Chapter XII: Mr. Carsdale’s Chambers

Mrs. Walsingham read her cablegram three times over; then she turned to her maid, whom she had bidden to wait, and who stood a little way off, watching her mistress with speculative eyes.

“Sophie,” she said quietly, “ring up the Electherium Club, and ask if Mr. Carsdale is in the house. If he is, tell them to ask him to come to the telephone.”

She sat waiting, folding and refolding the sheet of flimsy paper, until the maid came back.

“Mr. Carsdale’s waiting,” she announced briefly.

“Then get ready to go out with me,” said Mrs. Walsingham. “As soon as you’re ready run down and tell the porter to call a taxi. I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”

The maid disappeared, and her mistress went into the small lobby in which the telephone was installed.

“Is that you?” she asked.

“This is me,” answered Mr. Carsdale, carelessly. “It is near bedtime.”

“I want to see you--I must see you to-night.”

“You mean this morning. Very well--shall I come round?”

“No--I’ll come to you. I’m coming now. Will you go straight home?”

“If it is really important. Is it?”

“It is. Go home at once.”

“All right,” said Mr. Carsdale. “Twenty minutes, then.”

Mrs. Walsingham hung up the receiver and passed into her bedroom. She fastened a mantilla-like veil about her head, got herself into a cloak that covered her smart gown, and, still holding the cablegram tightly in her hand, went downstairs. A taxi-cab stood at the door of the flats, and Sophie Guyner, hatted and cloaked, waited by it.

“I’ve told the man where to go,” she said.

Mrs. Walsingham made no remark. She got into the cab, and the maid followed her. The mistress preserved silence all the way to Jermyn Street, where Mr. Carsdale kept his bachelor state; the maid amused herself by looking out on the still busy streets. And as they pulled up near the back of St. James’s Church, another taxi-cab came from the opposite direction and stopped to allow Carsdale to alight from it. The three met on the pavement.

“Hullo!” said Carsdale. “We arrive together. Come along.”

He led the way into an adjacent house and up the stairs into his rooms. In what was obviously his dining and breakfast-room, he pointed the maid to an easy chair and to the evening newspapers which lay on a table at its side, and going to the sideboard, he poured out a glass of wine, and picked up a biscuit-box.

“There, Sophie, you can amuse yourself with a drink and a biscuit, while your mistress and I talk business,” he said good-humouredly. “Come this way, Mrs. Walsingham.”

He opened a door and led his visitor through one room into another--a small apartment evidently used as an office--and turned up the electric light.

“May as well have as much space as possible between ourselves and Sophie’s sharp ears,” he said. “Now, what is it, Sylvie? Something, of course, of the deepest dye, at this hour of the night. Hullo!--you look a bit white and upset. Have a whiskey-and-soda?”

“No!” she said. “Sit down, Jack. There’s a lot to say. I wanted to tell you to-night. Besides, I know you never go to bed before two. Listen--I went to Bigiano’s this evening to dinner--alone.”

“Well?” said Mr. Carsdale.

“And whom do you think I suddenly caught sight of?”

“Heaven knows!”

“Sandy Kinahan.”

Mr. Carsdale’s eyebrows arched themselves almost to the roots of his hair, and his mouth opened.

“Good Lord!” he exclaimed. “Back again!”

“Yes. He was dining at a table nearly opposite mine,” continued Mrs. Walsingham. “Now I come to think of it, I expect he’d seen me and followed me. I recognized him at once, but I didn’t show any sign of it, and he didn’t show anything, either. Then I pencilled a line telling him to meet me in Soho Square, and he picked it off my table as he passed. And when we met, he told me straight out that--that--that he’s dead!”

“He! Dead?” exclaimed Carsdale. “Dead?”

“Dead! Shot in a fight, a brawl, at a place called Carville, in Nevada.”

Carsdale stood staring at her for a full minute. Then he smote his hands together. “God, Sylvie!--if it’s only true!” he said.

Mrs. Walsingham unclosed her right hand. In the palm, tightly compressed, lay the cablegram. She began to unfold it.

“That’s what I said to--to Sandy. He told me to cable to the sheriff. I did, there and then, and prepaid a reply. Here it is--it came just before I telephoned to you at the Electherium.”

Carsdale took the much-creased paper and read the message twice over. He nodded his head several times.

“That seems right--that seems right--that seems all right!” he said. “Lord, what a blessing--what a blessing, Sylvie! But remember,” he suddenly added, “remember, you must have it verified--verified beyond all possible doubt. Because----”

“Yes?” she said. “Yes, Jack?”

“You’ll marry again,” he concluded. “You’re sure to marry again.”

Mrs. Walsingham looked at the door and lowered her voice, in spite of the fact that there was no possibility of any other person overhearing what she said.

“That’s another matter I wanted to speak to you about at once,” she said. “Jack--the boy’s asked me to marry him.”

Carsdale’s eyebrows again arched themselves.

“Good Lord!” he exclaimed. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” she answered.

“When?”

“To-night,” she said. “I--I hadn’t the least notion that he would. But--he did.”

“Well?” said Carsdale. “And--you?”

“I said I--would. He--he made me say I would,” she answered. “I--I never thought he could be so--well, masterful.”

