“I want a private room,” he informed the proprietor, who came to meet him with a bow.
“I’m ver’ sorry, Mr. Smith, but I have not—”
“But you have three,” said T.B. indignantly.
“I offer a thousand regrets,” said the distressed restaurateur; “they are engaged. If you had only—”
“But, name of dog! name of a sacred pipe!” expostulated T.B. unscrupulously. Was it not possible to pretend that there had been a mistake; that one room had already been engaged?
“Impossible, m’sieur! In No.1 we have no less a person than the Premier of Southwest Australia, who is being dined by his fellow-colonists; in No.2 a family party of Lord Redlands; in No.3 — ah! in No. 3—”
“Ah, in No. 3!” repeated T.B. cunningly, and the proprietor dropped his voice to a whisper.
“‘La Belle Espagnole’!” he murmured. He named the great Spanish dancer with relish.
“She, and her fiancé’s friend, eh?”
“Her fiancé? I didn’t know—”
“It is a secret—” He looked round as if he were fearful of eavesdroppers. “But it is said that ‘La Belle Espagnole’ is to be married to a rich admirer.”
“Name?” asked T.B. carelessly.
The proprietor shrugged his shoulders.
“I do not enquire the name of my patrons,” he said, “but I understand that it is to be the young Lord Carleby.”
The name told T.B. nothing.
“Well,” he said easily, “I will take a table in the restaurant. I do not wish to interrupt a tête-à-tête.”
“Oh, it is not Carleby tonight,” the proprietor hastened to assure him. “I think mamzelle would prefer that it was — no; it is a stranger.”
T.B. sauntered into the brilliantly lighted room, having handed his hat and coat to a waiter. He found a deserted table. Luck was with him to an extraordinary extent; that Sir George should have chosen Meggioli’s was the greatest good fortune of all.
At that time Count Menshikoff was paying one of his visits to England. The master of the St. Petersburg secret police was a responsibility. For his protection it was necessary that a small army of men should be detailed, and since Meggioli’s was the restaurant he favoured, at least one man of the Criminal Investigation Department was permanently employed at that establishment.
T.B. called a waiter, and the man came swiftly. He had a large white face, big unwinking black eyes, and heavy bushy eyebrows, that stamped his face as one out of the common. His name — which is unimportant — was Vellair, and foreign notabilities his specialty.
“Soup — consommé, crème de—”
T.B., studying his menu, asked quietly, “Is it possible to see and hear what is going on in No. 3?”
“The private room?”
“Yes.”
The waiter adjusted the table with a soft professional touch. “There is a small anteroom, and a ventilator, a table that might be pushed against the wall and a chair,” said the waiter concisely. “If you remain here I will make sure.”
He scribbled a mythical order on his little pad and disappeared.
He came back in five minutes with a small tureen of soup. As he emptied its contents into the plate before T.B. he said, “All right; the key is on the inside. — The door is numbered 11.” T.B. picked up the wine list.
“Cover me when I leave,” he said.
He had finished his soup when the waiter brought him a note. He broke open the envelope and read the contents with an expression of annoyance.
“I shall be back in a few minutes,” he said, rising; “ — reserve this table.”
The waiter bowed.
15. The Dancing Girl
T.B. Reached the second floor. The corridor was deserted; he walked quickly to No. 11. The door yielded to his push. He closed it behind him and noiselessly locked it. He took a tiny electric lamp from his pocket and threw the light cautiously round.
He found the table and chair placed ready for him, and blessed Vellair silently.
The ventilator was a small one; he had located it easily enough when he had entered the room by the gleam of light that came through it. Very carefully he mounted the table, stepped lightly into the chair, and looked down into the next chamber. It was an ordinary kind of private diningroom. The only light came from two shaded electric lamps on the table in the centre.
Sir George, with a frown, was regarding his beautiful vis-à-vis. That she was lovely beyond ordinary loveliness T.B. knew from repute. He had expected the high colourings, the blacks and scarlets of the Andalusian; but this girl had the creamy complexion of the wellbred Spaniard, with eyes that might have been hazel or violet in the uncertain light, but which were decidedly not black. Her lips, now tightly compressed, were neither too full nor too thin; her nose straight; her hair, brushed back from her forehead in an unfamiliar style, was that exact tint between bronze and brown that your connoisseur so greatly values.
A plain filet of dull gold about her head and the broad collar of pearls around her neck were the only jewels she displayed. Her dress was black, unrelieved by any touch of colour. She was talking rapidly in French, a language with which T.B. was very well conversant.
“ — but, Sir George,” she pleaded, “it would be horrible, wicked, cruel not to see him again!”
“It would be worse if you saw him,” said the other drily. “You know, my dear Miss Dominguez, you would both be miserable in a month. The title would be no compensation for you; Carleby would bore you; Carleby House would drive you mad; Carleby’s relatives would incite you to murder.”
“You are one!” she blazed.
“Exactly; and do I not exasperate you? Think of me magnified by a hundred. Come, come, there are better men than Carleby in the world, and you are young, you are little more than a child.”
“But I love him,” she sobbed.
“I suppose you do.” T.B., from his hiding-place, bestowed an admiring grin upon the patronage in the baronet’s tone. “When did you meet him first?”
“Three weeks ago.” She spoke with a catch in her voice that affected T.B. strangely.
“That girl is acting,” he thought. “But why?”
“Three weeks?” mused the banker. “Um — when did you discover he was a relative of mine?”
“A few days since,” she said eagerly. “I was in Cornwall, visiting some friends—”
“Cornwall!” T.B. had hard work to suppress an exclamation.
“ — and I learnt from them that you were related. I did not know of any other relation. My friends told me it would be wicked to marry without the knowledge of his people. ‘Go to Sir George Calliper and explain,’ they said; ‘he will help you’; instead of which—”
The banker smiled again.
“Instead of which I pointed out how impossible it was, eh? and persuaded you to give up all idea of marrying Carleby. Yes, I suppose you think I am a heartless brute.” She sat with bent head.
“You will give him my message?” she asked suddenly.