"But who in the office would dare to imitate my voice?"
"That, of course, I could not say, Sir Thomas, but we"ve only the word of the unknown person who rang me up that he was speaking from the office. For all we know he might have been in the next flat."
That again was a point and I noted it.
"I"m not going to waste any time," I said. "I"ll go down to the office at once and see if I can find out anything."
He helped me on with my coat and within five minutes of my entering I was again in Piccadilly.
Already the long ribbon of road was beginning to be faintly tinged with gray. The dawn was not yet, but night was flitting away before his coming. Save for an occasional policeman and the rumble of heavy carts piled with sweet-smelling vegetables and flowers for Covent Garden, the great street was empty. I pa.s.sed the Ritz Hotel with a tender thought of one who lay sleeping there, and hurried eastwards. I had nearly got to the Circus when a taxi swung out of the Haymarket and I hailed the man.
He was tired and sleepy, had been waiting for hours at some club or other, but I persuaded him, with much gold, to take me, and we buzzed away toward the street of ink.
Here was activity enough. The later editions of the morning papers were being vomited out of holes in the earth by hundreds of thousands.
Windows were lighted up everywhere as I turned down a side street leading to the river and came to my own offices.
I unlocked the door with my pa.s.s key and almost immediately I was confronted by Johns, the night-watchman, who flashed his torch in my face and inquired my business. I was pleased to see the man alert and at his post and asked who was in the building.
"Only Mr. Benson, Sir Thomas; it"s his week for night duty."
I went up and very considerably surprised, not to say alarmed, young Mr.
Benson, who had the photograph of a lady propped up on a desk before him and was obviously inditing an amorous epistle.
I put him through the most searching possible cross-examination, until I was quite sure that he had never telephoned to my flat. I knew him for a truthful, conscientious fellow, without a glimpse of humor or the slightest histrionic talent. Johns, called from below, was equally emphatic. Certainly no taxi had arrived here during the last three hours, nor had William Rolston come near the office.
I returned to Piccadilly, utterly baffled and without a single ray of light in my mind.
CHAPTER FIVE
On the morning of the fourteenth of September I met Captain Pat Moore and Lord Arthur Winstanley at Liverpool Street station. We were all three of us asked to Cerne as guests of that fine old sportsman, Sir Walter Stileman. A special carriage was reserved for us and our servants filled it with luncheon baskets and gun cases.
It was almost exactly three months since my eventful night at the Ritz with Gideon Morse, and the disappearance of little William Rolston.
What had pa.s.sed since that time I can set out fully in a very few words.
First of all the position in which I stood with regard to Juanita. It was somewhat extraordinary, satisfactory, and yet unsatisfactory, utterly tantalizing. Morse had kept his promise. I _had_ seen a great deal of his daughter. At Henley, at Cowes--on board the millionaire"s wonderful yacht or on my own, in the sacred gardens of the R. Y. S., where we met and met again. Yet these meetings were always in public.
Juanita was surrounded by men wherever she went. She was the reigning beauty of her year. Her minutest doings were chronicled in the Society papers with a wealth of detail that was astounding. I used to read the stuff, including that of my own Miss Easey, with a sort of impotent rage. Some of it was true, a lot of it was lies and surmise, but to me it was all distasteful. Juanita lived in the full glare of the public eye, and a royal princess could hardly have been more unapproachable. Of course I used stratagems innumerable, and more than once she went half-way to meet me, but the long desired _tete-a-tete_ never came to pa.s.s. It was not only because of the troop of admirers that crowded round her, of which I was only one, but there was an extraordinary adroitness, "a hidden hand" at work somewhere, to keep us apart. I was quite certain of this, yet I could not prove it, though even if I had it would have been of little use. Old Senora Balmaceda, who overwhelmed me with kindness and attention, was simply wonderful in her watch over Juanita.
As for Gideon Morse, he would talk to me by the hour--and his talk was well worth listening to--but somehow or other he was always in the way when I wanted to be alone with his daughter. Of course I sometimes thought I was exaggerating, and that I was so hard hit that I saw things in a jaundiced or prejudiced light. Yet certainly Juanita was often alone for a short time with other men than I, notably with the young and good-looking Duke of Perth, whom I hated as cordially as I knew how.
Then, in August, I had a nasty knock. The Morses went off to Scotland for the grouse shooting as guests of the Duke, and I wasn"t asked, or ever in the way of being asked if it comes to that, to join the "small and select house-party" that the papers were so full of. I had to content myself with pictures on the front page of the Ill.u.s.trated Weeklies depicting Juanita in a tweed skirt and a tam o" shanter, side by side with Perth, wearing a fatuous smile and a gun. I had one crumb of consolation only and that was, when saying good-by to Juanita, I felt something small and hard in the palm of her hand. It was a little tightly folded piece of paper and on it was one word, "Cerne."
That of course helped a great deal. It was obvious what she meant. When we met at Sir Walter Stileman"s, then at last my opportunity would come.
And now about the little journalist and his extraordinary disappearance.
