filled him with a sense of vague discomfort.

'I don't like your way of putting things at all!'

'What does it matter what you like? To get the ruby--that is your affair.'

'How do you suggest that I am, as you phrase it, "to get the ruby"?'

'You will have to take it.'

'Take it?'

'She will never give it to you--never. She hates you. She also has been looking for revenge. Now she has her chance. You behaved badly to her. Now she will behave badly to you.'

'I deny that I behaved badly to her. If you were acquainted with all the facts you would not judge me with such hard judgment.'

'She thinks that you behaved badly to her, and, for a woman, that is enough.'

'Then am I to take it that you only think that Horace Burton has behaved badly to you?'

The woman favoured him with a look which made him realise more clearly than anything which had gone before what a Tartar his cousin had encountered. She was silent for a moment or two. When she did speak, she spoke quietly; but it was a quietude in which there was a quality which was not peace.

'You think to get me in a rage. I am not such a fool. When I am in earnest I am not so easily angered. It is no affair of yours if it is only that I think he has treated me badly. It is your affair to get the ruby; and I tell you that to get it you must take it.'

'I am so dull as not to understand what you mean when you say that I must take it.'

'I will make it clear. You have four days--four only. Good! At one o'clock to-morrow night you will come to Miss Bewicke's rooms. She will be out. It is Saturday. She goes by the midnight train to Brighton until Monday. All will be dark. The front door you will find open. You will have but to push it to enter. You will go to her bedroom; it is in front of you, the second door on the right as you go in. That door, also, will be open. The dressing-table is before the window on the left. It has many little drawers. In them are a great number of her jewels. In the bottom little drawer on the right-hand side facing the glass there is one thing only; it is your uncle's ruby signet ring. I know. I have seen it very often. She is not proud of the way in which she got it; she calls it "old Burton's scalp." It is to her a trophy which she won in battle, so she keeps it all by itself in that little bottom drawer. You have but to put your hand in; it is yours. You go away; you close the doors behind you; for you the game is won.'

Mr Holland stared. The matter-of-fact air with which the proposal was made almost took his breath away.

'You are suggesting that I should commit burglary.'

She made a contemptuous movement with her head and hands.

'It is but a word; what does it matter--a word? It is a burglary of which you will hear nothing more. I promise you that Miss Bewicke will do nothing.'

'And the morality of the proceeding, what of that?'

'Morality!' She laughed. 'The morality! Do not talk to me such nonsense! Bah! As if anyone cared for morality except for the sake of a----. But I shall not contend with you; you but amuse yourself. You understand what I have said?'

'Perfectly. Too well.'

'Very good. Then I shall see you to-morrow night at one o'clock.'

'You will do nothing of the kind.'

'No, I shall not see you, because it will be dark; but you will be there. You will find the doors open, and everything as I have said. It is already late; I must go. Good-bye.'

She went, fluttering from him up the street at a gait which was half walk, half run. He stood looking after her, a little taken aback by the abruptness of her departure.

'That woman appears to have formed a high opinion of my character. She flatters me.'