The Frenchman rapped smartly on a little pocketbook which he had produced and now held open in his hand.
"There, is a Madame Blondinet who has a large farm near Sermoise-aux-Roses," he said, "and she has a daughter called Marcelle, who went to America."
"Why then...?" began the First Sea Lord.
"Attendez un instant!"
The Colonel held up a plump hand.
"Unfortunately for Madame Nur-el-Din, this Marcelle Blondinet spent the whole of her childhood, in fact, the whole of her life until she was nineteen years of age, on her mother"s farm at a time when this Marcelle Blondinet was touring Europe with The Seven Duponts. The evidence is absolute. Mademoiselle here heard the dancer herself confirm it last night!"
"Thank you, Mr. Samuel," said the Chief, "we shan"t require you any more. But I"m afraid your Nur-el-Din will have to break her contract with you."
"She"s done that already, sir!" said Samuel ruefully.
The Chief sprang to his feet excitedly.
"Broken it already?" he cried. "What do you mean? Explain yourself! Don"t stand there staring at me!"
Mr. Samuel looked startled out of his life.
"There was a bit of a row between her and the stage manager last night about her keeping the stage waiting again," he said; "and after lunch today she rang up to say she would not appear at the Palaceum to-night or any more at all! It"s very upsetting for us; and I don"t mind telling you, gentlemen, that I"ve been to my solicitors about it..."
"And why the blazes didn"t you come and tell me?" demanded the Chief furiously.
"Well, sir, I thought it was only a bit of pique on her part, and I hoped to be able to talk the lady round. I know what these stars are!"
"You"ve seen her then?" the Chief snapped out.
"No, I haven"t!" Mr. Samuel lamented. "I"ve been twice to the Nineveh--that"s where she"s stopping--and each time she was out!"
The Chief dismissed him curtly.
When the door had closed behind him, the Chief said to the First Sea Lord:
"This is where D.O.R.A. steps in, I think, sir!"
"Decidedly!" replied the Admiral. "Will you take the necessary steps?"
The Chief nodded and pressed the bell. Matthews appeared.
"Anything from the Nineveh?" he asked.
"The lady has not returned, sir!"
"Anything from Gordon and Duff?"
"No, sir, nothing all day!"
The telephone on the desk whirred. The Chief lifted the receiver.
"Yes. Oh, it"s you, Gordon? No, you can say it now: this is a private line."
He listened at the receiver for a couple of minutes. The room was very still.
"All right, come to the office at once!"
The Chief hung up the receiver and turned to the Admiral.
"She"s given us the slip for the moment!" he said. "That was Gordon speaking. He and Duff have been shadowing our lady friend out of doors for days. She left the hotel on foot after lunch this afternoon with my two fellows in her wake. There was a bit of a crush on the pavement near Charing Cross and Duff was pushed into the roadway and run over by a motor-"bus. In the confusion Gordon lost the trail. He"s wasted all this time trying to pick it up again instead of reporting to me at once."
"Zut!" cried the Frenchman.
CHAPTER XI. CREDENTIALS
The sight of Nur-el-Din filled Desmond with alarm. For a moment his mind was overshadowed by the dread of detection. He had forgotten all about Mr. Crook"s handiwork in the train, and his immediate fear was that the dancer would awake and recognize him.
But then he caught sight of his face in the mirror over the mantelpiece. The grave bearded man staring oddly at him out of the gla.s.s gave him a shock until he realized the metamorphosis that had taken place in his personality. The realization served instantly to still his apprehension.
Nur-el-Din lay on her side, one hand under her face which was turned away from the fire. She was wearing a big black musquash coat, and over her feet she had flung a tweed overcoat, apparently one of Mr. Bellward"s from the hatstand in the hall.
Her hat, a very dainty little affair of plain black velvet, was skewered with a couple of jewelled hatpins to the upholstery of the settee.
Desmond watched her for a moment. Her face looked drawn and tired now that her eyelids, with their long sweeping black lashes, were closed, shutting off the extraordinary luminosity of her eyes. As he stood silently contemplating her, she stirred and moaned in her sleep and muttered some word three or four times to herself.
Desmond was conscious of a great feeling of compa.s.sion for this strangely beautiful creature. Knowing as he did of the hundred-eyed monster of the British Secret Service that was watching her, he found himself thinking how frail, how helpless, how unprotected she looked, lying there in the flickering light of the fire.
A step resounded behind him and old Martha shuffled into the room, carefully shading the lamp she still carried so that its rays should not fall on the face of the sleeper.
"I don"t know as I"ve done right, sir," she mumbled, "letting the pore lady wait here for you like this, but I couldn"t hardly help it, sir! She says as how she must see you, and seeing as how your first tellygram said you was coming at half-past nine, I lets her stop on!"
"When did she arrive" asked Desmond softly.
"About six o"clock," answered the old, woman. "Walked all the way up from Wentfield Station, too, sir, and that cold she was when she arrived here, fair blue with the cold she was, pore dear.
D"reckly she open her lips, I sees she"s a furrin" lady, sir. She asks after you and I tells her as how you are away and won"t be back till this evening. "Oh!" she says, I then I wait!" And in she comes without so much as with your leave or by your leave.
She told me as how you knew her, sir, and were expecting to see her, most important, she said it was, so I hots her up a bit o"
dinner. I hopes as how I didn"t do wrong, Mr. Bellward, sir!"
"Oh, no, Martha, not at all!" Desmond replied--at random. He was sorely perplexed as to his next move. Obviously the girl could not stay in the house. What on earth did she want with him? And could he, at any rate, get at the desk and read the papers of which the note spoke and which, he did not doubt, were the dossier of the Bellward case, before she awoke? They might, at least, throw some light on his relations with the dancer.
"She had her dinner here by the fire," old Martha resumed her narrative, "and about a quarter past nine comes your second tellygram, sir, saying as how you could not arrive till five o"clock in the morning."
Desmond glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. The hands pointed to a quarter past five! He had lost all count of the time in his peregrinations of the night.
"I comes in here and tells the young lady as how you wouldn"t be back last night, sir," the old woman continued, "and she says, "Oh," she says, "then, where shall I go?" she says. "Why don"t you go home, my dear?" says I, "and pop round and see the master in the morning," I says, thinking the pore young lady lives about here. And then she tells me as how she come all the way from Lunnon and walked up from the station. As well you know, sir, the last train up leaves Wentfield Station at five minutes to nine, and so the pore young lady couldn"t get back that night. So here she had to stop. I got the spare room ready for her and lit a nice fire and all, but she wouldn"t go to bed not until she had seen you. I do hope as how I"ve not done wrong, sir. I says to Mr. Hill, I says..."
Desmond held up his hand to restrain her toothless babble.
Nur-el-Din had stirred and was sitting up, rubbing her eyes. Then she caught sight of Desmond and scrambled rather unsteadily to her feet.
"Monsieur Bellward?" she said in French, "oh, how glad I am to see you!"