Daredevil
acquaintances are unhappily so useless for your purpose."
Teal knew that this was the truth, for one of Prester John's many
peculiarities was that he never mixed with other criminals, planned
and executed all his coups single-handed, and disposed of the
proceeds through channels unknown to the underworld.
"There's no clue you could give us about the masked man?" said Storm.
"Nothing. In fiction, a scar--a limp--a missing button. In real
life, nothing. Tall, and I should think well-built; but since he
wore an overcoat I shall not take the risk of--er--perjuring myself
on that point."
Storm himself opened the door to the reforming burglar, and,
receiving an almost imperceptible signal, followed the man out into
the passage.
"All I've told you is blowed-in-the-glass," said Prester John in a
rapid undertone, his pose having dropped from him like a cloak. "I
am really going straight, and I know no more than I've told you.
Except this. I know how it is between you and Miss Hawthorne--why,
if a split sneezes it's known all over the underworld in half an
hour. The order went out that she's got to go, and Lew's been told
off to do it. He's going to escape to-night--I suppose you knew
that? But that isn't Lew's way." He looked at Storm steadily. "The
difference between Lew and me is that I was once a
gentleman--whatever that may mean. But I was. Lew never will be.
His mind is so ... vulgar. Take a stable tip."
He held out his hand a little hesitatingly, and smiled when Storm
took it.
"Thanks," said Storm. "But why couldn't you say that in front of
Teal?"
"My--er--dear sir, one must make good exits--intriguing curtains."
He swung his stick, and once more his face was sanctimonious and his
voice treacly. "The worthy Inspector Teal has, in his blundering
fashion, crossed swords with me on many memorable occasions. Once,
he even succeeded in obtaining my--er--incarceration for a period of
three years---the only time I have ever been inside.
Painstaking--slow and sure--but not brilliant. I have taken a number
of years convincing him that the Church was my proper _métier_. His
mind is not elastic. I feared that if I--er--removed the mask of the
musical comedy parson the shock, you know--terrible, terrible,
terrible--all one's ideas dislocated--and so forth. You appreciate
my point?" he pleaded, and there was a peep of laughter in Storm's
grey eyes as he watched the lank figure pass mincingly down the stone
corridor.
CHAPTER XVI
SENSATION OUT OF COURT
Storm returned to meet the lazily inquiring gaze of Inspector Teal.
Teal was far too ponderous a man to be swayed by the emotions of the
thin-flanked herd, but it was obvious that puzzlement was seething
within his placid bulk--the symptom was the exaggerated precision
with which his jaws chewed from side to side the plastic sweetmeat of
Mr. Wrigley--and Storm was privately amused.
"What was his secret?" demanded the detective with assumed languor,
when after some time the information had not been volunteered.
"Oh--Prester John sent you his love," Storm replied truthfully but
uncertainly. "He didn't dare give it you in person!"
Mr. Teal's recumbent mountainousness heaved with an explosive grunt
which registered unbelief.
They parted, for Storm had a luncheon engagement for which he did not
wish to be unpunctual. He met Susan at the portals of the Regal, and
thought that he had rarely seen her looking so beautiful. Being
gloriously ignorant of the niceties of feminine apparel, he received
from her dress no other impression than that it suited her to
perfection. In her smart costume of plain bisque, relieved only by
the daring splash of green where a flowing kerchief was knotted
loosely at the throat of her white silk undertunic, she was piquantly
beautiful. The bright sunshine lit up her smiling face, and its
searching brilliance at once absolved her red lips and the faint
flush of health on her cheeks from all accusation of artifice.
They made a striking couple.
Her loveliness was none of that pink-and-white fragility to which a
certain type of Frenchwoman aspires--prettiness which is at one and
the same glance irresistibly attractive and yet so obviously unfitted
for any locale but the drawing-room and the Poiret gown. She was
essentially a girl of the open spaces, with the lithe, free grace of
carriage and the delicate browning of a clear skin which come only
with a perfectly functioning body bred of, and to, the love of plenty
of exercise in the eye of the sun and in the breath of the wind. And
Storm fitted her perfectly, being a man good to look upon and finely
built, and having a boyish love of laughter always lurking in his
steady eyes to counteract the first impression of hardness you got
from the squareness of his jaw and the vigorous set of his mouth.
Outstanding at once by the lissom poise of his athletic figure, with
just that indefinable air of restraint about him which is the
infallible sign of a tremendously dynamic vitality controlled and
directed by a dominant will.
He had meant to talk to her gravely, warning her of the dangers she
was running, and pointing out the foolhardiness of her last night's
adventure. She, for her part, had made up her mind to laugh at his
fears and complain of his selfishness in keeping all the thrills for
himself. He had meant to be firm: she had meant to be defiant.
Somehow, neither programme produced according to schedule.
"Who was the man you recognized last night?" he asked her point
blank, and her resolutions crumbled so weakly that she hated herself.
"The man we saw when we had that motor accident," she answered
meekly. "Mattock, I think you called him."
Storm had known that, unless she was bluffing, it must have been one
of three men, and he annoyed her afresh by the coolness with which he
received the report.
