PART II.

It was a few minutes after ten o’clock when the two men entered the
Casino. From the moment they crossed the threshold of the Rooms proper,
Mr. Senn seemed to become absolutely oblivious of the presence of his
companion. He watched a spin at each of the tables by the door, and then
passed on into one of the further rooms. At the most remote table he
paused to whisper to the croupier for information as regards the
_voisins_ of the last number. The reply apparently did not please him,
for he turned back to a table which he had previously passed, hesitated
for a moment, and then grudgingly drew out his roll of notes. For the
first time he seemed to become aware of Mr. Cray’s proximity.

“If you watch me,” he enjoined in a hard tone, “do not criticise. I play
in a method of my own. There is no logic in it, but neither is there any
logic in fate. Chance and inspiration are first cousins. I play a game
of chance, and inspiration alone directs me.”

“Sure!” Mr. Cray murmured encouragingly. “Don’t you worry any about me.
I’ll just watch a spin or two and be off.”

“If you watch two spins,” was the reply, “I shall know whether you bring
me luck or not. If I lose—go.”

Mr. Cray nodded. His companion had leaned over the table, obtained some
change in plaques, and sank into a vacant place near the head of the
board. Mr. Cray, who was watching with only simulated indifference, felt
a little throb of his pulses. His _protégé_ was backing fourteen, _en
plein_, _carrés_, and _chevaux_. He arranged his stake with deliberate
care. Again Mr. Cray became aware of that broad band of gold upon his
third finger.

“_Vingt-quatre, rouge, pair et passe_,” the croupier murmured, a moment
or two later.

Mr. Senn watched his stake swept away with unmoved countenance, repeated
it, and sat nervously attentive. Again he lost. This time he looked
round and waved his companion to depart.

“To-morrow,” he muttered, “at midday.”

Mr. Cray nodded and turned away. He left the rooms and strolled across
to the Sporting Club. He found Hartopp yawning in the little bar, and
took a seat by his side.

“You seem bored,” he remarked.

Hartopp acquiesced.

“To tell you the truth,” he admitted, “a little of this life goes a long
way with me. I love adventure more than most people, but I hate
gambling.”

“And your wife?”

“Mina would play roulette from the moment the place opened until it
closed, if I would let her,” he replied. “She’s in there now, piling up
the shekels.”

“Hartopp,” Mr. Cray asked a little abruptly, “how old are you?”

A slight smile parted the man’s lips. He looked at his questioner
keenly.

“Just why do you ask me that question?”

“Never mind about that. I’d like to have you answer it.”

Major Hartopp stroked his chin.

“Cray,” he said, “we’ve seen quite a good deal of one another during the
last six months, and I’m bound to say you have behaved like a sportsman.
I don’t see how my age interests you, but as a matter of fact it’s the
one thing that’s been an enormous asset to me. What’s your rough idea?”

“Somewhere about thirty-one,” Mr. Cray suggested.

“Precisely! Well, I’m forty-six. I’ve got out of one or two pretty tight
corners in my life, from the simple fact that every sin I committed
between the age of thirty and thirty-five was presumably committed by a
raw stripling.”

Mr. Cray nodded.

“The reason I asked you was this,” he said. “Do you remember Holdsworth,
the Sydenham murderer?”

Hartopp nodded.

“A perfect fiend,” he remarked. “I read every word of the case.
Criminology in those days was almost a passion with me. This fellow
Landre would seem to have been an angel of kindness compared to
Holdsworth. He must have been the most cold-blooded brute that ever
crawled upon the earth.”

Mr. Cray nodded.

“Holdsworth,” he said, “is supposed to be still alive.”

“His was the most wonderful escape in the history of crime,” Hartopp
declared. “It goes to prove what I have heard you say yourself. Mr.
Cray, that, given brain and nerve, the odds are vastly in favour of the
criminal.”

“Your own position,” Mr. Cray said thoughtfully, “in the world of human
society, is, if you will forgive my saying so, a little undefined. In
any ordinary case, I might well believe that your sympathies would be
hard to classify. In the case of Holdsworth, however, let me put a
question to you. If this man were proved to be still alive, and you had
a chance to aid in his capture, would you do it?”

“Without a second’s hesitation,” Hartopp replied promptly.

“And your wife?”

“She would be entirely with me. You’re not suggesting that there’s a
chance——”

“I just wanted to know,” Mr. Cray interrupted. “There’s nothing doing
for the moment. There may be. . . . I’ll stroll through the rooms.”

* * * * *

It was just before noon on the following morning when Mr. Cray,
approaching the cheerful little company who were dotted about at the
round tables outside the Café de Paris, heard himself addressed by name.
Seated only a few yards away was a transformed Mr. Senn, with Ninette on
one side and her friend on the other.

“My benefactor!” the former exclaimed graciously. “Sir,” he added, “if I
do not at once restore your five thousand francs it is merely a matter
of superstition.”

“You won, then?” Mr. Cray observed, raising his hat to the young ladies
and drawing up a chair.

Mr. Senn smiled the rapturous smile of a man whose brain is flooded with
pleasant memories.

“I played, so far as I can remember,” he said, “thirty coups. Out of
these, fourteen turned up nine times, thirteen eleven, twelve and
sixteen once each, and fifteen twice. I won a matter of a hundred
thousand francs. Mr. Cray, you will do me the honour of drinking with
me.”

Mr. Cray hesitated, but refusal was an impossibility. While his
prospective host gave orders to the waiter, and Ninette chattered,
telling him that she, too, had been fortunate in a small way, Mr. Cray
studied him thoughtfully. Something of the man’s dignity seemed to have
vanished with his shabbiness. His new patent boots were almost too
glossy, the brown clothes, although in the best taste, and miraculously
well-fitting considering that they must have been bought ready-made,
still lacked the distinction of his older habiliments. The man seemed
new and glossy all over. His amiability, too, sat upon him like an
unusual garment. The saturnine attraction of his ill-humour had
departed.

“Monsieur is truly wonderful,” Ninette declared, edging her chair a
little nearer to Mr. Cray and a little further away from her new patron.
“His money carries charm. Many long days have passed since I gained
anything, but last night I, too, won—well, nearly a thousand francs.
And monsieur never plays himself?”

“Very seldom,” Mr. Cray acknowledged. “If you are going to the Rooms
this morning,” he added, “I shall be delighted to try my fortune with
you.”

