But I failed to elicit much by the cross-examination to which I subjected my man. For one thing, neither of us understood half that the other said.
I told him I knew his “gracious lady;” and he grovelled on the floor, clawing at my shoes with his skinny hands.
I asked him who he was and where he came from, but could make nothing of his replies. He seemed in mortal fear of some “Selinski”—or a name that sounded like that; and I did discover one point, that by Selinski he meant Cassavetti. When he found he had given that much away, he was so scared that I thought he was going to collapse again, as he did on the staircase.
And yet he had been entrusted with a pass-key to Cassavetti’s rooms!
Only two items seemed perfectly clear. That his “gracious lady” was in danger,—I put that question to him time after time, and his answer never varied,—and that he had come to warn her, to save her if possible.
I could not ascertain the nature of the danger. When I asked him he simply shook his head, and appeared more scared than ever; but I gathered that he would be able to tell “the gracious lady,” and that she would understand, if he could only have speech with her. But when I pressed him on this idea of danger he did a curious thing. He picked up Cassavetti’s key, flattened the bit of red stuff on the palm of his hand, and held it towards me, pointing at it as if to indicate that here was the clue that he dare not give in words.
I looked at the thing with interest. A tawdry artificial flower, with five petals, and in a flash I understood that the hieroglyphic on the portrait represented the same thing,—a red geranium. But what did they mean, anyhow, and what connection was there between them? I could not imagine.
Finally I made him understand—or I thought I did—that he must come to me next day, in the morning; and meanwhile I would try and arrange that he should meet his “gracious lady.”
He grovelled again, and shuffled off, turning at every few steps to make a genuflection.
I half expected him to go up the stairs to Cassavetti’s rooms, but he did not. He went down. I followed two minutes later, but saw nothing of him, either on the staircase or the street. He had vanished as suddenly and mysteriously as he had appeared.
I whistled for a hansom, and, as the cab turned up Whitehall, Big Ben chimed a quarter to eight.
CHAPTER II
THE SAVAGE CLUB DINNER
Dinner was served by the time I reached the Cecil, and, as I entered the salon, and made my way towards the table where our seats were, I saw that my fears were realized. Anne was angry, and would not lightly forgive me for what she evidently considered an all but unpardonable breach of good manners.
I know Mary had arranged that Anne and I should sit together, but now the chair reserved for me was on Mary’s left. Her husband sat at her right, and next him was Anne, deep in conversation with her further neighbor, who, as I recognized with a queer feeling of apprehension, was none other than Cassavetti himself!
Mary greeted me with a comical expression of dismay on her pretty little face.
“I’m sorry, Maurice,” she whispered. “Anne would sit there. She’s very angry. Where have you been, and why didn’t you telephone? We gave you ten minutes’ grace, and then came on, all together. It wasn’t what you might call lively, for Jim had to sit bodkin between us, and Anne never spoke a word the whole way!”
Jim said nothing, but looked up from his soup and favored me with a grin and a wink. He evidently imagined the situation to be funny. I did not.
“I’ll explain later, Mary,” I said, and moved to the back of Anne’s chair.
“Will you forgive me, Miss Pendennis?” I said humbly. “I was detained at the last moment by an accident. I rang you up, but failed to get an answer.”
She turned her head and looked up at me, with a charming smile, in which I thought I detected a trace of contrition for her hasty condemnation of me.
“An accident? You are hurt?” she asked impulsively.
“No, it happened to some one else; and it concerns you, Cassavetti,” I continued, addressing him, for, as I confessed that I was unhurt, Anne’s momentary flash of compunction passed, and her perverse mood reasserted itself. With a slight shrug of her white shoulders she resumed her dinner, and though she must have heard what I told Cassavetti, she betrayed no sign of interest.
In as few words as possible I related the circumstances, suppressing only any mention of the discovery of Anne’s portrait in the alien’s possession, and our subsequent interview in my rooms. I remembered the man’s terror of Cassavetti—or Selinski—as he had called him, and his evident conviction that he was in some way connected with the danger that threatened “the gracious lady,” who, alas, seemed determined to be anything but gracious to me on this unlucky evening.
Cassavetti listened impassively. I watched his dark face intently, but could learn nothing from it, not even whether he had expected the man, or recognized him from my description.
“Without doubt one of my old pensioners,” he said unconcernedly. “Strange that I should have missed him, for I was in my rooms before seven, and only left them to come on here. Accept my regrets, my friend, for the trouble he occasioned you, and my thanks for your kindness to him.”
The words and the tone were courteous enough, and yet they roused in me a sudden fierce feeling of antagonism against this man, whom I had hitherto regarded as an interesting and pleasant acquaintance. For one thing, I saw that Anne had been listening to the brief colloquy, and had grasped the full significance of his remark as to the time when he returned to his rooms. The small head, with its gleaming crown of chestnut hair, was elevated with a proud little movement, palpable enough to my jealous and troubled eyes. I could not see her face, but I knew well that her eyes flashed stormy lightnings at that moment. Wonderful hazel eyes they were, changing with every mood, now dark and sombre as a starless night, now light and limpid as a Highland burn, laughing in the sunshine.
She imagined that the excuse I had made was invalid; for if, as Cassavetti inferred, his—and my—mysterious visitor had been off the premises before seven o’clock, I ought still to have been able to keep my appointment with her. Well, I would have to undeceive her later!
“Don’t look so solemn, Maurice,” Mary said, as I seated myself beside her. “Tell me all about everything, right now.”
I repeated what I had already told Cassavetti.
“Well, I call that real interesting!” she declared. “If you’d left that poor old creature on the stairs, you’d never have forgiven yourself, Maurice. It sounds like a piece out of a story, doesn’t it, Jim?”
“You’re right, my dear! A fairy story,” chuckled Jim, facetiously. “You think so, anyhow, eh, Anne?”
Thus directly appealed to, she had to turn to him, and I heard him explaining his question, which she affected not to understand; heard also her answer, given with icy sweetness, and without even a glance in my direction.
“Oh, no, I am sure Mr. Wynn is not capable of inventing such an excuse.”
Thereupon she resumed her conversation with Cassavetti. They were speaking in French, and appeared to be getting on astonishingly well together.
That dinner seemed interminable, though I dare say every other person in the room except