The crimson circle
response to an advertisement in the ‘Tribune’ within the next
twenty-four hours, stating the exact hour convenient to you. This is
the final warning._”
There was no signature.
“Well?”
Old Jim Beardmore looked up over his spectacles and his eyes were
smiling.
“The Crimson Circle!” gasped his son.
Jim Beardmore laughed aloud at the concern in the boy’s voice.
“Yes, the Crimson Circle--I have had four of ’em!”
The young man stared at him.
“Four?” he repeated. “Good heavens! Is that why Yale has been staying
with us?”
Jim Beardmore smiled.
“That is a reason,” he said.
“Of course, I knew that he was a detective, but I hadn’t the slightest
idea----”
“Don’t worry about this infernal circle,” interrupted his father a
little impatiently. “I’m not scared of them. Froyant is in terror of
his life that he will be marked down. And I don’t wonder. He and I
have made a few enemies in our time.”
James Beardmore, with his hard, lined face and his stubbly grey beard,
might have been mistaken for the grandfather of the good-looking young
man who sat opposite to him. The Beardmore fortune had been painfully
won. It had materialised from the wreckage of dreams and had its
beginnings in the privations, the dangers and the heartaches of a
prospector’s life. This man whom Death had stalked on the waterless
plains of the Kalahari, who had scraped in the mud of the Vale River
for illusory diamonds, and thawed out his claim in the Klondyke, had
faced too many real dangers to be greatly disturbed by the threat of
the Crimson Circle. For the moment his perturbation was based on a
more tangible peril, not to himself, but to his son.
“I’ve got a whole lot of faith in your good sense, Jack,” he said, “so
don’t be hurt by anything I’m going to say. I’ve never interfered in
your amusements or questioned your judgment--but--do you think that
you’re being wise just now?”
Jack understood.
“You mean about Miss Drummond, father?”
The older man nodded.
“She’s Froyant’s secretary,” began the youth.
“I know she is Froyant’s secretary,” said the other, “and she’s none
the worse for that. But the point is, Jack, do you know anything more
about her?”
The young man rolled his napkin deliberately. His face was red and
there was a queer set look about his jaw which secretly amused Jim.
“I like her. She is a friend of mine. I’ve never made love to her, if
that is what you mean, dad, and I rather think our friendship would be
at an end if I did.”
Jim nodded. He had said all that was necessary and now he took up a
more bulky envelope and looked at it curiously. Jack saw that it bore
French postage stamps and wondered who was the correspondent.
Tearing open the flap, the old man took out a pad of correspondence,
which included yet another envelope heavily sealed. He read the
superscription and his nose wrinkled.
“Ugh!” he said, and put the envelope down unopened. He glanced through
the remainder of the correspondence, then looked across at his son.
“Never trust a man or woman until you know the worst of them,” he
said. “I’ve got a man coming to see me to-day who is a respectable
member of society. He has a record as black as my hat and yet I’m
going to do business with him--I know the worst!”
Jack laughed. Further conversation was interrupted by the arrival of
their guest.
“Good morning, Yale--did you sleep well?” asked the old man. “Ring for
some more coffee, Jack.”
Derrick Yale’s visit had been an unmixed pleasure to Jack Beardmore.
He was at the age when romance had its full appeal and the
companionship of the most commonplace detective would have brought him
a peculiar joy. But the glamour which surrounded Yale was the glamour
of the supernatural. This man had unusual and peculiar qualities which
made him unique. The delicate æsthetic face, the grave mystery of his
eyes, the very gesture of his long, sensitive hands, were part of his
uniqueness.
“I never sleep,” he said good-humouredly as he unrolled his serviette.
He held the silver napkin ring for a second between his two fingers,
and James Beardmore watched him with amusement. As for Jack, his eager
admiration was unconcealed.
“Well?” asked the old man.
“Who handled this last has had very bad news--some near relation is
desperately ill.”
Beardmore nodded.
“Jane Higgins was the servant who laid the table,” he said. “She had a
letter this morning saying that her mother was dying.”
Jack gasped.
“And you felt that in the serviette ring?” he asked in amazement. “How
do you get that impression, Mr. Yale?”
Derrick Yale shook his head.
“I don’t attempt to explain,” he said quietly. “All that I know is
that the moment I took up my serviette I had a sensation of profound
and poignant sorrow. It is weird, isn’t it?”
“But how did you know about her mother?”
“I traced it somehow,” said the other almost brusquely; “it is a
matter of deduction. Have you any news, Mr. Beardmore?”
For answer Jim handed him the card he had received that morning.
Yale read the message, then weighed the card on the palm of his white
hand.
“Posted by a sailor,” he said, “a man who has been in prison and has
recently lost a great deal of money.”
Jim Beardmore laughed.
“Which I shall certainly not replace,” he said, rising from the table.
“Do you take these warnings seriously?”
“I take them very seriously,” said Derrick in his quiet way. “So
seriously that I do not advise you to leave this house except in my
company. The Crimson Circle,” he went on, arresting Beardmore’s
indignant protest with a characteristic gesture, “is, I admit,
vulgarly melodramatic in its operations, but it will be no solace to
your heirs to learn that you have died theatrically.”
Jim Beardmore was silent for a time, and his son regarded him
anxiously.
