idea is secrecy?”
“No doubt. But as I have said, the word was passed round.”
“Did you know either of these other women?”
“No; but they were obviously members of good society.”
“And you drove them?”
“One to St. Pancras, and one to Waterloo,” said Brian, dropping
back somewhat into his coarser style, and permitting a slow grin to
overspread his countenance.
“To catch trains, no doubt?”
“Not a bit of it! To MEET trains!”
“You mean?”
“I mean that their own private cars were waiting for them at the ARRIVAL
platform as I drove 'em up to the DEPARTURE platform, and that they
simply marched through the station and pretended to have arrived by
train!”
Inspector Dunbar took out his notebook and fountain-pen, and began to
tap his teeth with the latter, nodding his head at the same time.
“You are sure of the accuracy of your last statement?” he said, raising
his eyes to the other.
“I followed one of them,” was the reply, “and saw her footman gravely
take charge of the luggage which I had just brought from Victoria; and a
pal of mine followed the other--the Waterloo one, that was.”
Inspector Dunbar scribbled busily. Then:--
“You have done well to make a clean breast of it,” he said. “Take a
straight tip from me. Keep off the drink!”
THE GREAT UNDERSTANDING
It was in the afternoon of this same day--a day so momentous in the
lives of more than one of London's millions--that two travelers might
have been seen to descend from a first-class compartment of the Dover
boat-train at Charing Cross.
They had been the sole occupants of the compartment, and, despite the
wide dissimilarity of character to be read upon their countenances,
seemed to have struck up an acquaintance based upon mutual amiability
and worldly common sense. The traveler first to descend and gallantly to
offer his hand to his companion in order to assist her to the platform,
was the one whom a casual observer would first have noted.
He was a man built largely, but on good lines; a man past his youth, and
somewhat too fleshy; but for all his bulk, there was nothing unwieldy,
and nothing ungraceful in his bearing or carriage. He wore a French
traveling-coat, conceived in a style violently Parisian, and composed of
a wonderful check calculated to have blinded any cutter in Savile Row.
From beneath its gorgeous folds protruded the extremities of severely
creased cashmere trousers, turned up over white spats which nestled
coyly about a pair of glossy black boots. The traveler's hat was of
velour, silver gray and boasting a partridge feather thrust in its
silken band. One glimpse of the outfit must have brought the entire
staff of the Tailor and Cutter to an untimely grave.
But if ever man was born who could carry such a make-up, this
traveler was he. The face was cut on massive lines, on fleshy lines,
clean-shaven, and inclined to pallor. The hirsute blue tinge about
the jaw and lips helped to accentuate the virile strength of the long,
flexible mouth, which could be humorous, which could be sorrowful, which
could be grim. In the dark eyes of the man lay a wealth of experience,
acquired in a lifelong pilgrimage among many peoples, and to many lands.
His dark brows were heavily marked, and his close-cut hair was splashed
with gray.
Let us glance at the lady who accepted his white-gloved hand, and who
sprang alertly onto the platform beside him.
She was a woman bordering on the forties, with a face of masculine
vigor, redeemed and effeminized, by splendid hazel eyes, the kindliest
imaginable. Obviously, the lady was one who had never married, who
despised, or affected to despise, members of the other sex, but who had
never learned to hate them; who had never grown soured, but who found
the world a garden of heedless children--of children who called for
mothering. Her athletic figure was clothed in a “sensible” tweed
traveling dress, and she wore a tweed hat pressed well on to her head,
and brown boots with the flattest heels conceivable. Add to this a
Scotch woolen muffler, and a pair of woolen gloves, and you have a
mental picture of the second traveler--a truly incongruous companion for
the first.
Joining the crowd pouring in the direction of the exit gates, the
two chatted together animatedly, both speaking English, and the man
employing that language with a perfect ease and command of words which
nevertheless failed to disguise his French nationality. He spoke with
an American accent; a phenomenon sometimes observable in one who has
learned his English in Paris.
The irritating formalities which beset the returning traveler--and the
lady distinctly was of the readily irritated type--were smoothed away by
the magic personality of her companion. Porters came at the beck of his
gloved hand; guards, catching his eye, saluted and were completely his
servants; ticket inspectors yielded to him the deference ordinarily
reserved for directors of the line.
Outside the station, then, her luggage having been stacked upon a cab,
the lady parted from her companion with assurances, which were returned,
that she should hope to improve the acquaintance.
The address to which the French gentleman politely requested the
cabman to drive, was that of a sound and old-established hotel in the
neighborhood of the Strand, and at no great distance from the station.
Then, having stood bareheaded until the cab turned out into the traffic
stream of that busy thoroughfare, the first traveler,