“It strikes me that young Master Hopeful is finding his feet,” observed Carsdale. He dropped into a chair and surveyed his companion carefully and speculatively. “Well, I don’t know why you shouldn’t marry him, Sylvie,” he said presently; “you’re a clever woman, and you can, if you like, be a very decent woman, and play a straight game, and all that----”

“I will--if I marry him,” she said, a little indignantly.

“That’s all right--I said you could, and that’s as good as saying you would,” said Carsdale. “Um! Well, but this is a serious affair. There’ll be this Walsingham myth to settle up and explain--that can be done, yes, it can be done satisfactorily, I think, quite satisfactorily--but, I’ll tell you what, there’s always the danger of--Kinahan.”

Mrs. Walsingham regarded him anxiously.

“You think he might be dangerous?” she said.

“I think Sandy Kinahan is a man who might be inclined to indulge in blackmailing tactics,” replied Carsdale. “I must think. Now, where is Kinahan to be got hold of?”

“I’m to meet him in Soho Square to-morrow--no, this evening,” said Mrs. Walsingham.

“Well, I must have a talk to him. There’s one blessing about it,” he continued, “I’ve got a bit of a hold on that gentleman--not much, but sufficient. You must induce him to see me--tell him I’m going to do him good. Can you manage that?”

“Leave that to me,” she answered.

“Then you’d better bring him here,” said Carsdale. “I don’t want him going to Norfolk Street. Bring him here this evening--I’ll be in from eight until ten.”

“I’ll bring him here at half-past eight,” she said. “I can manage him. From what I saw, I should say he’s looking out for somebody to do good to him. Now I’ll go.”

She rose and moved towards the door, but seeing that Carsdale was in deep thought, she paused, and stood, waiting. He, too, presently rose, and looked at her as if he was trying to recollect something.

“Yes?” she said. “What is it?”

“I was trying to--recall a few things,” he answered. “Let’s see--Kinahan was the only man--beside myself--who ever knew, wasn’t he?”

“Yes,” she replied. “No one else ever knew anything.”

“Then there’s only Kinahan to settle with,” he said. “That makes it easier. To-morrow night, then. I think the two of us will be able to square him satisfactorily. Come along. I’ll see you safely to your cab.”

In the outer room, Sophie Guyner had dropped asleep. Carsdale, as he entered, looked at her keenly, wondering if she was really dozing or only pretending to doze. He silently indicated her to her mistress; Mrs. Walsingham nodded reassuringly, seeing what was in his mind.

“She’s had a long day,” she said. “Sophie!”

But at that moment a loud knock at the outer door roused the sleeping woman and made Carsdale and Mrs. Walsingham start.

“Now, who’s this?” growled Carsdale. “Some night-bird or other, I suppose, who thinks I’ll give him a drink. Stay there a moment.”

He went out into his lobby, drawing the door of the room after him without shutting. Opening this outer door, he found himself confronted by a policeman in uniform, who drew back on seeing him.

“Yes?” said Carsdale.

“Beg pardon, sir--are these Mr. Carsdale’s rooms?” he said.

Carsdale nodded curtly.

“What is it?” he asked.

“You’re Mr. Carsdale, sir? I’ve come on from Charing Cross Hospital. There’s a man been taken in who’s had a bad accident--motor-bus. They say there’s no chance for him--in fact,” added the policeman, “I was to say he was dying fast. He asked for you--had this address in a pocket-book. And I was to ask you, if you could, to bring a lady name Sylvia, or Sylvie, or some such----”

Carsdale stopped him.

“Come in,” he said. He led the way into the room, where Sophie, now wide awake, was staring at Mrs. Walsingham. And Mrs. Walsingham nodded at Carsdale as he and the policeman entered.

“I heard,” she said. She turned to the policeman. “What is he like--this man?”

“A tall, loose-built man, looks and speaks like an American, but with a bit of Irish accent in him,” answered the policeman. He turned to Carsdale. “You’d best come quick, sir--the doctors said he couldn’t last long. He said you were to get the lady if she was handy--if not, to come yourself. There was something he had to tell.”

“This is the lady,” said Carsdale. “Come along at once.”

“I’ve a taxi-cab outside,” said the policeman.

Carsdale motioned them all outside the room, turned down the light, and followed them. They got half way to the hospital before he spoke. Then he turned to the officer.

“How was it?” he asked. “Do you know?”

“Picked him up,” answered the policeman, laconically. “Stepped straight off the curb into a motor-bus coming down the Haymarket.”

Carsdale nodded and bent over to Mrs. Walsingham.

“It’s Kinahan, of course,” he said. “And I’m wondering what he has to say.”

At the hospital somebody put the two women into a reception-room, and bidding them wait, took Carsdale outside.

“You’re too late,” said an official, coming forward. “The man’s dead. He died soon after the officer went off to you. Is he a relation of yours or of any friend of yours?”

“No,” answered Carsdale, “but I can identify him.”

“This way, then,” said the official.

Ten minutes later Carsdale came back to the waiting-room and took Mrs. Walsingham aside into a quiet corner.

“It was Kinahan,” he whispered. “He’s dead--I’ve seen him. He said nothing here--not a word. And now there isn’t a man living, Sylvie, who knows the secret but me, and you’re--safe!”