Mr. Senn intervened with a flamboyant gesture.

“Mademoiselle Ninette,” he announced, “does me the honour to take
luncheon with me shortly. I have ordered a table in the café. We shall
lay our plans for the afternoon.”

Ninette pouted a little.

“Would there not be time to accompany monsieur first for a few minutes?”
she ventured.

“Impossible!” Mr. Senn pronounced. “I am a man of regular habits. I
lunch at half-an-hour after midday. It is now within twenty minutes of
the time. We will take a small apéritif, dear child. This afternoon we
may visit the tables together.”

She laid her finger upon Mr. Cray’s sleeve.

“I think that he is a mascot,” she said, “this big American gentleman.”

Mr. Cray looked at her with a kindly though rather a doubtful smile.

“I wonder . . .” he murmured.

The Hartopps passed by, exchanging greetings with Mr. Cray. Senn turned
round in his chair and gazed after Mina. There was a little sparkle in
his eyes.

“That woman,” he exclaimed, as soon as they were out of earshot, “you
knew her! How does she call herself? What is her name?”

“She is a Mrs. Hartopp,” his companion told him. “That was her husband,
Major Hartopp, on the left.”

Senn shook his head.

“No, no!” he protested, with an air of superior knowledge. “She has
another name. I saw her in New York. Her pictures were in the paper. She
called herself then Christine Seboa.”

Mr. Cray nodded.

“That’s right,” he admitted. “What do you know about her?”

“Not enough,” the other muttered. “She is a very wonderful woman. I
attended one of her séances in Brooklyn. It was amazing.”

“Are you a spiritualist?” Mr. Cray asked curiously.

Mr. Senn picked up his ivory-topped walking stick and rose to his feet.

“It is time we took luncheon, little one,” he said to Ninette. “As to
that,” he added, turning towards Mr. Cray, “who knows? I have seen
strange things in my life, things which have made me wonder. Who knows?”

* * * * *

Late that afternoon, Mr. Cray came across Ninette, seated on one of the
cushioned benches in the Casino. She was looking dejected and a little
forlorn, but she cheered up at his approach.

“Ah, monsieur!” she exclaimed, “I looked for you all the time this
afternoon.”

Mr. Cray smiled.

“Been losing, eh?”

She shook her head.

“No, I have gained a little, yet I have not the heart to play. I am
nervous. Look, monsieur.”

He followed the motion of her head. Exactly opposite, seated at the
nearest table, was Senn. The electric light threw a strange shade upon
his colourless face, his hard black eyes, his indrawn lips. He sat in
his usual place, as near by as possible opposite fourteen, and there was
something arresting in his immovability.

“Senn,” Mr. Cray muttered. “I wonder how he’s doing.”

“Winning,” she answered tremulously. “He wins now all the time. But I do
not know. More and more I grow afraid of him. Who is he? You knew him
before?”

Mr. Cray shook his head.

“I saw him for the first time yesterday.”

“I am foolish, perhaps,” the girl went on. “He is generous, he has the
manner, he speaks of serious things. And yet I am afraid. I do not
understand myself. To-night he has asked me to go to supper with him,
not at the Carlton or the Café de Paris, but up at his apartment, up on
the hill. And I do not know. Something tells me that I am foolish, and
yet I do not wish to go.”

Mr. Cray sat down by her side.

“My child,” he said slowly, “I know nothing of Mr. Senn, but I’d like to
tell you this. There may be something in that instinct of yours. If you
will take the advice of an old man, lunch with him, dine with him, sup
with him where he pleases, entertain him in your own flat, if you will,
but do not visit his apartment.”

“An old man! Oh, la, la,” she mocked. “Yet,” she went on, suddenly
serious, “it is strange that you should advise me thus. You know
something, is it not so?”

“Nothing at all,” Mr. Cray assured her. “By the by,” he went on, “you
have noticed the very broad gold ring he wears on the third finger of
his left hand?”

“Beyond a doubt,” she assented. “It is strangely shaped.”

“I have an idea,” Mr. Cray went on, “that he wears it to conceal some
disfigurement. If you should discover that to be so, will you tell me?”

She laughed gaily.

“What vanity! I will tell you, of course. But see—he rises. That means
that he has lost for three coups following. He changes his table always
then. Look at him, monsieur, and tell me why I am afraid.”

Mr. Senn came towards them, erect, distinguished, with a curious air of
abstraction which seemed to enfold him as in a dream. He passed them by
as though he never saw them, studied the tables in the further room for
a moment, took a vacant seat and began to play. Ninette shook her head.

“He is uncanny,” she decided. “I shall be his friend no longer.”

“Find out for me,” Mr. Cray said, as he rose to his feet, “what is
underneath that ring, and I will start you on your way to fortune with a
thousand-franc note.”

She looked up at him with petulant gratitude.

“If you were only he!” she murmured.

* * * * *

Mr. Cray had the fancy to retire early that evening. At eleven o’clock,
however, a little note was brought into his _salon_, a note enclosed in
a mauve envelope which smelt of perfume, and addressed with
characteristic and scratchy indistinctness. He opened it and read:

_Cher monsieur_,

_I have seen underneath the ring. There is a brown mole or wart,
very ugly. No wonder he conceals it!_

_Cher monsieur, his luck is wonderful. He has now half a million
francs. To-night I have promised to sup with him in his
apartment, but still I fear it, but still I tremble at the
thought._

_Till to-morrow, dear friend,_
_Ninette._

Then Mr. Cray began to see visions. Slowly the hideous story which Johns
had told him, began to unwind itself once more before his eyes. He saw
the little house in Sydenham with its tangled waste of garden, its
cheerful lights inside, masking the horror that dwelt there. He heard
the laughter of unsuspecting mirth, changing into the stifled cry of
death, saw Ninette striving to drown her vague fears with tumblers of
champagne, heard her throbbing, pitiful little cry come down to him from
somewhere behind. Mr. Cray abandoned all hope of an early night. He
thrust something hard and ugly into his hip pocket, took up a cane with
a heavy malachite knob, and descended once more into the vortex of
life. . . .

At Ciro’s he found Pierre, busy, but willing enough to spare a moment to
so good a patron.