"He's an enterprising man," he murmured, passing his cigarette case
across the table. "One of these days there'll be trouble for
James--you wager the haberdashery on uncle!"
"Aren't you interested?"
He raised his eyebrows.
"Fairly! I know nearly everything there is to be known about
Mattock. At the moment, I'm betting in my mind which'll die
first--James Norman or Oscar Siegfried. That problem, however, is
reserved strictly for office hours, and this is my lunch interval.
What're you going to do about a job now Papa Hannassay is with the
majority?"
"I don't know that I need one," she said surprisingly. "He's left me
everything. I heard from the solicitors this morning."
Storm bit his lip.
"How much?"
The bluntness of his question made her stare at him. She found him
unaccountably irritating that afternoon, and had half a mind to snub
him, but she decided that that might be a failure. He had an amused
way of laughing at people who stood on their dignity which was
absolutely impossible to deal with.
"Ten thousand odd--if you're so desperately interested," she said
frigidly, and was speedily disconcerted.
His eyes danced with quiet mockery.
"I am. Desperately interested," he assured her, and his smile swept
pettiness out of existence. "Susan, don't be small! It's an
important question, because I always understood old Pop Hannassay was
rich."
"Don't be irreverent," she said severely. "_De mortuis_----"
"_Nil nisi ludicrum_. And how about the dead what die in their sins?"
She opened her bag and handed him the letter. He read it through
carefully, and then made a note of the address of the solicitors.'
"Bylom, Craill and Bylom, Suffolk House, Lester Street, Strand. I'll
see 'em this afternoon. Ten thousand! Jerusalem--a few years ago
old Daddy--sorry, Susan!--Lord Hannassay was worth about half a
million. You ought to be rich, instead of the unreasonably proud
heiress to a paltry ten thousand!"
"How do you know all this?" she asked in wonder.
He was not disposed to enlighten her at that moment.
"There's damn little I don't know!" he boasted airily. "The snag is,
it's going to take me all my time to remove just those little scraps
of ignorance!" He looked at her for a moment, frowning thoughtfully,
and then dropped a bolt from the blue: "When can you be married?"
Her face went blank.
He disregarded all the time-honoured laws governing the proper
setting, manner and preliminaries for such questions. Twice he had
made love to her--once, years ago, in his breezy, inconsequent manner
in the kitchen of the Presidential Palace of Olvidada; for the second
time, on that night when he had driven her home from Raegenssen's.
And when he made love he was irresistible. On the whole, it was a
proposition he should by rights have put forward long ago; yet, now
that he had put it forward, the suddenness seemed alarming. It
caused a queer constriction about her heart, and at the same time it
brought to a head the vague and formless anger that had troubled her
all day. He had been almost insulting--he broke every accepted canon
for proposals. In fact, he did not propose at all: he took her for
granted, and she was furious.
"Married to whom?" she asked with dangerous obtuseness.
"To me, of course."
The perplexed lift of her straight brows was perfectly done.
"I don't understand. Why should I marry you?"
His eyes held hers, and at the back of that clear gaze she saw a
glint of comprehension and, coincidently, of good-humoured reproof
which was maddening. Without batting an eyelid, he suggested a
sympathetic elder amusedly tolerating the peevishness of a child.
"I really don't know," he said coolly. "It occurred to me you might
like to. Besides, you love me."
The man's audacity stunned her. In her consternation it was some
time before she could find suitable words wherewith to administer a
stinging rebuke, and the effort was not diminished by the knowledge
that he had spoken nothing but the truth.
"You flatter yourself," she said coldly, and he smiled.
"You flatter me," was his quick response. "Now, for the love of Mike
don't boil over with rage--not till we've finished eating, anyway.
Squabbling at meal times is so horribly bad for the digestion! You
wouldn't like me to utter a loud shriek and collapse on the floor,
clasping my diaphragm--a young man stricken down in his prime with
dyspepsia--would you?"
Her retort had simply glanced off the armour of his confidence. The
edge of it had cut rather less ice than would cover a sixpence. He
might have done no more than ask her to go to the theatre with him,
and agreed to wait for an answer until she had consulted her
engagement book. He was--Good Lord! He was actually _humouring_ her!
"You're mistaken--you won't refuse ever to see me again," he said,
and, looking up, she saw that his eyes were still upon her, and knew
that he had read her thoughts. And then he switched from the subject
with the abruptness of the turning off of a tap: "How's Terry these
days? D'you remember the X Esquire case? Old Terry was in that,
though it never came out."
He continued blithely to recount the story in that staccato, jerky
way he had of speaking, and she had to listen in spite of herself.
He could be a delightful _raconteur_--he had the happy knack of
coining spontaneous phrases which had the punch of mule kicks.
Gradually, so gently that she never noticed it, he thawed her out of
her attitude of barely polite attention. Coffee was on the table
before she realised how the time was flying. And, as she took the
final cigarette he offered her, light dawned. Why had she been
snappy? Because she had had so little sleep the night before, and
tiredness had frayed her temper at the corners. Why should she vent
her bad temper on him? Because ... because she'd read in the morning