Chapter X: News for Mrs. Walsingham

By that time it was very seldom that Mrs. Walsingham ever left the office alone; on four days out of the five Richard and his car were waiting for her and the habitués of Abbotsbury House and the Norfolk Street pavement had grown accustomed to seeing her whisked off as if she were some personage of high degree. She and young Mr. Shrewsbury at that time, indeed, were enjoying themselves a good deal in each other’s society. It was very much pleasanter, during those warm summer days, to get into a luxuriously-fitted car and to escape from London to some country town twenty or thirty miles away, there to dine amidst sylvan and shady surroundings, and afterwards to spin back in the cool and purpling twilight, than to be obliged to dress and to dine at fashionable hotels and restaurants, wherein not all the artifice in the world could produce the semblance of what an hour’s journey could give. This daily arrangement had come to be a fixed one--evening after evening Mr. Shrewsbury’s car slid away into one or other of the home counties, and later at night was to be seen outside the flats in which Mrs. Walsingham resided, waiting until its owner had smoked the cigarette to which he was always invited when he had safely brought Mrs. Walsingham home.

But on the afternoon of Richard’s visit to Acacia Mansions, Mrs. Walsingham waited in vain for him--waited, that is to say, for half an hour. There was no settled arrangement between them as to his coming, but it had grown to be such a part of the day’s routine that she had fully expected him, and at five o’clock was in readiness to leave with him. But when, at half-past five, there were no signs of him and no message, Mrs. Walsingham left the office and set out for her favourite restaurant. After what she called a long business day, she liked to dine as near six o’clock as possible, and it was not within her scheme of things that anybody or anything should interfere with her dinner. So she made her way along the Strand towards Leicester Square and Soho: she would dine leisurely, she said to herself, and go home, secure in the knowledge that Richard would present himself at the flat sooner or later in the evening. She was in no wise surprised that he had not come for her at five o’clock; he was engaged, she concluded, with Captain Burgoyne.

The thought of Captain Burgoyne suggested another thought to Mrs. Walsingham, who had just then reached the neighbourhood of Charing Cross. She glanced at her watch, turned and, retracing her steps a little way, entered a jeweller’s shop. It was a quiet high-class establishment, the windows of which were set out with expensive goods, but it was decorated, though unobtrusively, with three gilt balls, and was, in fact, the business place of a fashionable pawnbroker in whose breast many secrets were safely locked.

There was no one in the outer shop when Mrs. Walsingham entered, save the proprietor and some assistants, and at sight of her the proprietor came round the counter and ushered her into a private room at the back of the premises. Mrs. Walsingham dropped into the chair which he politely offered her and unsnapped the patent catch of the bag which she carried.

“I want to pay you the interest on that loan, Mr. Wiertz,” she said. “It’s just about due, isn’t it?”

“Next week, I think,” replied Mr. Wiertz. “You want to renew, again?”

“Yes,” answered Mrs. Walsingham. She produced a purse from her bag and drew out some bank-notes. Mr. Wiertz sat down at a desk and began to write. Suddenly he turned and looked at his visitor with an air of polite meditation.

“I was thinking of writing to you, Mrs. Walsingham,” he said. “It was about those diamonds. Let’s see. I lent you a thousand on them two years ago, didn’t I? Yes--well, they are worth seven or eight times that, you know.”

“Of course, I know,” answered Mrs. Walsingham, regarding him steadily. “But they’re worth more. They’re worth every penny of ten thousand, at the lowest computation, Mr. Wiertz: I had them valued by three different people. Well, and what about them, and why were you going to write to me?”

“I wanted to know if you’d sell them,” answered Mr. Wiertz. “It just so happens that I could do with them. I could make use of them at once. It’s a pity they should lie there in my safe doing nothing. I’ll give you eight thousand for them.”

“No!” answered Mrs. Walsingham, promptly.

“No?” said Mr. Wiertz. “Dear me!--wouldn’t you rather have eight thousand, cash down, than let them lie unseen and go on paying me interest?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” replied Mrs. Walsingham. “They’re quite safe where they are, and there they can stop until I want them. And as I say, they’re worth every penny of ten thousand.”

“I might go to nine thousand,” suggested Mr. Wiertz.

“Not for sale--at any rate, not now,” said Mrs. Walsingham firmly. “I might want them--if I do, I’ll redeem them pretty quick, Mr. Wiertz. If I don’t--well, then, we’ll talk business.”

“I mightn’t have an opening for them then,” remarked Mr. Wiertz. “Just now I have.”

Mrs. Walsingham crackled her bank-notes.

“Diamonds,” she said, “can always make openings for themselves. How much is the interest, Mr. Wiertz?”

Mr. Wiertz fidgeted amongst his papers.

“Supposing I could get you the ten thousand you think they’re worth?” he said. “What do you say to that, Mrs. Walsingham?”

Mrs. Walsingham laughed merrily and shook her head.

“I say that it shows that you believe them to be worth more than ten thousand,” she answered. “No, I’m not going to sell, at present, Mr. Wiertz. Those stones are quite safe in your keeping, and when I want them I’ll find the money to redeem them within an hour. Now, this interest?”

Mr. Wiertz sighed and consulted a book.

“Well you know your own business best,” he observed. “But I wouldn’t pay interest on a loan of a thousand pounds for which I’d lodged security that’s worth, worth----”

“Let’s say ten thousand, Mr. Wiertz,” said Mrs. Walsingham, with another silvery laugh. “I dare say you wouldn’t. But--I will.”

