Part 15

How much was the fare? Twopence, Elbert thought. Alas, June had only a penny. She was painfully shy about confessing this difficulty, but there was no help for it.

“Don’t you worry, Miss. Elbert is goin’ to see you all the way.” And Maw fixed a savage eye upon her son.

Much as June would have preferred to forego the services of this paladin, Maw’s ferocious glance settled the matter finally.

“And you’ll carry the pawcel for the lidy,” said Maw, as Elbert, scowling more darkly than ever turned up the collar of his overcoat.

XLVIII

THE Van Roon, at that moment, was in the hand of Maw. And although June was on fire to get it back, her natural faculties had the authority to tell her that undue eagerness would be most unwise. She must be content to await her chance, yet there was no saying when that chance would come; for Maw was careful to hand personally the parcel to Elbert.

Before June set out on her journey one of the girls pressed a cup of tea from the family brew upon her. It was lukewarm and thrice-stewed, but June was able to drink a little and to feel the better for it. She was in a high state of tension, all the same, when Elbert opened the street door, her treasure under his arm, and she followed close behind him into the darkness.

Surely Keller must be out there in the fog, waiting to attack them. Her heart beat wildly as she marched side by side with Elbert along the street towards the Tube. Distrust of her cavalier was great. Should he guess the value of the thing he bore, as likely as not he would play her a trick. But for the moment, at any rate, this fear was merged in the sharper one of what was concealed by the fantastic shadow shapes of that dark thoroughfare. Less than a hundred yards away, however, was the Tube Station. And to June’s unspeakable relief they gained its light and publicity without misadventure. Here, moreover, was her chance. While Elbert searched his pockets for fourpence to purchase two tickets for Marble Arch, she insisted on relieving him of the parcel. Once restored to her care, she clung to it so tenaciously that the puzzled Elbert had reluctantly to give up the hope of getting it back again.

Going down in the lift to the trains, with the surge of fellow passengers guaranteeing a measure of safety, June allowed herself to conclude that Elbert, after all, might be less of a ruffian than he looked. If he had no graces of mind or mansion, he was yet not without a sort of rude care for her welfare. By no wish of his own was he seeing a distressed damsel to her home, yet the process of doing so, once he grew involved in it, seemed to minister in some degree to a latent sense of chivalry. At all events he had a scowl for anyone whose elbows came too near his charge.

Arriving at Marble Arch in due course, the heroic Elbert piloted the fugitive out of the station and across the road into Park Lane. Here, under a street lamp, they paused a moment to examine the label on the parcel for the number of the house they sought. Thirty-nine was the number, and it proved to be not the least imposing home in that plutocratic thoroughfare.

Elbert accompanied June as far as its doorstep. Before ringing the bell she said good-bye to her escort with all the gratitude she could muster, begging him to give her his name and address, so that she might at least restore to him the price of her fare. Yet the squire of dames saw no necessity for this. His scowl was softened a little by her thanks, but his only answer was to press the electric button and then, without a word, to slink abruptly away into the fog.

XLIX

JUNE felt a wild excitement, as she stood waiting for the answer to her ring. The stress of events had buoyed her up, but with Elbert no longer at her side and the door of a strange house confronting her, trolls were loose once more in her brain. A fresh wave of panic surged through her, and again she feared that she was going to faint.

The prompt opening of the door by a gravely dignified manservant acted as a strong restorative. June mustered the force of will to ask if she could see Miss Babraham. Such a request, made in a nervous and excited manner, gave pause to the footman, who at first could not bring himself to invite her into the large dimly lighted hall. Finally he did so; closed the door against the fog, and then asked her name with an air of profound disapproval, which at any other time must have proved highly embarrassing.

“I’m Miss Gedge,” said June. “From the second-hand shop in New Cross Street. Miss Babraham’ll remember me.”

The servant slowly repeated the fragmentary words in a low voice of cutting emphasis. “I’m afraid,” he said, while his eye descended to June’s shoes and up again, “Miss Babraham will not be able to see you to-night. However, I’ll inquire.”