“Say, I’m in some difficulty, Pierre,” Mr. Cray explained. “The
gentleman whom I asked you about the other evening—Mr. Senn you called
him—invited me up to his apartment this evening but forgot to tell me
his address. I wonder whether you know it?”

Pierre smiled with the ready pleasure of one able to oblige.

“There is a saddler’s shop, the last building in the Rue des
Marguerites,” he said. “Monsieur Senn has rooms above it and behind. It
is a very small place, but Monsieur will find it without trouble.”

Mr. Cray gave the _maître d’hôtel_ occasion to congratulate himself upon
his memory, and sallied out once more upon his quest. A carriage took
him to the corner of the Rue des Marguerites, a vehicle which, upon
reflection, he left to await his return. It was a small, outflung
thoroughfare, some of the buildings of which were as yet unfinished. The
saddler’s shop at the end was closed and dark, but by the side of the
door leading into the shop itself was another, evidently used by the
tenant. Mr. Cray paused for a few minutes with his fingers playing
around the bell. There was no sound from within, no light above. The
_salon_ was without doubt upon the ground floor behind the shop. Mr.
Cray decided upon strategy. The street ended abruptly at the outside
wall of the saddler’s shop, and he stepped over a low paling into what
appeared to be a small violet farm, turned to the left at the corner of
the house, stooping underneath an iron railing, and found himself in a
trim little garden, in which were several chairs, some statues, and a
small fountain. Opening out upon the strip of lawn were the French
windows of Mr. Senn’s _salon_, closed now and concealed by a heavy
curtain, through the chinks of which, however, came a gleam of light.
The intruder drew nearer and nearer. Then he heard a sound which filled
him at first with immense relief, but which a moment afterwards made him
feel like a fool. It was the shrill yet not unmusical laughter of
Ninette, followed by the popping of a cork and the sound of Mr. Senn’s
measured tone. . . .

Mr. Cray stood with his back to the wall and deliberated. Before him,
the quaint little strip of garden stretched into the blackness of a pine
wood, and high above gleamed unexpected lights from the small villas and
peasants’ dwellings dotted about on the slope. The smell of the violets
from the field close at hand was almost intoxicating, the beauty of the
night itself seemed to rebuke his purely superstitious fears. It was
still early. The girl might very well remain where she was for hours to
come. Mr. Cray sighed and glanced at his watch, which he was easily able
to discern by the fight of the yellow moon. It was barely half-an-hour
after midnight. He decided to wait until one o’clock. . . . The minutes
passed with incredible slowness. From the curtain of hills in front came
the occasional tinkling of a sheep bell, the barking of a dog in one of
the far-off farms, from down below, the honk of a passing automobile,
the faint music of an orchestra playing in one of the cafés. A slight
breeze crept down from the hills, discovering the presence of a little
grove of cypresses on the border of the violet farm. There was something
soothing in the pleasant tranquillity of the night. The breeze, as it
lazily bent their tops, brought him little wafts of odour from the pine
trees. So, after all, the watcher decided, Mr. Senn was not so badly
lodged.

For the last time Mr. Cray glanced at his watch. It was five minutes
past one. He had already outstayed his appointed time. Reluctantly he
turned to depart. The voices inside were still careless and
light-hearted. Still Ninette laughed, and still her companion apparently
echoed her light-heartedness. Mr. Cray reached the corner of the house
and had barely turned around when he heard the curtains drawn back and
the little French windows opened. He stood still, out of sight though
only a few feet away.

“Look, little one,” he heard Senn say in his deep voice, “you see here
my little demesne, where it is pleasant to sit when the sun shines. And
beyond, the wood is asleep.”

“I do not like it!” Ninette exclaimed querulously. “Let us go in. The
night air is cold.”

Mr. Senn laughed softly, and when the listener heard that laugh, he was
glad he had come. He heard something which was almost like a sob from
Ninette.

“You frighten me,” she muttered. “Leave go my wrist. I shall go away if
you are not kinder.”

Again the laugh.

“But, little one, I might not choose to let you go,” Senn went on. “I
might choose to keep you here always. You do not love my wood. That is
perhaps because of its name. They call it, you know, the cemetery wood.
You would not wish to be buried there?”

Ninette’s little cry seemed to come with a curiously muffled sound.

“You must not make a noise, little one,” Senn went on. “There are no
neighbours near, but those on the other side of the road might be
curious. A man living alone, entirely alone, must be careful.”

It took Mr. Cray precisely three long paces to get once more back into
the street, and a matter of a couple of seconds for his finger to find
the bell. With his other hand he undid one of the studs of his shirt,
thrust his hat on one side, ruffled his hair, dragged his tie a little
on one side, and listened intently. The throbbing of the bell drowned
all sounds, yet he had fancied when first he had pressed it that he had
heard something—a stifled cry, or was it a shriek? Still the bell
pealed and throbbed.

There were footsteps, soon enough, really, although the time had seemed
long to Mr. Cray. The door was thrown open. Mr. Senn stood looking out,
a sinister figure indeed. And behind him the visitor could see, stealing
down the passage, her great eyes shining with terror and hope, Ninette.

“What the devil do you want?” Senn muttered.

Then it became apparent that Mr. Cray was very drunk. He smiled
fatuously, and endeavoured to pat Mr. Senn on the back.

“Fourteen!” he exclaimed. “Eleven times at the centre table! The
croupier—friend of mine, that croupier—he whispered to me. ‘Monsieur,’
he said, ‘if fourteen comes up, centre table, within an hour fourteen
comes up eleven times last table on left. The one great superstition of
the place—always comes out right. So here I am. Got a little fiacre at
the corner. Come along down and break the bank.”

Mr. Senn was very still, but there was a strange light in his eyes.

“How did you know where to find me?” he demanded.

Mr. Cray tapped his forehead and shook his head.

“Sorry,” he confided, “fact is I met a few of the boys. Can’t remember
anything as clearly as I’d like. . . . Why, bless my soul,” he added,
“there’s little Ninette!”

Ninette came running out, as pale as death. Senn, however, still blocked
the way.

“You’d better come in and have a drink,” he said to his unwelcome
visitor.

“I’ll drink while you make a fortune,” Mr. Cray replied. “We’ll all
three go down together. Come along, Ninette.”

