“This fellow insulted me and my friend,” he said. “You see, he has paid the penalty. If he misbehaves again, the same thing will happen to him. I am leaving some money here with your barman. I shall be glad for every one to drink with me. Presently, perhaps, you had better send for an ambulance or a doctor.”
A little storm of enthusiastic excitement, evidenced for the most part in expletives of a lurid note, covered the retreat of Sir Timothy and his companion. Out in the street a small crowd was rushing towards the place. A couple of policemen seemed to be trying to make up their minds whether it was a fine night. An inspector hurried up to them.
“What’s doing in ‘The Rising Sun’?” he demanded sharply.
“Some one’s giving Billy the Tanner a hiding,” one of the policemen replied.
“Honest?”
“A fair, ripe, knock-out hiding,” was the emphatic confirmation. “I looked in at the window.”
The inspector grinned.
“I’m glad you had the sense not to interfere,” he remarked.
Sir Timothy and his companion reached the car. The latter took a seat by the chauffeur. Sir Timothy stepped in. It struck him that Lady Cynthia was a little breathless. Her eyes, too, were marvellously bright. Wrapped around her knees was the chauffeur’s coat.
“Wonderful!” she declared. “I haven’t had such a wonderful five minutes since I can remember! You are a dear to have brought me, Sir Timothy.”
“What do you mean?” he demanded.
“Mean?” she laughed, as the car swung around and they glided away. “You didn’t suppose I was going to sit here and watch you depart upon a mysterious errand? I borrowed your chauffeur’s coat and his cap, and slunk down after you. I can assure you I looked the most wonderful female apache you ever saw! And I saw the fight. It was better than any of the prize fights I have ever been to. The real thing is better than the sham, isn’t it?”
Sir Timothy leaned back in his place and remained silent. Soon they passed out of the land of tired people, of stalls decked out with unsavoury provender, of foetid smells and unwholesome-looking houses. They passed through a street of silent warehouses on to the Embankment. A stronger breeze came down between the curving arc of lights.
“You are not sorry that you brought me?” Lady Cynthia asked, suddenly holding out her hand.
Sir Timothy took it in his. For some reason or other, he made no answer at all.
CHAPTER XXVII
The car stopped in front of the great house in Grosvenor Square. Lady Cynthia turned to her companion.
“You must come in, please,” she said. “I insist, if it is only for five minutes.”
Sir Timothy followed her across the hall to a curved recess, where the footman who had admitted them touched a bell, and a small automatic lift came down.
“I am taking you to my own quarters,” she explained. “They are rather cut off but I like them—especially on hot nights.”
They glided up to the extreme top of the house. She opened the gates and led the way into what was practically an attic sitting-room, decorated in black and white. Wide-flung doors opened onto the leads, where comfortable chairs, a small table and an electric standard were arranged. They were far above the tops of the other houses, and looked into the green of the Park.
“This is where I bring very few people,” she said. “This is where, even after my twenty-eight years of fraudulent life, I am sometimes myself. Wait.”
There were feminine drinks and sandwiches arranged on the table. She opened the cupboard of a small sideboard just inside the sitting-room, however, and produced whisky and a syphon of soda. There was a pail of ice in a cool corner. From somewhere in the distance came the music of violins floating through the window of a house where a dance was in progress. They could catch a glimpse of the striped awning and the long line of waiting vehicles with their twin eyes of fire. She curled herself up on a settee, flung a cushion at Sir Timothy, who was already ensconced in a luxurious easy-chair, and with a tumbler of iced sherbet in one hand, and a cigarette in the other, looked across at him.
“I am not sure,” she said, “that you have not to-night dispelled an illusion.”
“What manner of one?” he asked.
“Above all things,” she went on, “I have always looked upon you as wicked. Most people do. I think that is one reason why so many of the women find you attractive. I suppose it is why I have found you attractive.”
The smile was back upon his lips. He bowed a little, and, leaning forward, dropped a chunk of ice into his whisky and soda.
“Dear Lady Cynthia,” he murmured, “don’t tell me that I am going to slip back in your estimation into some normal place.”
“I am not quite sure,” she said deliberately. “I have always looked upon you as a kind of amateur criminal, a man who loved black things and dark ways. You know how weary one gets of the ordinary code of morals in these days. You were such a delightful antidote. And now, I am not sure that you have not shaken my faith in you.”
“In what way?”
“You really seem to have been engaged to-night in a very sporting and philanthropic enterprise. I imagined you visiting some den of vice and mixing as an equal with these terrible people who never seem to cross the bridges. I was perfectly thrilled when I put on your chauffeur’s coat and hat and followed you.”
“The story of my little adventure is a simple one,” Sir Timothy said. “I do not think it greatly affects my character. I believe, as a matter of fact, that I am just as wicked as you would have me be, but I have friends in every walk of life, and, as you know, I like to peer into the unexpected places. I had heard of this man Billy the Tanner. He beats women, and has established a perfect reign of terror in the court and neighbourhood where he lives. I fear I must agree with you that there were some elements of morality—of conforming, at any rate, to the recognised standards of justice—in what I did. You know, of course, that I am a great patron of every form of boxing, fencing, and the various arts of self-defence and attack. I just took along one of the men from my gymnasium who I knew was equal to the job, to give this fellow a lesson.”
“He did it all right,” Lady Cynthia murmured.
“But this is where I think I re-establish myself,” Sir Timothy continued, the peculiar nature of his smile reasserting itself. “I did not do this for the sake of the neighbourhood. I did not do it from any sense of justice at all. I did it to provide for myself an enjoyable and delectable spectacle.”
She smiled lazily.
“That does rather let you out,” she admitted. “However,