Superciliously the footman crossed the hall, to discuss the matter with an unseen presence in its farthest shadows. The conference was brief but unsatisfactory, for a moment later the unseen presence slowly materialized into the august shape of a butler, who seemed at once to diminish the footman into a relative nothingness.

“Perhaps you’ll let me know your business,” said the butler, in a tone which implied that she could have no business, at any rate with Miss Babraham, at such an hour.

June, alas, could not explain the nature of her errand. These two men were so imposing, so unsympathetic, so harsh, so frightening that had life itself depended upon her answers, and in quite a special degree she now felt that it did, she was yet unequal to the task of making them effective.

“Miss Babraham cannot see you now,” said the slow-voiced butler, with an air of terrible finality.

“But I must see her. I simply must,” wildly persisted June.

“It’s impossible to see her now,” said the butler.

The words caused June to stagger back against the wall. In answer to her tragic eyes, the butler said reluctantly: “You had better call again some time to-morrow, and I’ll send in your name.”

“I--I must see her now,” June gasped wildly.

The butler was adamant. “You can’t possibly see her to-night.”

“Why can’t I?” said June, desperately.

“She is going to a ball.”

The words were like a blow. A vista of the fog outside and of herself wandering with her precious burden all night long in it homeless, penniless, desolate, came upon her with unnerving force. “But--please!--I must see her to-night,” she said, with a shudder of misery.

Faced by the butler’s pitiless air, June felt her slender hope to be ebbing away. She would be turned adrift in the night. And what would happen to her then? She could not walk the streets till daybreak with the Van Roon under her arm. Already she had reached the limit of endurance. The dark haze before her eyes bore witness to the fact that her strength was almost gone. No matter what the attitude of the butler towards her she must not think of quitting this place of refuge unless she was flung out bodily, for her trials here were nought by comparison with those awaiting her outside.

June’s defiance was very puzzling to the stern functionary who quite plainly was at a loss how to deal with it. But in the midst of these uncertainties the problem was unexpectedly solved for him. A glamour of white satin, jewels and fur appeared on the broad staircase. Miss Babraham descended slowly.

Once more was June upheld by a sense of Providence. Hope flickered again, a painful, fluctuating gleam. She sprang forward to intercept this vision of pure beauty, wildly calling the name “Miss Babraham! Miss Babraham!”

The dazzling creature was startled out of her glowing self-possession: “Why, who _are_ you?” she cried.

In a gush of strange words, June strove to make clear that she was the girl from the antique shop in New Cross Street, and that her uncle, its proprietor, was a very wicked old man who was trying to steal a valuable picture that had been given to her. She pressed the Van Roon upon the astonished Miss Babraham and besought her to take care of it.

After that, June had only a very dim idea of what happened. She found herself in a sort of anteroom without knowing how she got there, with faces of a surprised curiosity around her. Foremost of these was the lovely Miss Babraham, a thing of sheer beauty in her ball-dress, who asked questions to which June could only give confused replies, and issued orders that she was not able to follow.

Everything began to grow more and more like a wild and terrible dream. Other people appeared on the scene, among whom June was just able to recognize the tall form of Sir Arthur Babraham. By then, however she no longer knew what she was doing or saying, for deep blanks were invading her consciousness; even the treasure in which her very soul was merged had somehow slipped from her mental grasp, and like everything else had ceased to have significance.

L

AT eleven o’clock the next morning, Sir Arthur Babraham, looking worried and distrait, was pretending to read the “Times.” If ever a man could be said to have “been born with a silver spoon in his mouth” it was this soft-voiced, easy-mannered, kindly gentleman. The rubs of a hard world had hardly touched his unflawed surfaces. He sat on committees, it was true, and played Providence at third or fourth hand to less happily situated mortals; yet scarcely, if at all, had he been brought face to face with the stark realities of life.

