Chapter X

At noon the next day Mr. Danton Morell called with all the news procurable--and that was not much.

“He seems to have disappeared from London, but I shouldn’t be very much alarmed about that,” he said.

Margaret Maddison sat white faced by her writing table, playing with a pen. She had not slept at all since Luke’s butler had wakened her at midnight to ask for information about his master. Early that morning she had weakened sufficiently to ring up Luke’s office, only to find that she had communicated her own alarm to Mr. Stiles.

“Naturally he wants to worry you,” said Danty with a little smile. “That’s part of his scheme. I dare say if you had told old Stiles that you were ready to give a check for----”

“I told Mr. Stiles that I’d give him a check for any money he wanted,” she said.

Her voice was a little cold and hard. Danty grew alarmed. He was evidently on the wrong track; it was not easy to find the right one.

“Then, if I may say so, you were extremely foolish. After all, you know the man; you know exactly what poor Rex thought of him; you went into this with your eyes open----”

“I know.” She was impatient. “I would do it again, I think--perhaps in another way. I was rather--brutal.”

She rose from the table and walked slowly across to the fireplace, took a cigarette from an enamelled box on the mantelpiece, lit it, only to throw it into the fire.

“I am worried, Danton,” she admitted. “I haven’t the stamina for hate. I haven’t even the illusion that I’ve done right.”

“Stiles took your check, of course?”

She shook her head.

“No; he said it wouldn’t be necessary. I think Luke must have told him about--everything. He was very sharp with me, almost rude.”

“Fire him,” said Danty promptly. “Don’t forget that you own the bank----”

“I do not own the bank,” she interrupted. “My lawyer rang me up this morning to say that by an omission the bank property was not included in the contract--and I am glad. Of course I shall transfer back to Luke every penny I have taken from him.”

“Are you mad?”

He almost shouted the words.

She had not seen this Danton before, and she stared at him in amazement. He realized his mistake instantly.

“I’m terribly sorry,” he said, almost humbly. “I’m thinking of you; I’m thinking of how easily his disappearance may be a trick, as I’m perfectly sure it is. It is like you to want to give him back his money, but suppose you do, what then? You’re married to him; he’s hardly likely to give you grounds for divorce, and the net result of your generosity would be that you would be penniless, dependent on his charity for every farthing.”

She thought for a long time on this, looking down into the fire. It was difficult to know what Margaret was thinking about: her face was set; the side view he had of her eyes told him nothing.

“I wanted to hurt him, and yet I was very frightened. If he had only said something, if he had only abused me… it was awful!”

She closed her eyes as though to shut out the memory of Luke’s face.

“He’ll be back to-night,” said Danty cheerfully, “and then you’d better settle it among yourselves. I’m almost beginning to regret that I gave you any advice, and yet God knows I did not act from self-interest.”

“Why, of course not.” She held out her hand impulsively and he took it. He was now mastering the situation.

Yet he was puzzled, and all the way home he was trying to find a likely explanation for Luke’s disappearance. He had formed an estimate of Luke Maddison’s character, and his own prognosis of what would follow Margaret’s revelation was, frankly, that the man he hated would take one of two courses: he would either display an immense sanity and consult his solicitors, or he would go the way of Rex Leferre.

A newspaper placard attracted his attention; he tapped on the glass and stopped the cab to buy a copy of the journal. “Race Gang Murder,” said the contents bill, and Danty was interested in gang fights. The scene of the tragedy was unknown to him. In his more humble days he had worked North London. The Borough and Lambeth were _terra incognita_.

As a result of a stabbing affray, arising, it is believed, from a quarrel between members of rival race gangs, a man named Lewing was killed, and his companion, whose identity the police are anxious to establish, is now lying in a dangerous condition at St. Thomas’s Hospital, suffering from a knife wound in the breast. The Flying Squad is combing South London to find the assailants, who are believed to be members of a dangerous criminal gang operating in the Borough.

Danty tossed the paper on to the floor of the cab. It was one of those commonplace crimes which have no especial interest for the well-to-do classes, and just now he was on the verge of becoming one of that exclusive set.

It may be said that he had no exact plan as to what part he would play in the present situation. He could make money more easily with Luke out of the way, and with this fool girl Margaret controlling a fortune, than he could if he were working under the cold blue eyes of Luke who hated him. He had not disguised the fact, when he discussed Rex and the forgery, that he believed Rex was more victim than instigator of the crime.

His disappearance was really a sensible relief. It was hardly likely that his relationship with Margaret could have continued if she were in love with her husband and were guided by him. All that Danty planned was that Luke should cease to be a factor; and he had planned well. Whether he took his profits in one shape or another was a matter of indifference, except--the growing fascination that Margaret was exercising over him. He never saw her but there grew a stronger desire for another relationship than confidential friend. Once he had touched her hand by a well-timed accident. She had let her hand rest against his long enough to encourage the hope that he might go farther; but when he had followed up this opening she had left him in no doubt about her feelings. Margaret had the disconcerting habit of candour.

