Chapter XIII: Is a Revelation

The contretemps was certainly a most startling one. I could not believe my own eyes.

There, through the doorway of the crowded restaurant, entered a tall, dark-haired, rather handsome young man in crush-hat and black overcoat, with a white muffler around his neck, while at his side walked a woman--a woman in dark skirt, a cream jacket, and neat dark-blue hat--a woman who was none other than my well-beloved!

Yes. The man for whom the detectives were so anxiously watching was accompanied by Daisy Marvin!

So excited was I at the sudden recognition that I half rose from my chair. Next instant, however, I sank back again into the obscurity of the crowd, hoping not to be recognised. I intended to watch in silence. She was, I saw, playing me false.

If she could, after the theatre, escape from old Annie and meet this young club-lounger, then why had she always told me that to see me was impossible? She had cruelly deceived me, but I had fortunately discovered her perfidy.

Jealousy is the injured lover's torment. In a moment my heart became filled with fierce resentment. There was the woman whom I had believed to be mine, and mine only, laughing gaily with that stage-door idler--the man for whom Whitlock and Kennedy were in wait.

The new-comers found a seat against the wall in the farther corner of the place beneath a balcony, where they were joined by the old man who had been awaiting them so long. Then the two men spoke earnestly together in serious conference, while the detectives, muttering in an undertone, continued their game.

The instant the new-comer had appeared Whitlock had whispered, "Be careful! he may know us by sight," and then bent, his elbow on the table, his hand to his forehead, as though thoughtfully contemplating his dominoes.

"Who's the girl with him, I wonder?" asked Kennedy, lifting his shrewd eyes and watching keenly.

"Don't know. Never saw her before," was Whitlock's response. "Rather good-looking and ladylike, isn't she?"

What would the man at my side think if he knew the truth regarding the locket? Who, I wondered, was this man who was her companion? What did they want with him, and why had they waited so patiently for his coming? How, indeed, did they know that he would come there?

"Who is that man?" I whispered, when the pair had seated themselves.

"Merely a gentleman in whom we have some little interest just now."

"In regard to the Barnes affair?"

"Well--yes."

It was indeed fortunate that Whitlock was at that moment absorbed in his game, or my countenance would, no doubt, have betrayed me.

Daisy's little miniature of myself being found upon those empty premises connected her in some way with the mysterious affair; yet the two officers seated with me were in ignorance of it. They little dreamed that the tiny portrait had been the property of that sweet-faced, graceful girl who was now leaning her elbows on the table and smiling as she chatted with her good-looking cavalier.

Both my companions were interested as to who she might be. They discussed her, while I, filled with mad jealousy and anger, kept my own counsel. Seated in such a position that she could not see my face, yet from time to time I managed to glance back at her, and watch the manner in which she treated her mysterious and suspicious companion.

Whitlock's patience had been rewarded, and he sat playing on, contented that at least he would ere long discover more about the man he had been expecting for so long. He was a marvellously painstaking officer, and to his inexhaustible patience his success was mainly due. Only by its exercise had he been able to recover the whole of Lady Dumbarton's valuable jewels, which, stolen at King's Cross Station, he dug up from the sands five miles from Ostend nearly three years after the theft. Besides, was it not he who had recovered the celebrated "Madonna" of Titian, which, cut from its frame in a Park Lane mansion by burglars, he was able to take from a hayloft outside a Warwickshire village two and a half years later? Contrary to the method of many officers of the Criminal Investigation Department, he never hurried. He waited and watched, for by that, he always declared, he was able to obtain more knowledge than if he acted precipitately and made an arrest.

Thousands of pounds' worth of valuable stolen property is lost yearly by injudicious arrests. The thieves, growing alarmed, destroy their haul--often getting rid of it by throwing it into rivers or into the sea; whereas, by careful inquiry and clever observation, the place where the property is secreted until a safe opportunity is presented for turning it into money can often be discovered.

What was Whitlock's present game? Why did he not tell me the name of Daisy's companion?

Again I approached the subject, whereupon he replied--

"Of his real name I have only a suspicion. If that is correct, he is the man we are looking for--the man whose birth-certificate we found in such curious circumstances."

"You mean Drayton!" I gasped.

He nodded slightly in the affirmative.

"Marvellous!" I gasped. Here already he had discovered the man, and knew that his habit was to come to that café.

"It's only a suspicion, remember," he went on; "that's why we are keeping observation upon him--or, rather, we shall when he leaves here."

The conference between the two men was hurried, and appeared to be in secret from Daisy. She took up a paper and glanced through it while they were in confidential conclave. Then, with a few final impressive words, the old man rose, raised his hat to my well-beloved, and walked out.

Whitlock made no attempt to follow, and by that it was evident that he was in possession of all the facts concerning the old man that were of any importance.

Ten minutes passed.

The man under suspicion was bending to his companion, talking earnestly. Where could be the faithful Annie, the woman who never let Daisy out of her sight after she had finished her work at the theatre? That my beloved should be going about London with a well-dressed stranger at that hour was to me perfectly incredible.

Smartly attired, he possessed the air of the man-about-town, while she on her part was speaking with him confidentially. How I wished I could overhear that conversation!

The finding of the little portrait secreted in that empty upstairs room had connected Daisy Marvin with the remarkable affair at Barnes in a manner which was beyond solution. The discovery that my sweetheart was a friend of this man whom the police were watching had utterly dumbfounded me.