It is never too late, however, for some new thing to occur. The previous evening an experience had happened to this worthy man; and he could not rid his mind of the fact that it was disconcerting. On a table at his elbow was a picture without a frame, and more than once his eyes strayed from the newspaper to this object, which at a first glance was so insignificant, and yet as if cursed with an “obi” it had the power to dominate him completely.

In the midst of this preoccupation, Laura Babraham entered the room. She had returned late from the dance, and this was her first appearance that morning. Hardly had she saluted her father when her eye also fell on the picture, and a look of deep anxiety came into her eyes.

“Have you heard anything from the hospital?” she asked eagerly.

“I rang them up half an hour ago,” said Sir Arthur. “The girl is very ill indeed. I gather from the tone of the person with whom I talked that the case is pretty serious.”

“Yes,” said Laura Babraham, in a low voice. “One felt sure of that. Never again do I want to see a human creature in the state that poor thing was in last night. I’ve been haunted by her ever since.”

“Pretty bad, I must say.” Sir Arthur plucked sharply at his moustache. “According to the Hospital, she’s been knocked about and generally ill-used. There are marks on her throat, and they want my opinion as to whether they should communicate with the police.”

“What do you advise, papa?” said Laura, with a growing concern.

“One doesn’t know what to advise.” Sir Arthur’s moustache continued to receive harsh treatment. “We are faced with rather a problem, it seems to me.”

“You mean that it will be a matter for the police if she doesn’t get better?”

“Yes, certainly that. And it may be a matter for the police if she does get better.”

Laura Babraham agreed; yet even then she did not see the problem in its full complexity. Sir Arthur, taking the first step towards her enlightenment, pointed to the Van Roon: “My dear, beyond any doubt that is a most precious thing. And, ignoring for the moment the state in which this young woman turned up last night, the question we have to ask ourselves is: What is she doing with it at all? And why was she ranging the streets alone, in the fog, at that hour?”

“From what one gathered,” said Laura, “the picture is hers, and her uncle, the old curio man in New Cross Street, with whom she lives, is determined to steal it.”

“Quite. That’s her story, as far as one can get at it. But I put it to you, isn’t it far more likely--prima facie at any rate--that the girl is trying to steal it from the old dealer?”

“I believe the poor thing is speaking the truth,” said Woman in the person of Miss Laura Babraham.

“You mean, my dear,” said her logical parent, with a sad little smile, “that you _hope_ she is speaking the truth. With all my heart I hope so, too, even if it proves this old man--Gedge you say his name is--to be a terrible scoundrel. One of them certainly is not playing straight--but prima facie, as I say--if we call in the police, it is almost certain that it is this wretched girl who will find herself in prison.”

“There I don’t agree, papa,” said Woman staunchly. “The poor thing says that William the assistant gave her the picture; and in all the dealings I have had with William in the course of the past year, he has been honesty itself.”

Her father shook his head gently. “All very well, but Master William is the part of the story I like least. Is it probable, in the first place, that a young man who almost certainly has no money of his own, would be able to get possession of such a thing; and, again, assuming him to be clever enough to do so, is he going to be such a fool as to give it away to this girl? Let us look all the facts in the face. To my mind, the more one thinks of it the more inevitable the plain solution is.”

“I’m absolutely convinced that William, at any rate, is honest.”

Sir Arthur frowned and opened his cigar case. “And I for my part am convinced,” he said, with a sigh as he cut off the end of a Corona, “that our friend William is a cunning scoundrel, who has been deep enough to get this young woman to do the dirty work and run all the risks, because he must know as well as anybody that a great deal of money is at stake.”

Laura Babraham had a considerable respect for her father’s judgment, yet she knew the value of her own. She did not think it was possible to be so deceived; her dealings with William had left her with the highest regard for his straightforwardness; if he proved to be the despicable creature Sir Arthur’s fancy painted him, never again would she be able to hold an opinion about anyone. Yet her father’s analysis of the case, as it presented itself to her clear mind, left her on the horns of a dilemma. Either this young man was a fool, or he was a rogue. Beset by two evils, she chose without hesitation that which to the feminine mind appeared the less.