So the three walked down together towards the fiacre at the corner of
the street, and both Ninette’s hands were clasped round Mr. Cray’s arm.
She clung to him like a child, and Mr. Cray’s one little downward smile
of encouragement was not in the least the smile of a drunken man. . . .

They drove to the Casino, and without taking the least notice of his
companions, with the light in his eyes of a man who goes to great
things, Senn hastened in. Mr. Cray pretended to be some time finding
money for the _cocher_. When he had paid him, he drew Ninette away and
made her sit down with him at one of the tables. She was still white,
almost to the lips.

“That awful man!” she sobbed. “It was the good God that sent you.”

Mr. Cray patted her hand.

“Listen, little one,” he said, “there has been no run on fourteen, as he
will soon find out. Your note frightened me. I have a grave suspicion
concerning that man so I followed you up the hill. You understand?”

“Yes,” she faltered. “Oh, thank you . . . thank God!”

“Listen again,” Mr. Cray went on. “Can you be a brave little woman for
the sake of others who are not so fortunate as you?”

“I will do everything that you tell me,” she promised, sipping the
brandy which the waiter brought. “Down here I am not so afraid. But up
there—it is a horrible thought, but there was murder in his eyes.”

“Continue to listen, my child,” her companion begged. “Show no fear of
the man. Follow him into the Casino. Forget your terror in his
apartment. Laugh at yourself. Speak of me as very, very drunk. Go
nowhere alone with him, but humour him. You understand?”

“But is it that you are of the police, then?” the girl whispered.

Mr. Cray shook his head.

“I am a friend of one who is,” he told her. “He is on the way here. He
arrives to-morrow morning. You will do all that I have asked? You will
say that you have seen me to the hotel.”

“Rest assured of it, my benefactor,” she promised, as they parted.

* * * * *

Mr. Cray on the following morning showed every sign of having recovered
from his debauch. He was pink and white and healthy, clad in a grey
suit, wearing well-polished brown shoes and immaculate gaiters. He swung
across the Square to where he saw Senn sitting in grim solitude.

“My friend,” he said, pausing in front of him, “I have come to present
my apologies.”

Mr. Senn scowled.

“There was no run on number fourteen last night,” he declared. “You came
to me with a lie.”

“Say, that’s a little hard,” Mr. Cray protested soothingly. “I don’t
know whether I showed any signs of it, but I was soused. I was, in fact,
compelled to submit to the indignity of being put to bed by the
hall-porter.”

Mr. Senn made inarticulate sounds which might have been taken to mean
that he accepted his friend’s explanation.

“It cost me twenty-five thousand before I found out,” he muttered.

“I am heartily sorry,” Mr. Cray replied. “Where is the little Ninette? I
fear that she, too, has cause for anger with me.”

“You broke up my supper-party, confound you!” Senn grumbled. “Ninette’s
all right, but she wouldn’t came back again. You brought me down here on
a fool’s errand.”

“I shall atone,” Mr. Cray promised. “To-day you will lunch with me. I
have a table at Ciro’s. I shall challenge Pierre to produce of his best.
There is Burgundy, not in the wine list—Chambertin; brandy—Armignac.
Pierre will produce his treasures.”

“I will lunch with you,” Senn agreed, a little mollified.

“At twelve-thirty precisely,” his prospective host enjoined. “I go to
take a little promenade.”

“At twelve-thirty I shall be there,” Mr. Senn promised.

Mr. Cray called at the Hotel Metropole, where he had half an hour to
talk with his newly arrived friend, Mr. Johns. Afterwards he took a
little walk. At twelve-thirty, he stood upon the terrace, and when Senn
made his appearance, he found himself one of a party of guests.

“Mrs. Hartopp, allow me to present my friend, Mr. Senn,” Mr. Cray said
genially. “Senn, shake hands with Major Hartopp and Mr. Pomfrey. To-day
I am not insulting you with a cocktail. We are going to drink wine.”

Senn, after a moment’s hesitation, accepted the presence of other guests
with equanimity. From the first he attached himself to Mrs. Hartopp.
They sat side by side, and soon their conversation became more and more
earnest. Every now and then they drew apart and joined in the general
conversation, an obvious concession to good manners, for at the first
opportunity Senn in particular turned back to his neighbour, eager to
renew their more intimate _tête-à-tête_. Towards the close of the meal,
he leaned a little back in his chair, drinking his wine with the slow
appreciation of the gratified epicure. For the first time there was a
faint flush in his cheeks, the brightness of his eyes became almost
inhuman. To his neighbour he talked with rapidity, apparently with
eloquence. His contributions to the general conversation, however, were
scanty. It was only just towards the end, after the arrival of that
dust-covered bottle of Armignac, that he seemed to abandon his reserve
and throw light upon the subject of that secret conversation.

“Whether in fear or hope,” he pronounced, “the greatest desire mortal
man has is to see the other side of the veil. There are some to whom the
very thought must be agony, some who must dread the thought of a
hereafter. Yet their thirst for knowledge is at least equal to the
thirst of those who have preserved hope.”

“Say, I’m all out against that view,” his host declared. “I can
understand the white man, who has nothing to fear from a hereafter,
longing for some assurance concerning it. But take the case of a great
criminal, now. What has he to gain? If there is a hereafter, it is
governed by supernatural laws, and it isn’t reasonable to suppose that
the criminal is going to be accepted on the same basis as the righteous
man.”

Senn leaned eagerly forward.

“You miss the point,” he declared. “Can’t you see that the fear of the
criminal and the hope of the just man both result in the same
emotion—curiosity. One desires to solve the matter of his hopes, the
other the matter of his fears.”

Mr. Cray shrugged his shoulders.

“You may be right,” he admitted. “Personally, I am well-content to
wait.”

“I am not,” was the muttered reply.

Major Hartopp swung the brandy reverently around in his huge glass.

“If you take my advice, all of you,” he said, “you’ll abandon all
serious conversation and devote yourselves to the brandy. Mr. Cray, I
salute you as a prince of hosts.”

They drank Mr. Cray’s health, and in due course the party broke up. Senn
and Mrs. Hartopp, however, wandered away together.

“We are going for a little walk along the promenade,” the latter
observed, as she nodded farewell to her host. “I shall be in the Club
presently.”

The three men sat down together outside. Mr. Cray fanned himself with
his hat, for the day was warm.

