Chapter 14

Tavernake hesitated for a moment under the portico of the Milan Court, looking out at the rain which had suddenly commenced to descend. He scarcely noticed that he had a companion until the man who was standing by his side addressed him.

“Say, your name is Tavernake, isn't it?”

Tavernake, who had been on the point of striding away, turned sharply around. The man who had spoken to him was wearing morning clothes of dark gray tweed and a soft Homburg hat. His complexion was a little sallow and he was clean-shaven except for a slight black moustache. He was smoking a black cigar and his accent was transatlantic. Something about his appearance struck Tavernake as being vaguely familiar, but he could not at first recall where he had seen him before.

“That is my name, certainly,” Tavernake admitted.

“I am going to ask you a somewhat impertinent question,” his neighbor remarked.

“I suppose you can ask it,” Tavernake rejoined. “I am not obliged to answer, am I?”

The man smiled.

“Come,” he said, “that's honest, at any rate. Are you in a hurry for a few minutes?”

“I am in no particular hurry,” Tavernake answered. “What do you want?”

“A few nights ago,” the stranger continued, lowering his voice a little, “I met you with a young lady whose appearance, for some reason which we needn't go into, interested me. To-night I happened to overhear you inquiring, only a few minutes ago, for the sister of the same young lady.”

“What you heard doesn't concern me in the least,” Tavernake retorted. “I should say that you had no business to listen.”

His companion smiled.

“Well,” he declared, “I have always heard a good deal about British frankness, and it seems to me that I'm getting some. Anyway, I'll tell you where I come in. I am interested in Mrs. Wenham Gardner. I am interested, also, in her sister, whom I think you know--Miss Beatrice Franklin, not Miss Tavernake!”

Tavernake made no immediate reply. The man was an American, without a doubt. Perhaps he knew something of Beatrice. Perhaps this was one of the friends of that former life concerning which she had told him nothing.

“You are not, by any chance, proposing,” Tavernake said at last, “to discuss either of these ladies with me? I do not know you or what your business may be. In any case, I am going now.”

The other laid his hand on Tavernake's shoulder.

“You'll be soaked to the skin,” he protested. “I want you to come into the smoking-room here with me for a few minutes. We will have a drink together and a little conversation, if you don't mind.”

“But I do mind,” Tavernake declared. “I don't know who you are and I don't want to know you, and I am not going to talk about Mrs. Gardner, or any other lady of my acquaintance, with strangers. Good-night!”

“One moment, please, Mr. Tavernake.”

Tavernake hesitated. There was something curiously compelling in the other's smooth, distinct voice.

“I'd like you to take this card,” he said. “I told you my name before but I expect you've forgotten it,--Pritchard--Sam Pritchard. Ever heard of me before?”

“Never!”

“Not to have heard of me in the United States,” the other continued, with a grim smile, “would be a tribute to your respectability. Most of the crooks who find their way over here know of Sam Pritchard. I am a detective and I come from New York.”

Tavernake turned and looked the man over. There was something convincing about his tone and appearance. It did not occur to him to doubt for a moment a word of this stranger's story.

“You haven't anything against her--against either of them?” he asked, quickly.

“Nothing directly,” the detective answered. “All the same, you have been calling upon Mrs. Wenham Gardner this evening, and if you are a friend of hers I think that you had better come along with me and have that talk.”

“I will come,” Tavernake agreed, “but I come as a listener. Remember that I have nothing to tell you. So far as you are concerned, I do not know either of those ladies.”

Pritchard smiled.

“Well,” he said, “I guess we'll let it go at that. All the same, if you don't mind, we'll talk. Come this way and we'll get to the smoking-room through the hotel. It's under cover.”

Tavernake moved restlessly in his chair.

“What the devil is all this talk about crooks!” he exclaimed impatiently. “I didn't come here to listen to this sort of thing. I am not sure that I believe a word of what you say.”

“Why should you,” Pritchard remarked, “without proof? Look here.”

He drew a leather case from his pocket and spread it out. There were a dozen photographs there of men in prison attire. The detective pointed to one, and with a little shiver Tavernake recognized the face of the man who had been sitting at the right hand of Elizabeth.

“You don't mean to say,” he faltered, “that Mrs. Gardner--”

The detective folded up his case and replaced it in his pocket.

“No,” he said, “we haven't any photographs of your lady friend there, nor of her sister. And yet, it may not be so far off.”

“If you are trying to fasten anything upon those ladies,--” Tavernake began, threateningly.

The detective laughed and patted him on the shoulder.

“It isn't my business to try and fasten things upon any one,” he interrupted. “At the same time, you seem to be a friend of Mrs. Wenham Gardner, and it is just as well that some one should warn her.”

“Warn her of what?” Tavernake asked.

The detective looked at his cigar meditatively.

“Make her understand that there is trouble ahead,” he replied.

Tavernake sipped his whiskey and soda and lit a cigarette. Then he turned in his chair and looked thoughtfully at his companion. Pritchard was a striking-looking man, with hard, clean-cut features--a man of determination.

“Mr. Pritchard, I am a clerk in an estate office. My people were work-people and I am trying to better myself in the world. I haven't learned how to beat about a subject, but I have learned a little of the world, and I know that people such as you are not in the habit of doing things without a reason. Why the devil have you brought me in here to talk about Mrs. Gardner and her sister? If you've anything to say, why don't you go to Mrs. Gardner herself and say it? Why do you come and talk to strangers about their affairs? I am here listening to you, but I tell you straight I don't like it.”

Pritchard nodded.

“Say, I am not sure that I don't like that sort of talk,” he declared. “I know all about you, young man. You're in Dowling & Spence's office and you've got to quit. You've got an estate you want financing. Miss Beatrice Franklin was living under your roof--as your sister, I understand--until yesterday, and Mrs. Gardner, for some reason of her own, seems to be doing her best to add you to the list of her admirers. I am not sure what it all means but I could make a pretty good guess. Here's my point, though. You're right. I didn't bring you here for your health. I brought you here because you can do me a service and yourself one at the same time, and you'll be doing no one any harm, nobody you care about, anyway. I have no grudge against Miss Beatrice. I'd just as soon she kept out of the trouble that's coming.”

“What is this service?” Tavernake asked.

Pritchard for the moment evaded the point.

“I dare say you can understand, Mr. Tavernake,” he said, “that in my profession one has to sometimes go a long way round to get a man or a woman just where you want them. Now we merely glanced at that table as we came in, and I can tell you this for gospel truth--there isn't one of that crowd that I couldn't, if I liked, haul back to New York on some charge or another. You wonder why I don't do it. I'll tell you. It's because I am waiting--waiting until I can bring home something more serious, something that will keep them out of the way for just as long as possible. Do you follow me, Mr. Tavernake?”

“I suppose I do,” Tavernake answered, doubtfully. “You are only talking of the men, of course?”

Pritchard smiled.

“My young friend,” he agreed, “I am only talking of the men. At the same time, I guess I'm not betraying any confidence, or telling you anything that Mrs. Wenham Gardner doesn't know herself, when I say that she's doing her best to qualify for a similar position.”

“You mean that she is doing something against the law!” Tavernake exclaimed, indignantly. “I don't believe it for a moment. If she is associating with these people, it's because she doesn't know who they are.”

Pritchard flicked the ash from his cigar.

“Well,” he said, “every man has a right to his own opinions, and for my