“He’s always struck one as rather simple in some ways and too much under the thumb of the old dealer, yet he’s really very clever.”

Sir Arthur drew mental energy from his Corona. “Not clever enough to keep honest, my dear.”

“Please don’t prejudge him. That wicked old man is at the back of all.”

“Well, that is just what we have now to find out.”

Laura assented; yet then arose the question as to the means by which the truth could be won. It was likely to resolve itself into an affair of William’s word against the word of his master. Whoever could tell the more plausible tale would be believed; and William’s friend saw from the outset that Circumstance had already weighted the scales heavily against him. On the face of it, the story as disclosed by the poor girl who was now in the Hospital, was frankly incredible.

Recollection of the pitiful scene of the previous night brought to Laura Babraham’s mind her own urgent duty in the matter. The girl had begged her not on any account to give up the picture. So long as sense and coherence remained the unlucky creature had declared it to be her own lawful property. Laura had solemnly promised to see justice done, and it behooved her now to be as good as her word.

“I suppose, papa, you have telephoned already to Mr. Gedge?”

“The Hospital has, I believe,” said Sir Arthur. “I particularly asked them to do so. The old fellow must be very anxious about the girl, and perhaps even more anxious about his Van Roon.”

“Please don’t say ‘his Van Roon’ before he’s proved the ownership.”

“That won’t be difficult, I fear.”

“We must make it as difficult for him as we can,” said the tenacious Laura.

Sir Arthur shook his head. As a man of the world, he had but scant hope that the mystery would be cleared up in the way Laura desired.

LI

AT Number Forty-six, New Cross Street, the bottom seemed to have fallen out of the world. June’s flight with the picture, as soon as it became known to William, caused him not only intense pain, but also deep concern. The news was a tragic shock for which he was quite unprepared; and the behaviour of his master seemed, if possible, to make it worse. The old man was distraught. Now that it was no longer necessary to mask his intentions, prudence slipped from him like a veil. On his return, baffled and furious, from Victoria he at once accused William of being in the plot against him.

William, hurt and astonished, was at a loss. He did not know all that had happened; he had only the broad facts to go upon that June had run off with the picture at an instant’s notice, without a word as to her plans and leaving no address; and the bitter reproaches of his master appeared to him the outpourings of a mind not quite sane.

Such indeed they were. The truth was that upon one subject S. Gedge Antiques was a little unhinged. The love of money, an infirmity which had crept upon him year by year had begun to affect reason itself; and now that, as it seemed, he had thrown away, by his own carelessness, the one really big prize of his career, this dark fact came out.

William, who found it very difficult indeed to think ill of anyone, could only accept the broad fact that the picture had meant even more to the old man than he had supposed; therefore this good fellow was inclined to pity his master. It was not for a mind such as his, which took things on trust, to fill in the details of a tragic episode. He did not look for the wherefore and the why, yet he was very deeply grieved by what had occurred.

The old man could not rid his brain of the illusion that William had connived with June. Under the lash of an unreasoning rage he did not pause to consider the improbability of this, nor did he try to attain a broad view of the whole matter; it was almost as if his resentment, craving an outlet, must wreak itself upon the thing near at hand. Yet in the course of a few hours this dangerous obsession was to bring its own nemesis.

About twelve o’clock the next day, M. Duponnet came to fetch the picture. It had been arranged that Mr. Gedge should present the cheque at the Bank in the meantime, and if duly approved, as there was every reason to expect that it would be, the Van Roon should be handed over at once.

To the Frenchman’s surprise, he was now greeted by his own cheque, backed by a livid countenance of tragic exasperation. The treasure had been stolen.

“Stolen!”

The face of S. Gedge Antiques forbade all scepticism.

“When? By whom?”