Mr. Wiertz presently let his visitor out by a private door into an alley which communicated with the Strand. And as Mrs. Walsingham tripped out of the alley upon the crowded side-walk, a man who was coming along from the direction of Trafalgar Square caught sight of her, half-paused, looked again, and then slowly turned and followed her. The turning was done in a careless, pointless fashion that would not have attracted attention from any one; for a moment the man paused, to look into a shop-window, as if he had seen something there that aroused curiosity; then he sauntered forward, with Mrs. Walsingham some twenty yards ahead of him. She was wearing a large black feather in her smart hat; the man made a mental note of it in case he should lose her for a moment. But he was a tall, long-limbed fellow, who could take one lounging step to her three quick ones, and it was an easy task to keep his quarry in sight.

Mrs. Walsingham pursued a steady course along King William Street and Green Street into Leicester Square, and eventually plunged into Soho, and disappeared in a certain café, past which the pursuer lazily strolled with inspecting eyes. He sized the place, its possibilities, and its prices up in one all-seeing glance.

“Well, I guess a dollar will just about cover what I’m likely to lay out in that spot,” he mused, as his slow step slackened to a halt. “And anyway, it’s time I ate, so I’ll turn in and see where she’s got to. For that’s her sure!”

Without more ado he pulled down over his eyes the big slouch hat which surrounded his head like an over-sized halo, and, pushing open the swing doors, entered the restaurant. His first glance at the softly-lighted interior showed him Mrs. Walsingham, who, seated at the table which had come to be regarded as hers by right of long custom, was bending over a menu card, and explaining to her usual waiter that she had been away for the last week or two. And thus engaged, she did not notice the stranger, who slipped past and took a seat a little way off, with his face in the shadow. Secure now of not losing her, he sat back and inspected her at his leisure, Mrs. Walsingham remaining all unconscious that she was being so examined.

“That’s her, sure pop!” said the stranger to himself. “That’s all right. And she looks flourishing enough, too.”

Mrs. Walsingham had made considerable progress with her dinner before she became aware of the man’s presence. She was not given to staring about her, having other and more important matters to attend to, and it was only by accident that she happened to look at the particular corner in which her pursuer had placed himself. There had been but few people in that part of the place; now a noisy group of young foreigners, men and women, came in, hungry and hilarious, and a waiter turned up an additional light. It struck full on the stranger’s face, and Mrs. Walsingham, happening to turn at the sudden glare, looked straight at him as he looked straight at her.

For several seconds the two regarded each other steadily; then Mrs. Walsingham looked down at her plate and calmly went on with her dinner. But the man, stealing a glance at her now and then, knew that she had recognized him; he knew also that she knew that he had recognized her. He waited and watched for a sign. And Mrs. Walsingham gave none. Nor did she show any sign of perturbation, or of alarm, or confusion; she continued to eat and drink as quietly as if nothing had happened, and if her eyes happened to turn in the stranger’s direction, they remained as expressionless as if they rested on a statue.

But the watcher knew very well that Mrs. Walsingham was contemplating something, and that that something related to him, and he continued to watch without seeming to do so. And at last, while she was trifling with her coffee and her _crème de menthe_, he saw her take from her bag a tiny memorandum tablet, on a leaf of which she scribbled a line or two. Then she folded the torn-out leaf into a neat roll, and with a calm stare at the stranger across the room, laid it on the outer edge of the table at which she was sitting. The stranger’s left eyelid flickered imperceptibly. A few moments later he nodded to his waiter, paid his bill, and slowly lounged out. Mrs. Walsingham was engaged in studying the pages of a continental journal as he passed her table--when she looked up again the rolled-up scrap of paper had disappeared. And presently, she, too, paid for her entertainment, and walked out with her usual languid grace.

The stranger walked with swifter steps when he was once clear of the restaurant. He made for the corner of the street, and there unrolled the note and read what Mrs. Walsingham had written.

“Go into Soho Square, and wait for me at the corner of Greek Street.”

The stranger smiled and tore the bit of paper into fragments as he strode off.

“I knew she’d be curious,” he muttered. “Well, that was a lucky chance.”

There was no verbal greeting between them when she presently joined him. He lifted his hat, and she gave him a sharp nod, and they instinctively turned towards a quiet corner of the square.

“That was sheer luck,” he said. “I was looking for you. I’d looked three days.”

“And why?” she asked.

“Because I’ve got something to tell you,” he answered. “Maybe you know it. Maybe you don’t. You see, I’ve come straight from there. Well, it’s just this, whether you know it or not. He’s--dead.”

He thought she was going to fall, for she turned white to the lips, and he put out his hand to clutch her. But then he saw her set her lips, and in a second the colour came back, and she turned on him with glittering eyes.

“Prove to me that that’s true--true!” she said in a low, intense voice. “And I’ll--I’ll----”

“What?” he said.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” she answered. “I will!”

The man scratched his chin.

“It’s true enough,” he answered, with a short laugh. “He was shot dead in a scrap at Carville--that’s in Nevada--six weeks ago. I was there--I saw it. Prove it? Well, I suppose you’d take a letter or a cable from, say, the sheriff, as proof! He was going under his own name. It’s quite true. Of course, I didn’t know where you were, and there was no one else to let you know.”

“Give me that sheriff’s name,” she said. “Here--write it down--the address, too.”

The man scribbled a line or two in the notebook she held out to him. She glanced at it and thrust it into her bag.

“Meet me here at this time to-morrow,” she said. “And--here, I dare say you’ll find that useful.”

She pushed a bank-note into his hand, and without staying to hear more, turned away and hurried in the direction of Oxford Street and to the nearest post-office. When she came out, ten minutes later, she hailed a taxi-cab and bade the driver go to her flat. At her own door her maid met her and gave her a meaning look.

“Mr. Shrewsbury’s in the drawing-room,” she said. “He’s just come.”