The Second Latchkey Part 2

"When you took pity on a nameless man. But it seems indicated that he should be Mr. Smith, unless you have any objection!"

"No, I have none. You'd better take the name, as I mentioned it to the waiter."

"And the first name?"

"I don't know. The initial I gave was N."

"Very well, I choose Nelson. Where do we live?"

Annesley stared, frightened.

"Forgive me," the man said. "I ought to have explained what I meant before asking you that, or put the question another way. Will you go on as you've begun, and trust me farther, by letting me drive with you to your home, if necessary, in case of being followed? At worst, I'll need to beg no more than to stand inside your front door for a few minutes if we're watched, and--but I see that this time I have pa.s.sed the limit. I'm expecting too much! How do you know but I may be a thief or a murderer?"

"I hadn't thought of such a thing," Annesley stammered. "I was only thinking--it isn't _my_ house. It doesn't even belong to my people. I live with an old lady, Mrs. Ellsworth. I hope she'll be in bed when I get back, and the servants, too. I have a key because--because I told a fib about the place where I was going, and consequently Mrs. Ellsworth approved. If she hadn't approved, I shouldn't have been allowed out. I could let you stand inside the door. But if any one followed us to the house, and saw the number, he could look in the directory, and find out that it belonged to Mrs. Ellsworth, not Mr. Smith."

"He couldn't have a directory in his pocket! By the time he got hold of one and could make any use of his knowledge, I'd be far away."

"Yes, I suppose you would," Annesley thought aloud, and a little voice seemed to add sharply in her ear: "Far away out of my life."

This brought to her memory what she had in her excitement forgotten: the adventure she had come out to meet had faded into thin air! The unexpected one which had so startlingly taken its place would end to-night, and she would be left to the dreary existence from which she had tried to break free.

She was like a pebble that had succeeded in riding out to sea on a wave, only to be washed back into its old place on the sh.o.r.e. The thought that, after all, she had no change to look forward to, gave the girl a pa.s.sionate desire to make the most of this one living hour among many that were born dead.

"Mrs. Ellsworth's house," she said, "is 22-A, Torrington Square."

"Thank you." Only these two words he spoke, but the eager dark eyes seemed to add praise and blessings for her confidence.

"My name is Annesley Grayle," she volunteered, as if to prove to the man and to herself how far she trusted him; also perhaps as a bid for his name in payment of that trust. So at least he must have understood, for he said: "If I don't tell you mine, it's for your own protection. I'm not ashamed of it; but it's better that you shouldn't know--that if you heard it suddenly, it should be strange to you, just like any other name. Don't you see I'm right?"

"I dare say you are."

"Then we'll leave it at that. But we can't go on pretending to study this menu for ever! You came to dine with Mr. Smith. You'll dine with his understudy instead. You'll let me order dinner? It's part of the programme."

"Very well," Annesley agreed.

The man nodded to the head-waiter, who had been interested in the little drama indirectly stage-managed by him. Instead of sending a subordinate, he came himself to take the order. With wonderful promptness, considering that Mr. Smith's thoughts had not been near the menu under his eyes, several dishes were chosen and a wine selected.

"Madame is glad now that I persuaded her not to go?" the waiter could not resist, and Annesley replied that she was glad. As the man turned away, "Mr. Smith" raised his eyebrows with rather a wistful smile.

"I'm afraid you're sorry, really," he said. "If I'd come a minute later than I did, you'd have been safe and happy at home by this time."

"Not happy," amended the girl. "Because it isn't home. If it were, I shouldn't have told fibs to Mrs. Ellsworth to-night."

"That sounds interesting," remarked her companion.

"It's _not_ interesting!" she a.s.sured him. "Nothing in my life is. I don't want to bore you by talking about my affairs, but if you think we may be--interrupted, perhaps, I'd better explain one or two things while there's time. I wanted to come here this evening to keep an engagement I'd made, but it's difficult for me to get out alone. Mrs. Ellsworth doesn't like to be left, and she never lets me go anywhere without her except to the house of some friends of mine, the only real friends I have. It's odd, but _their_ name is Smith, and that saved my telling a direct lie. Not that a half-lie isn't worse, it's so cowardly!

"Mrs. Ellsworth likes me to go to Archdeacon and Mrs. Smith's because--I'm afraid because she thinks they're 'swells.' Mrs. Smith has a duke for an uncle! Mrs. Ellsworth said 'yes' at once, when I asked, and gave me her key and permission to stop out till half-past ten, though everyone in the house is supposed to be in bed by ten. She's almost sure to be in bed herself, but if she gets interested in one of the books I brought from the library to-day, it's possible she may be sitting up to read, and to ask about my evening.

"Our bedrooms are on the ground floor at the back of an addition to the house. What if she should hear the latchkey (it's old fas.h.i.+oned and hard to work), and what if she should come to the swing door at the end of the corridor where she'd see you with me? What would you say or do?"