“I hope you aren’t going to be very silly, Danton, and imagine that you’re in love with me,” she said.

This was in the days when Rex was alive, and when her pulse beat a little quicker at the sound of Luke Maddison’s footstep.

Danty shrugged his shoulders. Women change; their charm is their inconsistency.

He stepped out of the taxi and turned to pay the driver.

“Morning, Mr. Morell.”

Danty brought his head round slowly. Where had the Sparrow come from? He had a most alarming trick of appearing from nowhere. As a matter of fact, Mr. Bird had been standing in the roadway but had been momentarily screened by the taxi.

“I thought I’d like to have a little chat with you,” he beamed. “Seen anything of Mr. Maddison?”

It was on the tip of Danty’s tongue to disclaim any acquaintance with Luke Maddison’s movements.

“Not since the marriage,” he said.

“Maybe he’s gone away alone on his honeymoon,” said the Sparrow, smiling broadly. “I can’t keep track of these modern ways of going on. I suppose you haven’t been on a honeymoon for a long time, Mr. Morell?”

His keen, bright eyes, half hidden behind the puffy eyelids, fixed Danton Morell like a gimlet. Danty did not flinch.

“I’ve never been married,” he said.

He could easily have ended the interview by brushing past the detective and walking into the vestibule of the building--it was his error that he submitted to the cross-examination.

“A pleasure to come,” said the Sparrow brightly. “I was having a little talk with Gunner Haynes about you.”

In spite of his self-control, Danton Morell felt the colour leave his face.

“Oh, were you?” he said defiantly. “And who is Gunner Haynes?”

“A low criminal,” said the Sparrow in melancholy tones. “I meet ’em--it’s my job. There’s a lot of things I like about the Gunner. First of all I like him because he never carries a gun, and secondly I do admire his memory! Got the memory of a horse, that old Gunner! He’s the sort of fellow that remembers the colour of the socks he was wearing the day the Armistice was signed. I shouldn’t be surprised if they were khaki. What colour socks did you wear that day, Mr. Morell?”

There was something so deadly in that question that Danton held his breath. On Armistice Day he had been serving a sentence of eighteen months in Peterhead Jail. Had the Gunner recognized and betrayed him? He had only to consider this possibility to find a reason for its rejection. If Gunner Haynes knew he was alive and get-at-able, he would tell no police officer. Very surely and expeditiously he would settle his own account.

“I can’t tell you what kind of socks I was wearing,” he drawled. “Are you interested in the hosiery business?”

Mr. Bird nodded solemnly.

“Especially gray socks,” he said; “gray woolen socks with a little broad arrow on the ankle.”

It was in perfect good-humour, and could not, by any effort of the imagination, be described as offensive. Before Danton could speak he went on:

“I suppose you can’t oblige me with information? I’d like to know why Mr. Maddison went away yesterday, and where he’s gone. I’m thinking of sending him a birthday present. How long are you staying in London, Mr. Morell?”

The question was asked abruptly; the eyes behind the heavy lids seemed to brighten when Danty answered.

“About a month.”

“I was thinking perhaps you’d be going next week.”

With a little nod he turned and went off in his heavy, ponderous fashion. Danty looked after him, biting his lip. He had received a warning. Though he would rather have the warning from the police than the more ungentle warning which Gunner Haynes would have delivered.

He was still pondering the detective’s words when he was dressing for dinner that night. It couldn’t have been the Gunner--Bird was guessing, hoping to surprise a confirmation of his suspicions.

Margaret and he were dining together that night, and when she ’phoned to him that afternoon he thought that she was cancelling the engagement, and had two convincing arguments to make her reconsider her decision. But she had merely ’phoned to ask him if he had any further news.

She was infinitely more cheerful when he saw her that night; was reaffirmed in her old determination.

“You’ll hear from him to-morrow,” smiled Danty over the coffee. “He’s not the sort of man who gets very far from the City of London, where the money is made!”

She sighed.

“I’m afraid you’re right,” she said.

At that moment two eminent surgeons stood, one on each side of a bed in St. Thomas’s Hospital. One of them folded his stethoscope and looked down at the unconscious patient with a little grimace.

“You haven’t found this man’s name, constable?”

The detective officer who sat by the bed shook his head.

“No, sir.”

The surgeon turned to his colleague.

“Pneumonia undoubtedly, Sir John,” he said briskly. “The lung is badly pierced--the pneumonia symptoms were to be expected, don’t you think?”

He beckoned the third of the party, the house surgeon, who was attending another patient on the other side of the ward.

“This fellow will probably die to-night,” he said, almost brightly. “I don’t see what you can do except to make him as comfortable as you can. Rather a superior-looking fellow to be a member of a gang.”

The unconscious man smiled and muttered a word.

“Sounded like ‘Margaret’ to me,” said the interested surgeon. “Pity you don’t know who he is, you might have notified his wife--I hardly think there’s time now.”