"Sorry for misunderstanding. Blue Atom must wait until my return."
Here was a way out. Whatever that wretched speck of color meant, it could be dealt with subsequently.
But Evelyn"s prompt reply only made confusion worse confounded:
"Delay is impossible. The man has put off the d.u.c.h.ess two days already."
So a man, and a d.u.c.h.ess, and a period of time were mixed up with a blue atom. He must do something desperate; begin his plan of alienation sooner than he intended. He answered:
"Too busy to attend to matter further. Going to Leeds to-day.
Letters here as usual."
And to Leeds he went. Residence in York was a fever--a constant fret. In Leeds he was removed from the arena. He pa.s.sed the afternoon and evening in roaming the streets, consumed with a fiery desire to be doing, daring, braving difficulties.
But he must wait at least another day before he could lay hands on any portion of Philip Anson"s wealth save the money stolen from his pockets.
At the hotel there was only one letter and no telegrams.
The London bankers wrote:
"We beg to acknowledge yours of yesterday. Your cash balance at date is twelve thousand four hundred and ten pounds nine shillings one penny. Your securities in our possession amount to a net value at to-day"s prices of about nine hundred and twenty thousand pounds, including two hundred and fifty thousand pounds Consols at par. We will forward you a detailed list if desired, and will be pleased to realize any securities as directed.
"Kindly note that instructions for sale should be given in your handwriting, and not typed."
There was joy, intoxicating almost to madness, in this communication, but it was not unleavened by the elements of danger and delay.
His signature had been accepted without demur; he could control an enormous sum without question; these were the entrancing certainties which dazzled his eyes for a time.
But it was horribly annoying that a millionaire should keep his current account so low, and the concluding paragraph held a bogey, not wholly unforeseen, but looming large when it actually presented itself.
The memorandum in Philip"s handwriting on Evelyn"s letter was now thrice precious. He hurriedly scrutinized it, and at once commenced to practice the words.
"Devonshire" and "Sharpe" gave him the capitals for "Dear Sirs." He was at a loss for a capital "C," but he saw that Philip used the simplest and boldest outlines in his caligraphy, and he must risk a "C" without the upper loop. In "Lady M.," too, he had the foundation of the "" to precede the requisite figures. Soon he framed a letter in the fewest words possible:
"Yours of to-day"s date received. Kindly sell Consols value one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and place the same to my credit."
He copied it again and again, until it was written freely and carelessly, and every letter available compared favorably with the original in his possession. Then he posted it, thus saving a day, according to his calculations.
With this missive committed irrecoverably to the care of his majesty"s mails, Victor Grenier"s spirits rose. Now, indeed, he was in the whirlpool. Would he emerge high and dry in the El Dorado of gilded vice which he longed to enter, or would fortune consign him to Portland again--perchance to the scaffold? He could not say. He would not feel safe until Philip Anson was a myth, and Victor Grenier a reality, with many thousands in the bank.
Already he was planning plausible lies to keep Mason out of his fair share of the plunder. A few more forged letters would easily establish the fact that he was unable to obtain a bigger haul than, say, fifty thousand pounds.
And what did Mason want with twenty-five thousand pounds? He was a gnarled man, with crude tastes. Twenty, fifteen, ten thousand would be ample for his wants. The sooner he drank himself to death the better.
With each fresh cigar Mason"s moiety shrank in dimensions. The murder was a mere affair of a vengeful blow, but this steady sucking of the millionaire"s riches required finesse, a dashing adroitness, the superb impudence of a Cagliostro.
But if his confederate"s interests suffered, the total fixed in Grenier"s original scheme in nowise became affected.
He meant to have a hundred thousand pounds, and he firmly decided not to go beyond that amount. His letter to the bankers named one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and he calculated that by stopping short at two-thirds of the available sum he would not give any grounds for suspicion or personal inquiry.
Yet he would shirk nothing. Mr. Abingdon and Miss Atherley must be avoided at all events; others he would face blithely. He took care to have ever on the table in his sitting room a goodly supply of wines and spirits.
If anyone sought an interview, it might be helpful to sham a slight degree of intoxication. The difference between Philip drunk and Philip sober would then be accounted for readily.
But rest--that was denied him. It was one thing to harden himself against surprise; quite another to forget that disfigured corpse swirling about in the North Sea.
He wished now that Philip Anson had not been cast forth naked. It was a blunder not to dress him, to provide him with means of identification with some unknown Smith or Jones.
When he closed his eyes he could see a shadowy form wavering helplessly in green depths. Never before were his hands smeared with blood. He had touched every crime save murder.
Physically, he was a coward. In plotting the attack on Philip, he had taxed his ingenuity for weeks to discover some means where he need not become Mason"s actual helper. He rejected project after project. The thing might be bungled, so he must attend to each part of the undertaking himself, short of using a bludgeon.
He slept again and dreamed of long flights through s.p.a.ce pursued by demons. How he longed for day. How slowly the hours pa.s.sed after dawn, until the newspapers were obtainable, with their columns of emptiness for him.
A letter came from Evelyn. It was a trifle reserved, with an impulse to tears concealed in it.
"I asked mother for fifty pounds," she wrote, "so the Blue Atom incident has ended, but I don"t think I will ever understand the mood in which you wrote your last telegram. Perhaps your letter now in the post--I half expected it at mid-day--will explain matters somewhat."
He consigned Blue Atom to a sultry clime, and began to ask himself why Mr. Abingdon had not written. The ex-magistrate"s reticence annoyed him.
A letter, even remonstrating with him, would be grateful. This silence was irritating; it savored of doubt, and doubt was the one phase of thought he wished to keep out of Mr. Abingdon"s mind at that moment.
As for Evelyn, she mistrusted even his telegrams, while a bank had accepted his signature without reservation. He would punish her with zest. Philip Anson"s memory would be poisoned in her heart long before she realized that he was dead.
CHAPTER XX.
_Nemesis._
Philip was thrown into the sea on a Tuesday. Jocky Mason reached London on Wednesday, and kept his appointment with Inspector Bradley on Thursday evening.
The inspector received him graciously, thus chasing from the ex-convict"s mind a lurking suspicion that matters were awry. There is a curious sympathy between the police and well-known criminals. They meet with friendliness and exchange pleasantries, as a watchdog might fraternize with a wolf in off hours.
But Mason had no responsive smile or ready quip.
"What"s up?" he demanded, morosely. "You sent for me. Here I am. I would have brought my ticket sooner if you hadn"t written."
"All right, Mason. Keep your wool on. Do you remember Superintendent Robinson?"
"Him that was inspector in Whitechapel when I was put away? Rather."
"Well, some friends of yours have been inquiring from him as to your whereabouts. He sent a message round, and I promised that you should meet them if you showed up. I was half afraid you had bolted to the States."
"Friends! I have no friends."
"Oh, yes, you have--very dear friends, indeed."