There was no reply. Laverick remained speechless, listening intently. He stood still with the receiver pressed to his ear. Was it his fancy, or was that really Zoe"s protesting voice which he heard in the background? It was a woman or a child who was speaking--he was almost sure that it was Zoe.
"Who are you?" he asked fiercely. "Miss Leneveu is there with you.
Why does she not speak for herself?"
"Miss Leneveu is not here," was the answer. "I have done what she desired. You can please yourself whether you go or not. The address is 25, Jermyn Street. Ring off."
The connection was gone. Laverick laid down the receiver and stepped out of the booth.
"I must be off at once," he said to Bellamy. "You"ll be round in the morning?"
Bellamy smiled.
"After all," he remarked, "I have changed my plans. I shall not leave the hotel. I am going to telephone round to my man to bring me some clothes. By the bye, do you mind telling me whether this message which you have just received had anything to do with the little affair in which we are interested?"
"Not directly," Laverick answered, after a moment"s hesitation.
"The message was from a young lady. I have to go and meet her."
"A young lady whom you can trust?" Bellamy inquired quietly.
"Implicitly," Laverick a.s.sured him.
"She spoke herself?"
"No, she sent a message. Excuse me, Bellamy, won"t you, but I must really go."
"By all means," Bellamy answered.
They stood at the entrance to the hotel together while a taxicab was summoned. Laverick stepped quickly in.
"25, Jermyn Street," he ordered.
Bellamy watched him drive off. Then he sighed.
"I think, my friend Laverick," he said softly, "that you will need some one to look after you to-night."
CHAPTER x.x.xII
MORRISON IS DESPERATE
Certainly it was a strange little gathering that waited in Morrison"s room for the coming of Laverick. There was La.s.sen--flushed, ugly, breathing heavily, and watching the door with fixed, beady eyes.
There was Adolf Kahn, the man who had strolled out from the Milan Hotel as Laverick had entered it, leaving the forged order behind him. There was Streuss--stern, and desperate with anxiety. There was Morrison himself, in the clothes of a workman, worn to a shadow, with the furtive gleam of terrified guilt shining in his sunken eyes, and the slouched shoulders and broken mien of the habitual criminal. There was Zoe, around whom they were all standing, with anger burning in her cheeks and gleaming out of her pa.s.sion-filled eyes. She, too, like the others, watched the door. So they waited.
Streuss, not for the first time, moved to the window and drawing aside the curtains looked down into the street.
"Will he come--this Englishman?" he muttered. "Has he courage?"
"More courage than you who keep a girl here against her will!" Zoe panted, looking at him defiantly. "More courage than my poor brother, who stands there like a coward!"
"Shut up, Zoe!" Morrison exclaimed harshly. "There is nothing for you to be furious about or frightened. No one wants to ill-treat you. These gentlemen all want to behave kindly to us. It is Laverick they want."
"And you," she cried, "are content to stand by and let him walk into a trap--you let them even use my name to bring him here!
Arthur, be a man! Have nothing more to do with them. Help me to get away from this place. Call out. Do something instead of standing there and wasting the precious minutes."
He came towards her--ugly and threatening.
"I"ll do something in a minute," he declared savagely,--"something you won"t like, either. Keep your mouth shut, I tell you. It"s me or him, and, by Heavens, he deserves what he"ll get!"
Streuss turned away from the window and looked towards Zoe.
"Young lady," he said quietly, "let me beg you not to distress yourself so. I sincerely trust that nothing unpleasant will happen.
If it does, I promise you that we will arrange for your temporary absence. You shall not be disturbed in any way."
"And as regards your brother, have a care, young lady," La.s.sen growled. "If any one"s in danger, it"s he. He"ll be lucky if he saves his own skin."
The young man glowered at her.
"You hear that, you little fool!" he muttered. "Keep still, can"t you?"
Her face was full of defiance. He came nearer to her and changed his tone.
"Zoe," he whispered hoa.r.s.ely, "don"t you understand? If they can"t get what they want from Laverick, they"ll visit it upon me. They"re desperate, I tell you. They mean mischief all the time."
"Yet you let him be brought here, your partner who looked after you when you were ill, and who helped you to get away!" she cried indignantly.
He laughed unpleasantly.
"When it comes to a matter of life or death, it"s every man for himself. Besides, if I"d known as much about Laverick as I know now, I"m not sure that I should have been so ready to go--not empty-handed, by any manner of means."
"What have you done that you should be so much in the power of these people?" she demanded, fixing her dark eyes upon him searchingly.
The terror whitened his face once more. The perspiration stood out in beads upon his forehead.
"Don"t dare to ask me questions!" he exclaimed nervously. "I should like to know what Laverick is to you, eh, that you take so much interest in him? Listen here, my fine young lady. If I"ve been mug enough to do the dirty work, he hasn"t made any bones about taking advantage of it. He"s a nice sort of sportsman, I can tell you."
The man at the window suddenly dropped the curtain and spoke across the room to them all.
"He is here," he announced.
"Alone?" La.s.sen asked thickly.
"Alone," Streuss echoed.
A little thrill seemed to pa.s.s through the room. Zoe made no attempt to cry out. Instead she leaned forward towards the door, as though listening. Her att.i.tude seemed harmless enough. No one took any more notice of her. They all watched the entrance to the apartment.
Zoe remembered the two flights of stairs. She was absorbed in a breathless calculation. Now--now he should be coming quite close.
Her whole being was concentrated upon one effort of listening. At last she raised her head. The room resounded with her cries.