“I suppose the idea’s all right,” Major Hartopp observed, “but it seems
to me a little melodramatic. Why can’t you go the straight ticket,
Cray?”

Mr. Cray shook his head.

“There are eleven impenetrable years,” he pointed out, “a great gulf, on
the other side of which the clue disappears. To attempt to bridge that
over in a court of law would mean a simple repetition of the Landre
business.”

“What you are aiming at is a confession, then?” Pomfrey observed.

Mr. Cray nodded.

“The man is in a highly emotional state now,” he declared, “added to
which he is without doubt insane.”

“But the little lady here whom you rescued?”

Cray went over to where Ninette was sitting and brought her back to the
other two men. She was still very pale and subdued.

“Ninette,” he begged, “will you tell these gentlemen about the other
night when you were alone with Mr. Senn?”

She shook her head.

“There is nothing to tell,” she said, “except—except that I know he
meant to kill me.”

“Did you see any weapons?” Pomfrey asked. “Did he threaten you at all?”

She shook her head.

“What I know, I know,” she said firmly. “I saw it come into his eyes,
the thought that he would kill me. They went red, and he looked at me
like a wild beast. I tell you that I saw murder.”

Major Hartopp moved uneasily in his chair. Pomfrey, notwithstanding the
warm sunshine, shivered.

“You see, gentlemen,” Mr. Cray observed, “here is evidence which is no
evidence. I think that our way is the best.”

* * * * *

The end of these things contained certain phenomena which,
notwithstanding his robust materialism and his intimate acquaintance
with Major and Mrs. Hartopp, nevertheless left a queer impression upon
Mr. Cray’s mind. For the three days following his luncheon party, Mina
was an altered woman. Gradually she seemed to lose that air of superb
health, that cheerful woman-of-the-world poise, which had come upon Mr.
Cray as a revelation. She relapsed with extraordinary rapidity into the
invalidism of Hyères. Her cheeks seemed to grow thinner and her eyes
larger. She abandoned her visits to the Sporting Club just as Senn
abandoned the Casino. They sat together in quiet places and talked, and
when she was invisible he took long walks into the country and came back
covered with dust, and with black rims of fatigue under his eyes. He too
seemed to be drawing off into a world of his own, and hour by hour he
haunted the more the places which she was in the habit of frequenting.
He was like an uneasy shadow about the place, waiting for the hour to
come.

In the end, the _mise-en-scène_ was changed. They met one evening in the
large _salon_ occupied by the Hartopps at the Hotel de Paris, but three
minutes after they had taken their places, Mina had turned on the
lights.

“It is impossible,” she declared. “There is an atmosphere here which is
like a wall. Nothing can go out from me or can come to me. We must find
a small, plain room and open space.”

The next night they drove up the hill and trooped silently into Senn’s
strange apartment. Mina stretched herself upon a sofa behind a screen,
and the French-windows were thrown open to the cloudy night. Pomfrey,
Hartopp, and Cray were seated around the table, and, facing the window,
Senn. They sat on in darkness. Outside a wind was blowing and there was
the occasional patter of rain. Time passed and then a voice from behind
the screen.

“There is someone coming. There is someone coming for a man here whom no
one knows, whose name—but no, I cannot hear his name. . . . Wait. There
are more than one. There are seven. One comes first. Wait.”

This is where Mr. Cray began to lose hold of himself, for out of that
windy darkness it seemed to him that a shape approached towards the
window. By his side, he heard the breath of agony come whistling through
the lungs of the man next to him, a sound like a sigh, and then a low
voice.

“Is it you who have dared to call me back, William Holdsworth, I, the
first of your victims? I am here. The others are coming.”

Mr. Cray could have sworn that there was the vision of a white face, a
sob, and disappearance. The man by his side had risen, had stood for a
moment with hands outstretched towards the window, and then suddenly the
whistling of the breath ceased. They saw him through the darkness, his
face as white as ashes, his eyes glaring and transfixed with horror, his
fingers clawing the air. Then he sank down in a crumpled heap.

* * * * *

“Tell me, Ninette,” Mr. Cray asked, three days later, “you spoke of that
moment once when you saw murder come into his face. It was in the little
_salon_?”

She sipped her brandy and nodded.

“He was seated at the round table facing the window. Suddenly he rose to
his feet, he looked across at me, and I seemed to see his fingers
coming.”

Mr. Cray took off his hat as though by accident, and rested it upon his
knee.

“He died like that,” he muttered.

X Mr. Cray Returns Home

Mr. Cray leaned back in his deck-chair and watched the last blur of land
fade away into the mist. He was not at all in a happy frame of mind.
Behind him lay the world of adventures, London with its juggernaut of
life, its complex colours, its mystery, its everlasting call. There was
his year, too, of grim self-sacrifice upon the battle-fields of France,
the year of his life given splendidly and cheerfully, a fine and
wholesome tonic, the stimulus of which still remained. Behind, too, lay
that land of pleasure only lately left, the Riviera with its sensuous
joys, its flowers, and its perfumes, its Ninettes, its bland incarnation
of the whole philosophy of joy. And before him lay a new America, an
America which somehow or other he dreaded. Mr. Cray was neither a greedy
man nor a drunkard, but he felt a sad conviction that much of that glad
spirit of comradeship and good-fellowship must have passed away,
withered in the blight of this strange new legislation. It was an
unfamiliar land to which he returned, an unwelcome call which he had
grudgingly obeyed. The Cray Plant, glutted with dollars made by the
manufacture of munitions, required his help in its reorganisation. It
needed the brains of its founder to open up new avenues of industry. So
Mr. Cray was on his way home.

It was the pleasantest month of the year for crossing—the end of
May—when the sun was warm but never blistering, when the green seas
tossed and murmured before the west wind, which sang him to sleep at
night and brought the fresh colour to his cheeks in the early morning.
The bar-tender was an old friend of his, there were plenty of
acquaintances on board, his place at the Captain’s table was flattering.
Yet Mr. Cray was melancholy because the sun sank in the wrong place and
the bows of the steamer were pointed in the wrong direction.

It was on the second afternoon out when Mr. Cray, turning carelessly
enough to glance at the installation of a fellow-passenger in the
steamer-chair by his side, received a distinct shock, a shock which was
apparently shared by the fellow-passenger in question. She stared at Mr.
Cray and Mr. Cray stared at her. The words which finally escaped from
his lips seemed inadequate.