“Why don’t you go abroad, father?” he asked, and the old man snapped
round on him.
“Go abroad be damned!” he roared. “Run away from a cheap Black Hand
gang? I’ll see them----!”
He did not mention their destination, but they could guess.
Chapter III.
The Girl Who Was Indifferent
A heavy weight lay on Jack Beardmore’s mind as he walked slowly
across the meadows that morning. His feet carried him instinctively in
the direction of the little valley which lay a mile from the house,
and in the exact centre of which ran the hedge which marked the
division between the Beardmore and Froyant estates. It was a glorious
morning. The storm of wind and rain which had swept the country the
night before had blown itself out, and the world lay bathed in yellow
sunlight. Far away, beyond the olive-green coverts that crowned Penton
Hill, he caught a glimpse of Harvey Froyant’s big white mansion. Would
she venture out with the ground so sodden and the grasses soaked with
rain, he wondered?
He stopped by a big elm tree on the lip of the valley and cast an
anxious glance along the untidy hedge, until his eyes rested on a tiny
summer house which the former owners of Tower House had
erected--Harvey Froyant, who loathed solitude, would never have been
guilty of such extravagance.
There was nobody in sight, and his heart sank. Ten minutes’ walking
brought him to the gap he had made in the fence, and he stepped
through. The girl who sat in the tiny house might have heard his sigh
of relief.
She looked round, then rose with some evidence of reluctance.
She was remarkably pretty, with her fair hair and flawless skin, but
there was no welcome in her eyes as she came slowly toward him.
“Good morning,” she said coolly.
“Good morning, Thalia,” he ventured, and her frown returned.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” she said, and he knew that she meant what she
said. Her attitude toward him puzzled and worried him. For she was a
thing of laughter and bubbling life. He had once surprised her chasing
a hare, and had watched, spellbound, the figure of this laughing Diana
as her little feet flew across the field in pursuit of the scared
beast. He had heard her singing, too, and the very joy of life was
vibrant in her voice--but he had seen her so depressed and gloomy that
he had feared she was ill.
“Why are you always so stiff and formal with me?” he grumbled.
For a second a ghost of a smile showed at the corner of her mouth.
“Because I’ve read books,” she said solemnly, “and poor girl
secretaries who aren’t stiff and formal with millionaire’s sons
usually come to a bad end!”
She had a trick of directness which was very disconcerting.
“Besides,” she said, “there is no reason why I shouldn’t be stiff and
formal. It is the conventional attitude which people adopt toward
their fellow creatures, unless they are very fond of them, and I’m not
very fond of you.”
She said this calmly and deliberately, and the young man’s face went
red. He felt a fool, and cursed himself for provoking this act of
cruelty.
“I will tell you something, Mr. Beardmore,” she went on in her even
tone. “Something which you haven’t realised. When a boy and girl are
thrown together on a desert island, it is only natural that the boy
gets the idea that the girl is the only girl in the world. All his
wayward fancies are concentrated on one woman and as the days pass she
grows more and more wonderful in his eyes. I’ve read a lot of these
desert island stories, and I’ve seen a lot of pictures that deal with
that interesting situation, and that is how it strikes me. You are on
a desert island here--you spend too much time on your estate, and the
only things you see are rabbits and birds and Thalia Drummond. You
should go into the city and into the society of people of your own
station.”
She turned from him with a nod, for she had seen her employer
approaching, had watched him out of the corner of her eye as he
stopped to survey them, and had guessed his annoyance.
“I thought you were doing the house accounts, Miss Drummond,” he said
with asperity.
He was a skinny man, in the early fifties, colourless, sharp-featured,
prematurely bald. He had an unpleasant habit of baring his long yellow
teeth when he asked a question, a grimace which in some curious way
suggested his belief that the answer would be an evasion.
“Morning, Beardmore,” he jerked the salutation grudgingly and turned
again to his secretary.
“I don’t like to see you wasting your time, Miss Drummond,” he said.
“I am not wasting either your time or mine, Mr. Froyant,” she answered
calmly. “I have finished the accounts--here!” She tapped the worn
leather portfolio which was under her arm.
“You could have done the work in my library,” he complained; “there is
no need to go into the wilderness.”
He stopped and rubbed his long nose and glanced from the girl to the
silent young man.
“Very good; that will do,” he said. “I am going to see your father,
Beardmore. Perhaps you will walk with me?”
Thalia was already on her way to Tower House, and Jack had no excuse
for lingering.
“Don’t occupy that girl’s time, Beardmore, don’t, please,” said
Froyant testily. “You’ve no idea how much she has to do--and I’m sure
your father wouldn’t like it.”
Jack was on the point of saying something offensive, but checked
himself. He loathed Harvey Froyant, and at the moment hated him for
his domineering attitude toward the girl.
“That class of girl,” began Mr. Froyant, turning to walk by the side
of the hedge toward the gate at the end of the valley, “that class of
girl----” he stood still and stared. “Who the devil has broken through
the hedge?” he demanded, pointing with his stick.
“I did,” said Jack savagely. “It is our hedge, anyway, and it saves
half a mile--come on, Mr. Froyant.”
Harvey Froyant made no comment as he stepped gingerly through the
hedge.
They walked slowly up the hill toward the big elm tree where Jack had
stood looking down into the valley.