The House of Whispers Part 25

"We were run so close, and so narrowly escaped discovery after I got at those papers at Glencardine, that she seems to have lost heart,"

Flockart remarked.

"But if she acted the fool and told Sir Henry, it would mean ruin for us, and that would also mean----"

"It would mean exposure for Gabrielle," interrupted Flockart. "The old man dare not lift his voice for his daughter's sake."

"Ah," exclaimed Krail, "that's just where you've acted injudiciously!

You've set him against her; therefore he wouldn't spare her."

"It was imperative. I couldn't afford to be found prying into the old man's papers, could I? I got impressions of his key while walking in the park one day. He's never suspected it."

"Of course not. He believes in you," laughed his friend, "as one of the few upright men who are his friends! But," he added, "you've done wrong, my dear fellow, to trust a woman with a secret. Depend upon it, her ladys.h.i.+p will let you down."

"Well, if she does," remarked Flockart, with a shrug of the shoulders, "she'll have to suffer with me. You know where we should all find ourselves."

The man pulled a wry face and puffed at his cigarette in silence.

"What does the girl do?" asked Flockart a few moments later.

"Well, she seems to have a pretty dull time with the old lady. I stayed at the 'Cardigan Arms' at Woodnewton for two days--a miserable little place--and watched her pretty closely. She's out a good deal, rambling alone across the country with a collie belonging to a neighbouring farmer. She's the very picture of sadness, poor little girl!"

"You seem to sympathise with her, Krail. Why, does she not stand between us and fortune?"

"She'll stand between us and a court of a.s.size if that woman acts the fool!" declared the shabby stranger, who moved so rapidly and whose vigilance seemed unequalled.

"If we go, she shall go also," Flockart declared in a threatening voice.

"But you must prevent such a _contretemps_," Krail urged.

"Ah, it's all very well to talk like that! But you know enough of her ladys.h.i.+p to be aware that she acts on her own initiative."

"That shows that she's no fool," remarked the foreigner quickly. "You who hold her in the hollow of your hand must prevent her from opening up to her husband. The whole future lies with you."

"And what is the future without money? We want a few thousands for immediate necessities, both of us. The woman's allowance from her husband is nowadays a mere bagatelle."

"Because he probably knows that some of her money has gone into your pockets, my dear boy."

"No; he's completely in ignorance of that. How, indeed, could he know?

She takes very good care there's no possibility of his finding out."

"Well," remarked the stranger, "that's what I fear has happened, or may one day happen. The fact is, _caro mio_, we are in a quandary at the present moment. You were a bit too confident in dealing with those doc.u.ments you found at Glencardine. You should have taken her ladys.h.i.+p into your confidence and got her to pump her husband concerning them. If you had, we shouldn't have made the mess of it that we have done."

"I must admit, Krail, that what you say is true," declared the well-dressed man. "You are such a philosopher always! I asked you to come here in secret to explain the exact position."

"It is one of peril. We are checkmated. Goslin holds the whole position in his hands, and will keep it."

"Very fortunately for you he doesn't, though we were very near exposure when I went out to Athens and made a fool of myself upon the report furnished by you."

"I believed it to be a genuine one. I had no idea that the old man was so crafty."

"Exactly. And if he displayed such clever ingenuity and forethought in laying a trap for the inquisitive, is it not more than likely that there may be other traps baited with equal craft and cunning?"

"Then how are we to make the _coup_?" Flockart asked, looking into the colourless eyes of his friend.

"We shall, I fear, never make it, unless----"

"Unless what?" he asked.

"Unless the old man meets with an accident," replied the other, in a low, distinct voice. "_Blind men sometimes do, you know!_"

CHAPTER XXIII

WHICH SHOWS A SHABBY FOREIGNER

Felix Krail, his cigarette held half-way to his lips, stood watching the effect of his insinuation. He saw a faint smile playing about Flockart's lips, and knew that it appealed to him. Old Sir Henry Heyburn had laid a clever trap for him, a trap into which he himself believed that his daughter had fallen. Why should not Flockart retaliate?

The shabby stranger, whose own ingenuity and double-dealing were little short of marvellous, and under whose watchful vigilance the Heyburn household had been ever since her ladys.h.i.+p and her friend Flockart had gone south, stood silent, but in complete satisfaction.

The well-dressed Riviera-lounger--the man so well known at all the various gay resorts from Ventimiglia along to Cannes, and who was a member of the Fetes Committee at San Remo and at Nice--merely exchanged glances with his friend and smiled. Quickly, however, he changed the topic of conversation. "And what's occurring in Paris?"

"Ah, there we have the puzzle!" replied the man Krail, his accent being an unfamiliar one--so unfamiliar, indeed, that those unacquainted with the truth were always placed in doubt regarding his true nationality.

"But you've made inquiry?" asked his friend quickly.

"Of course; but the business is kept far too close. Every precaution is taken to prevent anything leaking out," Krail responded.

"The clerks will speak, won't they?" the other said.

"_Mon cher ami_, they know no more of the business of the mysterious firm of which the blind Baronet is the head than we do ourselves," said Krail.

"They make enormous financial deals, that's very certain."

"Not deals--but _coups_ for themselves," he laughed, correcting Flockart. "Recollect what I discovered in Athens, and the extraordinary connection you found in Brussels."

"Ah, yes. You mean that clever crowd--four men and two women who were working the gambling concession from the Dutch Government!" exclaimed Flockart. "Yes, that was a complete mystery. They sent wires in cipher to Sir Henry at Glencardine. I managed to get a glance at one of them, and it was signed 'Metaforos.'"

"That's their Paris cable address," said his companion.

"Surely you, with your network of sources of information, and your own genius for discovering secrets, ought to be able to reveal the true nature of Sir Henry's business. Is it an honest one?" asked Flockart.

"I think not."

"Think! Why, my dear Felix, this isn't like you only to think; you always _know_. You're so certain of your facts that I've always banked upon them."

The other gave his shoulders a shrug of indecision. "It was not a judicious move on your part to get rid of the girl from Glencardine," he said slowly. "While she was there we had a chance of getting at some clue. But now old Goslin has taken her place we may just as well abandon investigation at that end."

"You've failed, Krail, and attribute your failure to me," protested his companion. "How could I risk being ignominiously kicked out of Glencardine as a spy?"