“Say, this is some surprise! I had no idea that you were thinking of
making this trip.”

The slim woman with the brilliant eyes showed distinct signs of
embarrassment. She tried to carry off the awkwardness of the meeting
with a nervous little laugh.

“We made up our minds quite suddenly,” she said, “or rather, I suppose I
ought to say that our minds were made up for us.”

“Major Hartopp is on board, then?” Mr. Cray inquired.

She nodded.

“He is over there, leaning against the rail, talking to the dark,
clean-shaven man.”

Mr. Cray glanced in the direction indicated and nodded.

“Well, well,” he said, “this seems kind of familiar. I had an idea,
though, that you two had had enough of the States for a time. Why, it
was only three days before I sailed that your husband told me he never
intended to return.”

She smiled sadly. Her eyes seemed to be watching the glittering spray
which leaped every now and then into the sunshine.

“Our journey was undertaken at a moment’s notice,” she confided. “Here
comes Guy. He will be glad to see you.”

If such was the case, Major Hartopp certainly managed to conceal his
gratification. He received his erstwhile acquaintance’s cordial greeting
with marked diffidence. Mr. Cray’s good nature, however, was not to be
denied. He insisted upon an introduction to their friend—a Mr. Harding
of New York—and did his best to dissipate the distinct atmosphere of
embarrassment which he could scarcely fail to notice. He was only
partially successful, however, and presently, when Hartopp and his
companion had strolled away, he drew his chair a little closer to
Mina’s.

“Mrs. Hartopp,” he said, “your husband and you and I have come up
against one another pretty often during the last three months. It seemed
to me that we parted in Monte Carlo pretty good friends. What’s wrong
with your good man, and you, too, for the matter of that?”

Mrs. Hartopp turned her sorrowful eyes upon her companion.

“Mr. Cray,” she sighed, “you are one of those men who find out
everything. I really don’t see that it is of any use trying to keep it
secret from you. Guy and I are in a very strange position. You can’t
imagine what has happened, I suppose?”

“I cannot,” Mr. Cray acknowledged. “You’ve got me fairly guessing.”

She looked around as though to be sure that no one was within hearing.
Then she leaned towards her companion.

“Mr. Cray,” she whispered, “that man—that horrible man Harding—is no
friend of ours. He is an American detective taking us back to New York.
We are under arrest.”

“You don’t say!” Mr. Cray gasped.

“Guy never thought that they would apply for an extradition warrant,”
she went on. “They did it quite secretly. We were arrested the moment we
got back to London.”

“Pretty tough,” Mr. Cray murmured. “Of course, I always understood,” he
ventured, a little dubiously, “that there had been some trouble in New
York, but I didn’t think it was anything they could get him back for,
unless he chose to go.”

“The only trouble there,” Mina declared, “was that he got into a set of
people who were bent on making money anyhow, and he was too clever for
them. However, I will not weary you any more by talking of our
misfortunes. You had better take no notice of us. The truth might leak
out, and it would not be pleasant for you to be associated with
criminals.”

“You can cut that out,” Mr. Cray assured her warmly. “If there’s
anything I can do during the voyage count on me.”

Mina furtively dabbed her beautiful eyes with her handkerchief.

“You are very kind,” she sobbed, “but nothing can help us now. Our
pictures will be in all the p—papers, Guy will be branded as an
adventurer and I as a fraud. You had better take no more notice of us,
Mr. Cray. We are not worth it.”

Mr. Cray gave a great deal of thought during the next few days to the
matter of the Hartopp’s predicament. So far, no one seemed to have
surmised the truth of the situation, although the man Harding was never
for a moment apart from one or the other of them, and the fact that he
was a person of obviously inferior social station, made the close
intimacy a little remarkable. Towards the close of the second day, Mr.
Cray deliberately sought Harding out during the half-hour before dinner
when he was generally alone. Harding, who did not dress for that meal,
was lounging on the promenade deck, and Mr. Cray drew him insidiously
towards the smoking-room.

“Nix on cocktails for me,” the detective pronounced. “I’ve had some.
I’ll take a drop of Scotch whisky with you, though.”

They took several drops. The smoke-room was empty and Mr. Cray very
cautiously approached the subject he wished to discuss.

“See here, Harding,” he inquired, “is this a serious job for Hartopp?”

Harding became taciturn.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he declared cautiously.

“You needn’t worry about me,” Mr. Cray rejoined. “I’m in the secret.
Mrs. Hartopp told me all about it.”

Harding chewed his cigar for a moment and sipped his whisky-and-soda.

“I guess he’ll get five years, perhaps more. She’ll probably get a spell
herself.”

“I’m sorry to hear this,” Mr. Cray said. “They’re friends of mine.”

“That don’t alter their being crooks,” the other replied drily.

“Does New York know that you’ve got them?”

“Not a word. They didn’t believe I’d get the warrant through.”

“They don’t know that you’re on this steamer, then?”

“Nary a one of them. I’m going to give them the big surprise.”

“What’s the charge?” Mr. Cray inquired.

“Against him—selling dud bonds. Against her—robbing the old ladies of
Brooklyn by pretending she brought spooks to them. They’ve done some
slick things between them, but they’re booked for Sing-Sing this time,
or my name ain’t Silas Harding. . . . Not a drop more, Mr. Cray. I’ll be
getting a wash before dinner.”

Mr. Cray walked the deck moodily. He was a kind-hearted man, and the
plight of his companions distressed him greatly. After dinner that
evening, whilst Harding was playing poker in the smoking-room, he sat
between husband and wife.

“I guess there’s nothing to be done about this matter with Harding, eh?”
he queried.

Mina’s eyes became suddenly bright.

“You’re so wonderful, Mr. Cray,” she murmured. “I’m sure you have
something at the back of your mind.”

“Nothing that amounts to anything, I’m afraid,” Cray acknowledged.
“Harding tells me, though, that he hasn’t communicated with New York in
any way.”

Hartopp looked up eagerly.

“He told us that. I wondered at the time whether he was trying to make
an opening for a little negotiation. The trouble of it is that we
haven’t the stuff handy.”

“What about your wife’s legacy?”

“They paid five thousand pounds down,” Hartopp groaned, “and left the
rest in case the relatives disputed the will. If this matter comes out
in New York, and Mina’s name is mentioned we shall never see that
forty-five thousand pounds. It’s the devil’s own luck.”

