The Sins of Severac Bablon Part 41

Haredale started.

"I don't know," was his reply; "but I can go and see."

He forced his way past the knot of people at the door, ignoring Inspector Sheffield, who sought to detain him. Rapidly he ran through the rooms composing the suite. In one he met Zoe's maid, wringing her hands with extravagant emotion.

"Where is your mistress?"

"She has gone out, m'sieur. I cannot tell where. I do not know."

Haredale's heart gave a leap--and seemed to pause.

He ran to the stairs, not waiting for the overworked lift, and down into the hall.

"Has Miss Oppner gone out?" he demanded of the porter.

"Two minutes ago, sir."

"In her car?"

"No, sir. It was not ready. In a cab."

"Did you hear her directions?"

"No, sir. But the boy will know."

The boy was found.

"Where was Miss Oppner going, boy?" rapped Haredale.

"Eccleston Square, sir," was the prompt reply.

The Marquess of Evershed's. Then his suspicions had not been unfounded.

He saw, in a flash of inspiration, the truth. Zoe Oppner had seen in this disappearance the hand of Severac Bablon--if, indeed, if she did not _know_ it for his work. She was anxious about her father. She wished to appeal to Severac Bablon upon his behalf. And she had gone--not direct to the man--but to Eccleston Square. Why? Clearly because it was Lady Mary, and not herself, who had influence with him.

Hatless, Haredale ran out into the courtyard. Rohscheimer's car was waiting, and he leapt in, his grey eyes feverish. "Lord Evershed's," he called to the man; "Eccleston Square."

CHAPTER XXI

A CORNER IN MILLIONAIRES

At the moment that Julius Rohscheimer's car turned into the Square, a girl, enveloped in a dark opera wrap, but whose fair hair gleamed as she pa.s.sed the open door, came alone, out of Lord Evershed's house, and entering a waiting taxi-cab, was driven away.

"Stop!" ordered Haredale hoa.r.s.ely through the tube.

The big car pulled up as the cab pa.s.sed around on the other side.

"Follow that cab."

With which the pursuit commenced. And Haredale found himself trembling, so violent was the war of emotions that waged within him. His deductions were proving painfully correct. Through Mayfair and St. John's Wood the cab led the way; finally into Finchley Road. Fifty yards behind, Haredale stopped the car as the cab drew up before a gate set in a high wall.

Lady Mary stepped out, opened the gate, and disappeared within. Heedless of the taxi-driver's curious stare, Haredale, a conspicuous figure in evening dress, with no overcoat and no hat, entered almost immediately afterwards.

Striding up to the porch, he was searching for bell or knocker when the door opened silently, and an Arab in spotless white robes saluted him with dignified courtesy.

"Take my card to your master," snapped Haredale, striving to exhibit no surprise, and stepped inside rapidly.

The Arab waved him to a small reception room, furnished with a wealth of curios for which the visitor had no eyes, and retired. As the man withdrew Haredale moved to the door and listened. He admitted to himself that this was the part of a common spy; but his consuming jealousy would brook no restraint.

From somewhere farther along the hall he heard, though indistinctly, a familiar voice.

Without stopping to reflect he made for a draped door, knocked peremptorily, and entered.

He found himself in a small apartment, whose form and appointments, even to his perturbed mind, conveyed a vague surprise. It was, to all intents and purposes, a cell, with stone-paved floor and plaster walls. An antique lamp, wherein rested what appeared to be a small ball of light, unlike any illuminant he had seen, stood upon a ma.s.sive table, which was littered with papers. Excepting a chair of peculiar design and a magnificently worked Oriental curtain which veiled either a second door or a recess in the wall, the place otherwise was unfurnished.

Before this curtain, and facing him, pale but composed, stood Lady Mary Evershed, a sweet picture in a bizarre setting.

"Has your friend run away, then?" said Haredale roughly.

The girl did not reply, but looked fully at him with something of scorn and much of reproach in her eyes.

"I know whose house this is," continued Haredale violently, "and why you have come. What is he to you? Why do you know him--visit him--s.h.i.+eld him? Oh! my G.o.d! it only wanted this to complete my misery. I have, now, not one single happy memory to take away with me."

His voice shook upon those last words.

"Mary," he said sadly, and all his rage was turned to pleading--"what does it mean? Tell me. I _know_ there is some simple explanation----"

"You shall hear it, Sir Richard," interrupted a softly musical voice.

He turned as though an adder had bitten him; the blase composure which is the pride of every British officer had melted in the rays of those blue eyes that for years had been the stars of his wors.h.i.+p. It was a very human young man, badly shaken and badly conscious of his display of weakness, who faced the tall figure in the tightly b.u.t.toned frock-coat that now stood in the open doorway.

The man who had interrupted him was one to arrest attention anywhere and in any company. With figure and face cast in a severely cla.s.sic mould, his intense, concentrated gaze conveyed to Haredale a throbbing sense of _force_, in an uncanny degree.

"Severac Bablon!" flashed through his mind.

"Himself, Sir Richard."

Haredale, who had not spoken, met the weird, fixed look, but with a consciousness of physical loss--an indefinable sensation, probably mental, of being drawn out of himself. No words came to help him.

"You have acted to-night," continued Severac Bablon, and Haredale, knowing himself in the presence of the most notorious criminal in Europe, yet listened pa.s.sively, as a schoolboy to the admonition of his Head, "you have acted to-night unworthily. I had noted you, Sir Richard, as a man whose friends.h.i.+p I had hoped to gain. Knowing your trials, and"--glancing at the girl's pale face--"with what object you suffered them, I had respected you, whilst desiring an opportunity to point out to you the falsity of your position. I had thought that a man who could win such a prize as has fallen to your lot must, essentially, be above all that was petty--all that was mean."

Haredale clenched his hands angrily. Never since his Eton days had such words been addressed to him. He glared at the over-presumptuous mountebank--for so he appraised him; he told himself that, save for a woman's presence, he would have knocked him down. He met the calm but imperious gaze--and did nothing, said nothing.

"A woman may be judged," continued the fascinating voice, "not by her capacity for love, but by her capacity for that rarer thing, friends.h.i.+p.

A woman who, at her great personal peril, can befriend another woman is a pearl beyond price. Knowing me, you have ceased to fear me as a rival, Sir Richard." (To his mental amazement something that was not of his mind, it seemed, told Haredale that this was so.) "It remains only for you to hear that simple explanation. Here it is."