I made every possible inquiry, engaging the most skilled agents and sparing no money in the quest, but I found out nothing--absolutely nothing. The red-headed lad with the prominent ears had vanished into thin air, had flashed into my life for a moment and then gone out of it with the completeness of an extinguished candle. He had been, he was no more. Poor Miss Dewsbury, on whom the disappearance had a marked effect, discussed the matter with me a dozen times. We broached theory after theory only to reject them, and at last we ceased to talk about the matter at all. I remember her words on the last time we talked of it.
They were prophetic, though I did not know it then.
"All I can say is, Sir Thomas, that voices, not my own, whisper constantly in my ear that the shadow of the three giant towers upon Richmond Hill lies across your path."
Poor thing, she was almost hysterical in those times, and I paid little heed to her words. As for the scoop, no other paper had even hinted at Rolston"s revelation. I had faithfully kept my word to Morse, not forgetting that he had promised to explain everything--in September.
As the train swung out of Liverpool Street and Pat and Arthur were ragging each other as to who should have the _Times_ first, I experienced a sense of mental relief. Only a few hours now and the great question of my life would be settled, once and for all. No more doubts, no more uncertainties.
During the last three months, Arthur and Pat had left me very much to myself. They had behaved with the most perfect tact and kindness, Arthur, as I have said, having obtained for me the invitation to Cerne.
Now, after we had traveled for a couple of hours and the luncheon baskets had been opened, old Pat lit a cigar and looked across at me.
His big, brown face was grave, and he played with his mustache as if in some embarra.s.sment.
He and Arthur glanced at each other, and I understood what was in their minds.
"Look here, you fellows," I said, "about the sacred Brotherhood--what is it in Spanish?"
"Santa Hermandad," said Arthur.
"Well, you"ve kept your oath splendidly. I cannot thank you enough. I have had the running all to myself--as far as you two are concerned, for twelve weeks."
"Yes, twelve weeks," Pat replied, with a sigh. "We"ve kept out of the way, old fellow, and I tell you it"s been hard!"
Arthur nodded in corroboration, and somehow or other I felt myself a cur. Since boyhood we three had been like brothers, and it was a hard fate indeed that led us to center all our hopes upon something that could belong to one alone.
Despite what must have been their burning eagerness to know how things stood, both of them were far too delicate-minded and well-bred to ask a question. I knew it was up to me to satisfy them.
"Without going into details," I said, "I"ll tell you just how it is, how I think it is, for I may be quite wrong, and presuming upon what doesn"t exist."
I thought for a moment, and chose my words carefully. It was extremely difficult to say what I had to say.
"It comes to about this," I got out at last. "I"ve every reason to believe that she likes me. There"s nothing decisive, but I"ve been given some hope. I very nearly put it to the test three months ago, but was interrupted and never had the chance again. At Cerne I"m going to try, finally. By hook or crook, in forty-eight hours, I"ll have some news for you. And if I get the sack, then let the next man go in and win if he can, and I"ll join the third in doing everything that lies in my power to help him."
"I am next," said Pat Moore, "not that I"ve the deuce of a chance. But I think you"ve spoken like a d.a.m.n good sort, Tom, and we thank you. Arthur and I will do our best to keep every one else off the gra.s.s while you go in and try your luck. Faith! I"ll make love to the duenna with the white hair meself and keep her out of the way, and Arthur here will consult with Morse upon the expediency of investing his large capital, which he hasn"t got, in a Brazil-nut farm. Anyhow, Perth, who has been the safety bet with all the tipsters, won"t be there. He"s such a rotten shot that Sir Walter wouldn"t dream of asking him. The bag has got to be kept up. For three years now, only Sandringham has beat it and a duffer at a drive would send the average down appallingly."
"What about me?" I asked, with a sinking of the heart.
"G.o.d forgive me," said Arthur, "I"ve lied about you to Sir Walter like the secretary of a building society to a maiden lady with two thousand pounds. He was astonished that he had never heard of your shooting--of course, he knows all the shots of the day, and I had to tell him a fairy story about your late lamented father who was a Puritan and would never let his son join country house-parties because they played cards after dinner."
I smiled, on the wrong side of my mouth. My dear old governor had been anything but a Puritan: I feared the scandal which would inevitably ensue when I went out for the first big drive.
"That"s all right, Tom," said Arthur, "you"ll simply have to sprain your ankle, or I"ll give you a good hack in the shin privately if you like.
Sir Walter has only to send a wire to get a first-cla.s.s gun down. There are at least a dozen men I know who would almost commit parricide for the chance."
After that, by general consent, the subject of the league was dropped.
We all knew where we were, and for the rest of the journey we talked of ordinary things.
It was a bright afternoon in early autumn when we stopped at the little local station and got into a waiting motor-car, while our servants collected our things and followed in the baggage lorry. For myself, I felt in the highest spirits as we buzzed along the three miles to Cerne Hall. There was a pleasant nip in the air; the vast landscape was yellow gold, as acre after acre of stubble stretched towards the horizon. Gray church towers embowered in trees broke the vast monotony, and I surrendered myself to a happy dream of Juanita, while Arthur and Pat talked shooting and marked covies that rose on either side as we whirred by.
When we arrived at Cerne Hall it was not yet tea-time, and everybody was out. The butler showed us to our rooms, all close together in the south wing of the fine old house, and I smoked a cigarette while Preston was unpacking.