“It doesn’t seem hopeful,” Mr. Cray admitted, “but we’ve had some fun
together, and if I can make Harding see reason, I’ll talk business to
him.”

Mina’s eyes shone and her soft fingers clasped his hand. Mr. Cray
reciprocated her pressure gently. A little later in the day he
approached Harding.

“See here, Harding,” he began, “how is it you and your friends the
Hartopps are not down in the passenger list?”

The detective produced a particularly black and objectionable-looking
cigar, lit it and stuck it into the corner of his mouth.

“You seem mighty interested in the Hartopps,” he observed.

“In a kinder way, I am,” Mr. Cray admitted. “They’re the sort of
wrongdoers I’ve a fancy for. They’re sports through and through, and
another thing they’re clever.”

“Well, between you and me,” the detective confided, “I’ve a sort of
sneaking sympathy for them myself, and the reason they’re entered on the
ship’s list as Mr. and Mrs. Brown, and I figure as one Perkins from
Chicago, is that I didn’t want it to get about all over the ship that
they were a couple of criminals whom I was taking back to New York.”

“I see,” Mr. Cray murmured. “Very considerate.”

It was about an hour after dinner-time and a dark evening. The deck,
however, was still crowded with promenaders. Mr. Cray inveigled his
companion into a more retired spot.

“See here, Harding,” he began, “I’m a plain man and I want to ask you a
plain question. Had you heard of Mrs. Hartopp’s legacy when you started
out on this trip?”

The detective rolled his cigar round, pinched it and expectorated.

“I sure had,” he admitted. “How do you figure that comes in?”

“Just in this way,” Mr. Cray explained. “You found your warrant granted
a little unexpectedly, and you found the Hartopps amenable to reason.
You’ve got them on board here without any fuss, and I take it there
isn’t a soul on the other side who knows that you’re bringing ’em along.
In fact you’ve fixed it so that if you were to turn up in New York
empty-handed, no one would be disappointed or surprised.”

“Well?”

“Now let me ask you as man to man,” Mr. Cray went on, “didn’t it enter
into your head that a little deal with the Hartopps might be made, some
little arrangement by which they could mingle with the other passengers
and slip away at New York and you could make a small deposit at your
bank against a rainy day? How’s that, Mr. Harding?”

“I get you,” the latter said calmly. “You’re suggesting that I might be
bribed to let them go.”

“See here, Harding,” Mr. Cray argued in his most persuasive tone, “I
figured the matter out this way to myself. Harding’s a man of, say,
forty-five to forty-six years of age, he draws a salary that don’t
permit of much saving, and when they retire him, in a few years’ time,
the pension isn’t going to keep him in luxury. I take it that it’s a
man’s business as he walks along through life to try and put a bit by
when he sees a chance. Here’s just one of these chances. The Hartopps
ain’t criminals at all. They’re just easy-living, pleasant adventurer
and adventuress, who live by their wits and other people’s folly. I
haven’t got a grouch on ’em, although they nearly cost me a cool
thousand. They’re not malicious, they’re not out to do any one any
particular harm in the world. . . . Are you travelling along with me,
Harding?”

“Sure!” was the terse reply.

“Therefore, I say that they’re your chance,” Mr. Cray wound up.

The detective considered for some minutes.

“Supposing I was willing to talk business,” he said, “what would be the
price?”

“Two thousand dollars,” Mr. Cray pronounced.

“Nothing doing.”

“Name your own figure, then.”

“It’ll cost you five,” Harding declared firmly, “not a cent more or
less. We’ll call it twenty-five thousand dollars.”

Mr. Cray sighed.

“It’s a lot of money,” he declared.

“It’s a big risk,” was the terse reply.

“How long can you give me to think it over?”

“Twenty-four hours.”

“I’ll meet you here at this time to-morrow night,” Mr. Cray promised.

* * * * *

Mina was looking very wan and delicate, the next day. Her soft, luminous
eyes called Mr. Cray to her side as soon as he appeared on deck. She
questioned him anxiously.

“Is there any chance, do you think?”

“The man can be bought,” Mr. Cray replied. “The trouble is that he wants
a great deal of money.”

“How much?”

“Five thousand pounds.”

Her face fell.

“It is terrible, that,” she murmured.

“Have you anything at all towards it?” Mr. Cray asked bluntly.

“You had better ask Guy,” she answered. “I never know exactly how we
stand financially. Of course, if only the legacy had been paid we should
have been all right.”

“Supposing the money was found, have you any place in New York you could
get to quickly and lie hidden until you catch a steamer home?”

“We have a certain hiding-place,” she assured him. “There would be no
difficulty about that. There is Guy over there. Will you go and talk to
him?”

Mr. Cray obeyed orders. Major Hartopp took a gloomy view of the
situation.

“Harding didn’t give us a moment to look around,” he explained. “We had
barely twenty-four hours’ notice before he marched us on to this
infernal steamer. All the money Mina and I have between us is about
ninety pounds in cash, and about a hundred and forty at a bank in
London. What’s so damned annoying is,” he went on, “they’ll never pay
over the rest of the legacy if this gets into the papers. They haven’t a
chance of holding Mina for anything she’s done—she’s been too clever
for that—but the exposure will be quite sufficient. Those Scotch
lawyers will fight the case inch by inch, sooner than pay over a
shilling, if Mina’s bona fides are once questioned.”

“Supposing the money was forthcoming,” Mr. Cray said, “your wife says
she knows where you could find shelter in New York for a few days.”

“Not only that,” Hartopp declared eagerly, “but I could get a passage
back on this ship without any questions asked. The purser’s a very
decent fellow, and I’ve been having a talk to him about it.”

Mr. Cray returned to Mina. She looked at him with very pretty
hesitation.

“Does Guy think we could do anything?” she asked.

“The state of your exchequer, unfortunately, seems to place that out of
the question,” he said.

She leaned forward. Her hand rested upon his, and the pressure of her
fingers became more marked. There was something about the haunting way
she looked at him which reminded Mr. Cray of the first time he had seen
her at the Albert Hall.

“Dear friend,” she whispered, “I am very fond of Guy, in his way. He is
a dear, of course, but—I am fonder still of liberty. The charge against
me is really a foolish one. The only trouble is that it may spoil my
chance of getting that legacy. Couldn’t you pay him a little less and
get him to leave me out? You could take me back to England with you, and
I should be there when Guy’s trouble was over.”