Mussewer Duponny might well ask by whom! It had been stolen by the girl who did the housework--the old man could not bring himself, in such circumstances, to speak of her as his niece--and he had not the least doubt in his own mind that the youth who helped him in the business who, at that moment, was in the next room polishing chairs, had put her wise in the matter, and was standing in with her.

S. Gedge Antiques, still in a frenzy of frustration, was hardly able to realize the gravity of this charge. Had he been in full command of himself, he must have weighed such a statement very carefully indeed before it was made. But remorselessly driven by his greed, he threw discretion to the wind.

The disgruntled purchaser was quick to seize upon the accusation. To his mind, at least, its import was clear. Even if the seller did not perceive its full implication, the buyer of the Van Roon had no difficulty in doing so.

“We must call in ze police, hein?”

The words brought the old man up short. He proceeded to take his bearings; to find out, as well as his rage would let him, just where he stood in the matter. Certainly the police did not appeal to him at all. It was not a case for publicity, because the picture was not his: that was to say, having now reached a point where the law of _meum_ and _tuum_ had become curiously involved, it might prove exceedingly difficult and even more inconvenient to establish a title to the Van Roon. No, he preferred to do without the police.

M. Duponnet, however, unfettered by a sense of restraint, argued volubly that the police be called in. The assistant was guilty or he was not guilty; and in any event it would surely be wise to enlist the help of those who knew best how to deal with thieves. Nothing could have exceeded the buyer’s conviction that this should be done, yet to his chagrin he quite failed to communicate it to S. Gedge Antiques.

From that moment, a suspicion began to grow up in the Frenchman’s mind that the seller was not laying all his cards on the table. Could it be that he was telling a cock and bull story? According to Mr. Thornton, who was acting as a go-between, this old man had long had the name of a shifty customer. Undoubtedly he looked one this morning. Jules Duponnet had seldom seen a frontispiece he liked less; and the theory now gained a footing in his mind that the old fox wanted to go back on his bargain.

There were two drawbacks, all the same, to M. Duponnet’s theory. In the first place, as no money had yet changed hands, it would be quite easy for S. Gedge Antiques to undo the bargain by a straightforward means; and further, beyond any shadow of doubt, the old man was horribly upset by his loss.

“Let us go to ze bureau, Meester Gedge,” he said, as conviction renewed itself in the light of these facts.

“No, no, no,” cried the old man, whose brain, capable at times of a surprising vigour, was now furiously at work.

“But why not?”

S. Gedge Antiques did not reply immediately, but at last a dark light broke over the vulpine face. “Why not, Mussewer Duponny? I’ll tell you. Because I think there may be a better way of dealing with that damned young scoundrel yonder.” William’s master pointed towards the inner room. “Happen the police’ll need all sorts of information we don’t want to give them; and my experience is, Mussewer, their methods are slow and clumsy, and out of date. They may take weeks over this job, and long before they are through with it, the picture will be in America.”

“You may be right, Meester Gedge. But where’s the ’arm in seeing what they can do?”

With the air of one whose faculties have been braced by a mental tonic, the old man shook his head decisively. “Mussewer Duponny,” he said, in a slow voice which gave weight and value to each word, “I’m thinking with a little help from yourself and Mr. Thornton I can deal with this--this scoundrel much better than the police.”

“At your sairvice, Meester Gedge,” said Jules Duponnet, with a dry smile. He could not have been the man he was, had he remained insensitive to the depth of cunning which now transfigured the face of the old dealer. “But for Meester Thornton of course I cannot spick.”

“You can’t, of course,” said the old fox, briskly. “But we’ll go right now, and have a word with Mr. Thornton on the subject.”

Like one in whom a change sudden and mysterious has been wrought, S. Gedge Antiques stepped through the house door into the passage, took his hat and coat from the peg, and his heavy knotted walking stick out of the rickety umbrella stand, put his head into the room next door and said, in a harsh tone to the polisher of chairs, “Boy, I’m going along as far as Mr. Thornton’s, so you’d better keep an eye on the shop.”

LII