Part 15 (1/2)

At the very first syllables the lady rose quickly to her feet, and resting one hand on the table she leant forward in the direction of the door, with an expression that was at once eager and anxious, and yet quite fearless.

'What you call your business is going to wait my convenience,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'You'll find me here to-morrow morning until eleven o'clock.'

From the sounds the lady judged that the American now attempted to shut the door in his visitor's face, but that he was hindered and that a scuffle followed.

'Hold him!' cried the oily voice in a tone of command. 'Bring him in!

Lock the door!'

It was clear enough that the visitor had not come alone, and that Mr.

Van Torp had been overpowered. The lady bit her salmon-coloured lip angrily and contemptuously.

A moment later a tall heavily-built man with thick fair hair, a long moustache, and s.h.i.+fty blue eyes, rushed into the room and did not stop till there was only the small table between him and the lady.

'I've caught you! What have you to say?' he asked.

'To you? Nothing!'

She deliberately turned her back on her husband, rested one elbow on the mantelpiece and set one foot upon the low fender, drawing up her velvet gown over her instep. But a moment later she heard other footsteps in the room, and turned her head to see Mr. Van Torp enter the room between two big men who were evidently ex-policemen. The millionaire, having failed to shut the door in the face of the three men, had been too wise to attempt any further resistance.

The fair man glanced down at the table and saw the envelope with his wife's initials lying beside the tea things. She had dropped it there when she had risen to her feet at the sound of his voice. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it away as soon as he saw the pencilled letters on it, and in a moment he had taken out the notes and was looking over them.

'I should like you to remember this, please,' he said, addressing the two men who had accompanied him. 'This envelope is addressed to my wife, under her initials, in the handwriting of Mr. Van Torp. Am I right in taking it for your handwriting?' he inquired, in a disagreeably polite tone, and turning towards the millionaire.

'You are,' answered the American, in a perfectly colourless voice and without moving a muscle. 'That's my writing.'

'And this envelope,' continued the husband, holding up the notes before the men, 'contains notes to the amount of four thousand one hundred pounds.'

'Five hundred pounds, you mean,' said the lady coldly.

'See for yourself!' retorted the fair man, raising his eyebrows and holding out the notes.

'That's correct,' said Mr. Van Torp, smiling and looking at the lady.

'Four thousand one hundred. Only the first one was for a hundred, and the rest were thousands. I meant it for a little surprise, you see.'

'Oh, how kind! How dear and kind!' cried the lady gratefully, and with amazing disregard of her husband's presence.

The two ex-policemen had not expected anything so interesting as this, and their expressions were worthy of study. They had been engaged, through a private agency, to a.s.sist and support an injured husband, and afterwards to appear as witnesses of a vulgar clandestine meeting, as they supposed. It was not the first time they had been employed on such business, but they did not remember ever having had to deal with two persons who exhibited such hardened indifference; and though the incident of the notes was not new to them, they had never been in a case where the amount of cash received by the lady at one time was so very large.

'It is needless,' said the fair man, addressing them both, 'to ask what this money was for.'

'Yes,' said Mr. Van Torp coolly. 'You needn't bother. But I'll call your attention to the fact that the notes are not yours, and that I'd like to see them put back into that envelope and laid on that table before you go. You broke into my house by force anyhow. If you take valuables away with you, which you found here, it's burglary in England, whatever it may be in your country; and if you don't know it, these two professional gentlemen do. So you just do as I tell you, if you want to keep out of gaol.'

The fair man had shown a too evident intention of slipping the envelope into his own pocket, doubtless to be produced in evidence, but Mr. Van Torp's final argument seemed convincing.

'I have not the smallest intention of depriving my wife of the price of my honour, sir. Indeed, I am rather flattered to find that you both value it so highly.'

Mr. Van Torp's hard face grew harder, and a very singular light came into his eyes. He moved forwards till he was close to the fair man.

'None of that!' he said authoritatively. 'If you say another word against your wife in my hearing I'll make it the last you ever said to anybody. Now you'd better be gone before I telephone for the police.

Do you understand?'