Mr. Cray, being only human, returned the pressure of her fingers, but he
shook his head.

“I guess I’ll see you both through this,” he promised, “it won’t ruin
me, any way.”

Mr. Cray was met on the dock by Mr. Nathaniel Long, the treasurer of his
Company, and hurried away into a private room of one of the mammoth
hotels. There, with great pride, the latter drew from a small grip a
bottle of Scotch whisky. Tumblers and soda-water were speedily
forthcoming. Mr. Cray asked the obvious questions concerning this great
change which had come to his native land.

“I tell you, Joseph,” Mr. Long said sorrowfully, “it’s just as though
some silent blight had fallen upon the country. The clubs aren’t worth
going into. Everybody snaps and snarls and quarrels at the least
opportunity. The dinner-parties at the restaurants seem frost-bitten,
and it’s one of the most painful sights in New York to see Francis
serving out temperance drinks behind the bar of the Waldorf.”

“Any decrease in crime?” Mr. Cray inquired.

“Slightly worse, and more suicides. Besides, this drinking in corners is
making us seem like a furtive nation. A drink that used to be a mark of
good fellowship is now a vice. The doctors have never had so many cases
of indigestion, and there’s a wave of melancholia going around. I tell
you,” Long went on, gazing affectionately at the contents of his
tumbler, “it seems a small thing to be driven from one’s native land
for, but the day I get across to England, sit down in a restaurant,
order my cocktail and my bottle of champagne, well, it will be great,
that’s all there is to it.”

“How’s business?” Mr. Cray inquired.

“That’s what’s brought me here,” the other replied. “Joseph, the Seattle
Power Works have offered to buy us out as we stand, before we start
reconstruction, with five million dollars for good-will and a premium on
the stock. I’ve brought all the figures, and I’ve got a seat on the
Limited to-night. My idea was that you might go right back with me, talk
it over on the way, and go into things down there. It’s a big chance if
you’ve any fancy for cleaning up.”

“It sounds great,” Mr. Cray murmured. “Say, Nat, I’ve given an open
cheque for twenty-five thousand dollars on the Merchants’ Bank
here—lost it at poker on the way over. I guess it’s all right, eh?”

“Sure!” was the prompt reply. “We’ve never less than a hundred thousand
dollars there. Did you get amongst pikers, or were you pushing some?”

“I guess the game was all right,” Mr. Cray declared. “What time does the
Limited start?”

“Seven o’clock.”

“I’ll look after my baggage and meet you at the depôt,” Mr. Cray
promised.

It was exactly ten days later when Mr. Cray, accompanied again by Mr.
Nathaniel Long, returned to New York. They spent a solemn but inspiring
day at the lawyer’s and banker’s. When the whole thing was over, Mr.
Cray for the first time in his life was a very rich man. His programme
for the evening, although sadly affected, alas! by circumstances, still
showed a sense of celebration. After a wonderful Turkish bath, a visit
to the barber’s and the manicurist, a whisky-and-soda in his room—an
act of debauchery which was entirely flavourless—he met his friend and
late business partner, and the two men made their way to the most select
restaurant in New York, where a table had been reserved for them. With
elaborate care, Mr. Cray wrote out a wonderful menu, ordered with a
prodigious sigh, a large bottle of mineral water, and, closing his eyes
for a moment, drank an imaginary cocktail.

“Joseph, my boy, what are you going to do about it?” Nathaniel Long
inquired. “You’re in the prime of life and a very rich man. You can
acquire a post in one of our great commercial undertakings over here, or
you can wander out into the world as you have done during the last few
years, looking for adventures. Mrs. Cray don’t seem to make any
particular claim upon you, especially since this anti-tobacco league was
started. You’re a free man, Joseph. That’s what you are.”

“And you?” Mr. Cray asked. “What about you, Nathaniel?”

Nathaniel Long shook his wizened little head.

“I guess that sort of thing doesn’t exist for me,” he replied,
sorrowfully. “I have a wife and eight children. I am trustee of the
chapel where my wife worships; secretary of our golf and country club;
Commodore of the sailing club. I shall just rent a slightly larger
country house and take my ease. It is fortunate that I have not your
restless spirit.”

Mr. Cray was suddenly transfixed. He sat watching with sheer amazement a
little party of three who were taking their places at an adjoining
table—Major Hartopp, in his unmistakable English clothes, spruce and
debonair; Mina, looking ravishing in a wonderful gown of filmy grey; and
Mr. Harding—only a somewhat transformed Mr. Harding—in the long
dinner-coat and flowing tie affected by the American diner out. The
head-waiter himself saw them to their places, an obsequious _maître
d’hôtel_ passed on their order to attentive myrmidons. Nathaniel Long
followed his friend’s earnest gaze with some interest.

“Joseph,” he inquired, “do you know the man in the dinner-coat—not the
Englishman? You seem to be staring at him hard enough.”

“He was on the steamer with me,” Mr. Cray acknowledged.

“That fellow’s seen the inside of Sing-Sing more than once,” Mr. Long
declared. “Some crook he is, I can tell you. I don’t know what name he
goes by now, but they used to call him Slick Jimmy. He seems to have got
in with a swell crowd.”

“He’s never been a detective, by any chance, I suppose?” Mr. Cray asked.

Nathaniel Long smiled.

“I should say not,” he replied. “I don’t think even on the principle of
‘set a thief to catch a thief,’ they’d stand Slick Jimmy in the force.”

At that moment Mina caught Mr. Cray’s eye and bowed in a somewhat
constrained fashion. Hartopp nodded affably. Mr. Harding contented
himself with a furtive grin. Mr. Cray drank a glass of water with great
solemnity.

“Nathaniel,” he declared, “I guess that taste for adventure is fizzling
out. I’ve got to hire a dog and a guardian and live amongst the poops.”

“Been stung?” Nathaniel Long inquired kindly.

Mr. Cray met Mina’s tantalising eyes and looked away.

“Some,” he groaned.

THE END

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been fixed.

Inconsistency in hyphenation has been retained.

[The end of _The Adventures of Mr. Joseph P. Cray_ by E. (Edward)
Phillips Oppenheim]