"Just as you please, of course," Laverick answered. "I am simply anxious to help you."
"You can do that as it is!" Morrison exclaimed feverishly. "You must promise me something--promise that if any one asks for me to-morrow before I get away, you will not tell them where I am.
Say you suppose that I am at my rooms, or that I have gone into the country for a few days. Say that you are expecting me back.
Don"t let any one know that I have gone abroad, until I am safely away. And then don"t tell a soul where I have gone."
"Have you been up to any tricks with your friends?" Laverick asked sternly.
"I haven"t--I swear that I haven"t," Morrison declared. "It"s something quite outside business--quite outside business altogether."
"Very well," answered Laverick, "I will promise what you have asked, then. Listen--here is your sister back again," he added, as he heard the taxicab stop outside. "Pull yourself together and don"t frighten her so much. I am going down to meet her. I shall tell her that you are better. Try and buck up when she comes in to see you."
"I"ll do my best," Morrison said humbly. "If you knew! If you only knew!"
He began to sob again. Laverick left the room and, descending the stairs, met the girl in the hall. Her white face questioned him before her lips had time to frame the speech.
"Your brother is very much better," Laverick said. "I am sure that you need not be anxious about him."
"I am so glad," she murmured. "They let me off but I had to pay a fine. I had no idea before that I was so important. Shall I go to him now?"
"One moment," Laverick answered, holding open the door of the sitting-room. "Miss Morrison," he went on,--
"Miss Leneven is my name," she interrupted.
"I beg your pardon. Your brother evidently has something on his mind apart from business. I am afraid that he has been getting into some sort of trouble. I don"t think there is any object in bothering him about it, but the great thing is to get him away."
"You will help?" she begged.
"I will help, certainly," Laverick answered. "I have promised to.
You must see that he is ready to leave here at seven o"clock to-morrow morning. He wants to go to New York, and the special to catch the German boat will leave Waterloo somewhere about eight to eight-thirty."
"But his clothes!" she cried. "How can he be ready by then?"
"Your brother does not wish me or any one to go near his rooms or to send him any of his belongings," Laverick continued quietly.
"But how strange!" the girl exclaimed. "Do you mean to say, then, that he is going without anything?"
"I am afraid," Laverick said kindly, "that we must take it for granted that your brother has got mixed up in some undesirable business or other. He is nervously anxious to keep his whereabouts an entire secret. He has been asking me whether any one has been to the office to inquire for him. Under the circ.u.mstances, I think the best thing we can do is to humor him. I shall buy him before to-morrow morning a cheap dressing-case and a ready-made suit of clothes, and a few things for the voyage. Then I shall send a cab for you both at seven o"clock and meet you at the station.
"You are very kind," she murmured. "What should I have done without you? Oh, I cannot think!"
The protective instinct in the man was suddenly strong. Naturally unaffectionate, he was conscious of an almost overmastering desire to take her hands in his, even to lift her up and kiss away the tears which shone in her deep, childlike eyes. He reminded himself that she was a stranger, that her appearance of youth was a delusion, that she could only construe such an action as a liberty, an impertinence, offered under circ.u.mstances for which there could be no possible excuse.
He moved away towards the door.
"Naturally," he said, "I am glad to be of use to your brother. You see," he explained, a little awkwardly, "after all, we have been partners in business."
He caught a look upon her face and smiled.
"Naturally, too," he continued, "it has been a great pleasure for me to do anything to relieve your anxiety."
She gave him her hands then of her own accord. The grat.i.tude which shone out of her swimming eyes seemed mingled with something which was almost invitation. Laverick was suddenly swept off his feet.
Something had come into his life--something absurd, uncounted upon, incomprehensible. The atmosphere of the room seemed electrified.
In a moment, he had done what only a second or two before he had told himself would be the action of a cad. He had taken her, unresisting, up into his arms, kissed her eyes and lips. Afterwards, he was never able to remember those few moments clearly, only it seemed to him that she had accepted his caress almost without hesitation, with the effortless serenity of a child receiving a natural consolation in a time of trouble. But Laverick was conscious of other feelings as he leaned hard back in the corner of his taxicab and was driven swiftly away.
CHAPTER XVI
THE WAITER AT THE "BLACK POST"
Laverick, notwithstanding that the hour was becoming late, found an outfitter"s shop in the Strand still open, and made such purchases as he could on Morrison"s behalf. Then, with the bag ready packed, he returned to his rooms. Time had pa.s.sed quickly during the last three hours. It was nearly nine o"clock when he stepped out of the lift and opened the door of his small suite of rooms with the latchkey which hung from his chain. He began to change his clothes mechanically, and he had nearly finished when the telephone bell upon his table rang.
"Who"s that?" he asked, taking up the receiver.
"Hall-porter, sir," was the answer. "Person here wishes to see you particularly."
"A person!" Laverick repeated. "Man or woman?"
"Man, sir.
"Better send him up," Laverick ordered.
"He"s a seedy-looking lot, sir," the porter explained "I told him that I scarcely thought you"d see him."
"Never mind," Laverick answered. "I can soon get rid of the fellow if he"s cadging."
He went back to his room and finished fastening his tie. His own affairs had sunk a little into the background lately, but the announcement of this unusual visitor brought them back into his mind with a rush. Notwithstanding his iron nerves, his fingers shook as he drew on his dinner-jacket and walked out to the pa.s.sageway to answer the bell which rang a few seconds later. A man stood outside, dressed in shabby black clothes, whose face somehow was familiar to him, although he could not, for the moment, place it.
"Do you want to see me?" Laverick asked.
"If you please, Mr. Laverick," the man replied, "if you could spare me just a moment."
"You had better come inside, then," Laverick said, closing the door and preceding the way into the sitting-room. At any rate, there was nothing threatening about the appearance of this visitor--nor anything official.
"I have taken the liberty of coming, sir," the man announced, "to ask you if you can tell me where I can find Mr. Arthur Morrison."
Laverick"s face showed no sign of his relief. What he felt he succeeded in keeping to himself.
"You mean Morrison--my partner, I suppose?" he answered.
"If you please, sir," the man admitted. "I wanted a word or two with him most particular. I found out his address from the caretaker of your office, but he don"t seem to have been home to his rooms at all last night, and they know nothing about him there."
"Your face seems familiar to me," Laverick remarked. "Where do you come from?"
The man hesitated.
"I am the waiter, sir, at the "Black Post,"--little bar and restaurant, you know," he added, "just behind your offices, sir, at the end of Crooked Friars" Alley. You"ve been in once or twice, Mr. Laverick, I think. Mr. Morrison"s a regular customer.