"H'm! It would be awkward. But--isn't there a _young_ Smith in your Archdeacon's family?"

"There is one, but I haven't seen him since I was a little girl. He's a sailor. He's away now on an Arctic expedition."

"Then it wasn't _that_ Mr. Smith you came to meet at the Savoy?"

"No. They're not related." As Annesley returned in thought to the Mr.

Smith who had thrown her over, she took from her bodice the white rose which was to have identified her for him, and found it a place in the vase with the other white roses. She had a special reason for doing this.

The real Mr. Smith, if by any chance he appeared now, would be a complication. Without the rose he could not claim her acquaintance.

"Why do you do that?" her companion broke the thread of his questioning to ask.

The girl was tempted to tell some easy fib that the rose was faded, or too fragrant; but somehow she could not. They both seemed so close to the deep-down things of life at this moment that to speak the truth was the one possible thing.

"I arranged to wear a white rose for Mr. Smith to recognize me. We--have never seen each other," she confessed.

"Yet you say there's nothing interesting in your life!"

"It's true! _This_ thing was--was dreadful. It could happen only to a girl whose life was not interesting."

"Now I understand why you put away the rose--for my sake, in case Mr. Smith should turn up, after all. Will you give it to me? I won't flaunt it in my b.u.t.tonhole. I'll hide it sacredly, in memory of this evening--and of you. Not that I shall need to be reminded of anything which concerns this night--you especially, and your generosity, your courage. But it may be that the men I spoke of won't find me here. If they don't, the worst of your ordeal is over. It will only be to finish dinner, and let me put you into a taxi. To-morrow you can think that you dreamed the wretch who appealed to you, and be glad that you will never see him again."

Annesley selected her white rose from its fellows, dried its stem daintily with her napkin, and gave the flower to "Mr. Smith." Already it looked refreshed, as she herself felt refreshed, after five years of "stuffiness," by these few throbbing moments.

Their hands touched, and through Annesley's darted a little tingle of electricity that flashed up her arm to her heart, where it caught like a hooked wire. She was surprised, almost frightened by the sensation, and ashamed because she didn't find it disagreeable.

"It must be that people who're really _alive_, as he is, give out magnetism," she thought. And the thrill lingered as the man thanked her with eyes and voice.

When he had looked at the rose curiously, as if expecting to learn from it the secret of its wearer, he put the flower away in a letter-case in an inner breast pocket of his coat.

For once Annesley was face to face with romance, and even though she would presently go back to the old round (since the adventure she came out to meet had failed), she was stirred to a wild gladness in this other adventure. The _hors d'oeuvres_ appeared; then soup, and wine, which Mr. Smith begged her to taste.

"Drink luck for me," he insisted. "You and you alone can bring it."

Annesley drank. And the champagne filliped colour to her cheeks.

"Now we'll go on and think out the problem of what may happen at your door--if Fate takes me there," the man said. "Your old friend's sailor son is no use to me. He can't be whisked back from the North Pole to London for my benefit. Perhaps I may be an acquaintance of Archdeacon Smith's, mayn't I, if worst comes to worst? I've been dining there, and brought you back in a taxi. Will that do? If there are fibs to tell, I'll tell them myself and spare you if possible."

"After all I've told to-night, one or two more can't matter," said Annesley. "They won't hurt Mrs. Ellsworth. It's the other danger that's more worrying--the danger from those men. I've thought of something that may help if they follow us to Torrington Square. They may ask a policeman whose house we've gone into, and find out it's Mrs. Ellsworth's, before you can get away. So it will be better not to tell them it's _yours_. You can be visiting. There is a Mr. Smith who comes sometimes from America, where he lives, though he's not American. Even the policemen who have that beat may have heard of him from Mrs. Ellsworth's servants. There's a room kept always ready for him, and called 'Mr. Smith's room.'"

"That does help," said the man. "It's clever and kind of you to rack your brains for me. A Mr. Smith from America! It's easy for me to play that part, I'm from America. Perhaps you've guessed that?"

"But you're very different from Mrs. Ellsworth's Mr. Smith," Annesley warned him, hastily. "He's middle-aged, eccentric, and not good-looking.

He comes to England for his 'nerves' when he has worked too hard and tired himself out. I think he's rich; and once he was robbed in some big hotel, so he likes to stay at a plain sort of house where there's no danger. He has a horror of burglars, and won't even stop at the Archdeacon's since they had a burglary a few years ago. He pays Mrs.

Ellsworth for his room, I believe. A funny arrangement!--it came about through me. But that's not of importance to you."

"It may be. We can't tell. Better let me know as much as possible about these Smiths. There's Mrs. Ellsworth's Smith, and the Smith you came to meet----"