so, I am at least a buffoon of parts,” was the prompt rejoinder. “I will, if you choose, prove myself.”
There was a moment’s silence. Wilmore was leaning forward in his place, studying the newcomer earnestly. An impatient invective was somehow stifled upon Francis’ lips.
“Within a few yards of this place, sometime before the closing hour to-night,” the intruder continued, earnestly yet with a curious absence of any human quality in his hard tone, “there will be a disturbance, and probably what you would call a crime will be committed. Will you use your vaunted gifts to hunt down the desperate criminal, and, in your own picturesque phraseology, set your heel upon his neck? Success may bring you fame, and the trail may lead—well, who knows where?”
Afterwards, both Francis and Andrew Wilmore marvelled at themselves, unable at any time to find any reasonable explanation of their conduct, for they answered this man neither with ridicule, rudeness nor civility. They simply stared at him, impressed with the convincing arrogance of his challenge and unable to find words of reply. They received his mocking farewell without any form of reciprocation or sign of resentment. They watched him leave the room, a dignified, distinguished figure, sped on his way with marks of the deepest respect by waiters, maitres d’hotels and even the manager himself. They behaved, indeed, as they both admitted afterwards, like a couple of moonstruck idiots. When he had finally disappeared, however, they looked at one another and the spell was broken.
“Well, I’m damned!” Francis exclaimed. “Soto, come here at once.”
The manager hastened smilingly to their table.
“Soto,” Francis invoked, “tell us quickly—tell us the name of the gentleman who has just gone out, and who he is?”
Soto was amazed.
“You don’t know Sir Timothy Brast, sir?” he exclaimed. “Why, he is supposed to be one of the richest men in the world! He spends money like water. They say that when he is in England, his place down the river alone costs a thousand pounds a week. When he gives a party here, we can find nothing good enough. He is our most generous client.”
“Sir Timothy Brast,” Wilmore repeated. “Yes, I have heard of him.”
“Why, everybody knows Sir Timothy,” Soto went on eloquently. “He is the greatest living patron of boxing. He found the money for the last international fight.”
“Does he often come in alone like this?” Francis asked curiously.
“Either alone,” Soto replied, “or with a very large party. He entertains magnificently.”
“I’ve seen his name in the paper in connection with something or other, during the last few weeks,” Wilmore remarked reflectively.
“Probably about two months ago, sir,” Soto suggested. “He gave a donation of ten thousand pounds to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and they made him a Vice President…. In one moment, sir.”
The manager hurried away to receive a newly-arrived guest. Francis and his friend exchanged a wondering glance.
“Father of Oliver Hilditch’s wife,” Wilmore observed, “the most munificent patron of boxing in the world, Vice President of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and self-confessed arch-criminal! He pulled our legs pretty well!”
“I suppose so,” Francis assented absently.
Wilmore glanced at his watch.
“What about moving on somewhere?” he suggested. “We might go into the Alhambra for half-an-hour, if you like. The last act of the show is the best.”
Francis shook his head.
“We’ve got to see this thing out,” he replied. “Have you forgotten that our friend promised us a sensation before we left?”
Wilmore began to laugh a little derisively. Then, suddenly aware of some lack of sympathy between himself and his friend, he broke off and glanced curiously at the latter.
“You’re not taking him seriously, are you?” he enquired.
Francis nodded.
“Certainly I am,” he confessed.
“You don’t believe that he was getting at us?”
“Not for a moment.”
“You believe that something is going to happen here in this place, or quite close?”
“I am convinced of it,” was the calm reply.
Wilmore was silent. For a moment he was troubled with his old fears as to his friend’s condition. A glance, however, at Francis’ set face and equable, watchful air, reassured him.
“We must see the thing through, of course, then,” he assented. “Let us see if we can spot the actors in the coming drama.”
CHAPTER IX
It happened that the two men, waiting in the vestibule of the restaurant for Francis’ car to crawl up to the entrance through the fog which had unexpectedly rolled up, heard the slight altercation which was afterwards referred to as preceding the tragedy. The two young people concerned were standing only a few feet away, the girl pretty, a little peevish, an ordinary type; her companion, whose boyish features were marred with dissipation, a very passable example of the young man about town going a little beyond his tether.
“It’s no good standing here, Victor!” the girl exclaimed, frowning. “The commissionaire’s been gone ages already, and there are two others before us for taxis.”
“We can’t walk,” her escort replied gloomily. “It’s a foul night. Nothing to do but wait, what? Let’s go back and have another drink.”
The girl stamped her satin-shod foot impatiently.
“Don’t be silly,” she expostulated. “You know I promised Clara we’d be there early.”
“All very well,” the young man grumbled, “but what can we do? We shall have to wait our turn.”
“Why can’t you slip out and look for a taxi yourself?” she suggested. “Do, Victor,” she added, squeezing his arm. “You’re so clever at picking them up.”
He made a little grimace, but lit a cigarette and turned up his coat collar.
“I’ll do my best,” he promised. “Don’t go on without me.”
“Try up towards Charing Cross Road, not the other way,” she advised earnestly.
“Right-oh!” he replied, which illuminative form of assent, a word spoken as he plunged unwillingly into the thick obscurity on the other side of the revolving doors, was probably the last he ever uttered on earth.
Left alone, the girl began to shiver, as though suddenly cold. She turned around and glanced hurriedly back into the restaurant. At that moment she met the steady, questioning scrutiny of Francis’ eyes. She stood as though transfixed. Then came the sound which every one talked of for months afterwards, the sound which no one who heard it ever forgot—the death cry of Victor Bidlake, followed a second afterwards by a muffled report. A strain of frenzied surprise seemed mingled with the horror. Afterwards, silence.
There was the sound of some commotion outside, the sound of hurried footsteps and agitated voices. Then a terrible little procession appeared. Something—it seemed to be a shapeless heap of clothes—was carried in and laid upon the floor, in the little space between the revolving doors and the inner entrance. Two blue-liveried attendants kept back the horrified but curious crowd. Francis, vaguely recognised as being somehow or other connected with the law, was one of the few people allowed to remain whilst a doctor, fetched out from