In the café there were two doors, one leading out into Regent Street and the other into Glasshouse Street. At Whitlock's suggestion we rose and passed out by the last-mentioned exit, in order not to be seen by the pair now in such close consultation.

Outside, Whitlock and I passed round by the Café Monico into Regent Street, in order to watch the pair if they should emerge that way, while Kennedy remained idling near the door in Glasshouse Street.

"Who is that man?" I repeated, as I stood with Whitlock on the edge of the opposite pavement, for I had no desire that Daisy should recognise me.

"I believe him to be the man Drayton, though at present I am not certain," was my friend's reply. "If he is, then the affair assumes a very much stranger aspect than even it does at present."

"How?"

"Well, because this man is known. There's something very curious about him. If he turns out to be Drayton, then we've tumbled upon one of the most extraordinary cases of modern times."

His words held me breathless.

"Then you yourself believe him to be Drayton?" I inquired anxiously.

"I have no opinion," he said, correcting me. "Others have, and believe him to be Drayton."

"And if he turns out to be Drayton?"

Whitlock pursed his lips and looked mysterious.

"Well, then we shall have to consider how to act. This man is, at anyrate, a slippery customer, and I daresay has a revolver on him at this moment. I wonder who the girl is? Not one of his crowd, evidently."

"Crowd?" I echoed. "Are there others?"

"Probably," he answered. "We want to find out something about this interesting person. When he comes out I shall follow him."

"May I come?" I begged, for I wanted to see where Daisy intended going.

Whitlock hesitated.

"Yes," he replied at last. "Providing you promise to drop out when I tell you. We must run no risk of recognition, remember, for this is a serious inquiry--a very serious one."

"I'll promise to be discreet."

"Then let us follow them separately. It will be best."

That was just what I wanted, and scarcely had we finished speaking when the door swung open and Daisy and her companion emerged. In an instant I left Whitlock's side and turned away, so as not to meet them. Another moment and I saw that they had mingled with the crowd of foot-passengers going towards Leicester Square, therefore I followed quickly.

The man suspected to be the Francis Douglas Drayton--the man whose birth-certificate was in possession of the police--had linked his hand in Daisy's arm and was piloting her through the crowd of homeward-bound pleasure-seekers.

Whitlock, walking in the same direction, was not far from me as we passed the entrance to the Pavilion, when of a sudden a dirty, unkempt man, with a contents-bill and a bundle of papers in his hand, pushed forward, and walking beside him cried--

"'Ere y'are, sir! _'Erald_, sir! Latest news, sir!"

I recognised the man. Whitlock, without pausing, indicated the pair he was following, whereupon the fellow disappeared instantly into the crowd. He was a policeman's "nose"--one of hundreds in London who give the police information, and assist them in a variety of ways of which the public never dream. The "nose" had been put on the watch, and Whitlock knew that, wherever the man and his lady friend might go, the humble seller of evening papers would keep a very watchful eye upon them.

What he had told me about the man Drayton had greatly interested me. If this man were actually the person suspected, then he was of bad character and in no way fitted to be the companion of Daisy. With eager, jealous eyes I watched them in anger and in wonder. What could it mean?

Whitlock had suspected two persons--Julian Little and this unknown young man of leisure. Utterly unconscious that they were being so closely followed, the pair walked on past Wardour Street, along the north side of Leicester Square, past the Empire--now closed and dark--and on through Cranbourn Street, where, at the corner of Charing Cross Road, the man halted as though in expectation of meeting somebody.

He glanced up and down. From across the way the unkempt man hawking his papers was watching, while Whitlock had fallen back some distance.

I could see that Daisy was very anxious to leave him and get home, but on his part he was persuading her to remain, apparently assuring her that the man expected would arrive in a few moments.

At that midnight hour there was still plenty of life and movement, as there always is in that quarter of London. The corner was not too well lighted, now that the Hippodrome doors were closed, therefore there was but little risk that Daisy would detect my presence there.

She was, I felt, in the hands of unscrupulous persons, and it was well that I was there to protect her. Indeed, it required all my self-possession to restrain myself from going boldly up to the man suspected to be Drayton, and demanding what business he had with the sweet-faced woman whose heart was mine.

To act thus, however, would ruin all Whitlock's plans. The present inquiry was both important and difficult, for the mystery at Barnes must, at all hazards, be cleared up. The affair had got upon my nerves, and I was as keenly interested in every detail as was the renowned police-officer himself.

Daisy, at her companion's urgent request, remained idling up and down near the Hippodrome for about five minutes, when from the direction of Long Acre there hurried a short, grey-bearded, shabbily-dressed little man, who had the appearance of a foreigner.

I now saw the keen forethought of Whitlock in employing the services of one of his unofficial agents.

The two men met, swiftly exchanging some quick words, for the old man was breathless, and I saw also that he was slightly deformed.

Then Daisy was introduced to the sinister-looking, little old man by her companion. His profuse manner in greeting her confirmed my suspicion that he was a foreigner. The manner in which he raised his shabby hat showed me that he was probably Italian.

He was, however, in great haste. His words to his friend were quick and to the point. Both consulted their watches, as though making an appointment to meet later; then, raising his hat again, the queer little old fellow stepped into a hansom and, giving the man an address, drove rapidly away.