The crimson circle
“Now listen to me, Thalia,” he said between his teeth. “I love you and
I want to marry you. I haven’t told you that before, but you’ve
guessed it. I am not going to allow you to go out of my life. Do you
understand that? I do not believe that you are a thief and----”
Very gently she disengaged his grip.
“Mr. Beardmore,” she said in a low voice, “you are just being quixotic
and foolish! You have told me what you will not allow, and I tell you
that I am not going to allow you to ruin your life through your
infatuation for a convicted thief. You know nothing of me except that
I am a seemingly nice girl whom you met by accident in the country,
and it is my duty to be your mother and your maiden aunt.” There was a
glint of amusement in her eye as she took his offered hand. “Some day
perhaps we shall meet again, and by that time the glamour of romance
will have worn off. Good-bye.”
She had disappeared into the booking hall before he could find his
voice.
Chapter X.
The Summons of The Crimson Circle
Thalia Drummond went back to the lodging she had occupied before she
had entered Mr. Harvey Froyant’s service as resident secretary, and
apparently the story of her ill-deeds had preceded her, for the stout
landlady gave her a chilly welcome, and had she not continued to pay
the rent of her one room during the time she was working for Froyant,
it was probable that she would not have been admitted.
It was a small room, neatly if plainly furnished, and oblivious to the
landlady’s glum face and cold reception, she went to her apartment and
locked the door behind her. She had spent a very unpleasant week, for
she had been remanded in custody, and her very clothes seemed to
exhale the musty odour of Holloway Gaol. Holloway, however, had an
advantage which No. 14, Lexington Street, did not possess. It had an
admirable system of bathrooms, for which the girl was truly grateful
as she began to change.
She had plenty to occupy her mind. Harvey Froyant… Jack Beardmore… she
frowned as though at a distasteful thought, and tried to dismiss him
from her mind. It was a relief to go back to Froyant. She almost hated
him. She certainly despised him. The time she had spent in his house
had been the most wretched period in her life. She had taken her meals
with the servants and had been conscious that every scrap of food she
ate had been measured and weighed and duly apportioned by a man whose
cheque for seven figures would have been honoured.
“At least, he didn’t make love to you, my dear,” she said to herself,
and smiled. Somehow she couldn’t imagine Harvey Froyant making love to
anybody. She recalled the days she had followed him about his big
house with a notebook in her hand, whilst he searched for evidence of
his servants’ neglect, drawing his fingers along the polished shelves
in the library in a vain search for dust, turning up carpet corners,
examining silver, or else counting, as he did regularly every week,
the contents of his still-room.
He measured the wine at table and counted the empty bottles, even the
corks. It was his boast that in his big garden he could tell the
absence of a flower. These he sent to market regularly, with the
vegetables he grew and the peaches which ripened on the wall, and woe
betide the unlucky gardener who had poached so much as a ripe apple
from the orchard, for Harvey had an uncanny instinct which led him to
the rifled tree.
She smiled a little wryly at the recollection, and, having completed
her change of costume, she went out, locking the door behind her. Her
landlady watched her pass down the street, and nodded ominously.
“Your lodger’s come back,” said a neighbour.
“Yes, she’s come back,” said the woman grimly. “A nice lady she is--I
don’t think! It is the first time I’ve ever had a crook in my house,
and it’ll be the last. I am giving her notice to-night.”
Unconscious of the criticism, Thalia boarded a bus which took her into
the city. She got down in Fleet Street, went into the large office of
a popular newspaper. At the desk she took an advertisement form,
looked at the white sheet for a moment thoughtfully, then wrote:
“Secretary.--Young lady from the Colonies requires post as
Secretary. Resident-Secretary preferred. Small wages required.
Shorthand and Typewriting.”
She left a space for the box number, handed the advertisement across
the counter, and paid the fee.
She was back again in Lexington Street in time for tea, a meal which
was brought up to her on a battered tray by her landlady.
“Look here, Miss Drummond,” said that worthy person, “I’ve got a few
words to say to you.”
“Say them,” said the girl carelessly.
“I shall want your room after next week.”
Thalia turned slowly.
“Does that mean I’ve got to get out?”
“That’s what it means. I can’t have people like you staying in a
respectable house. I’m surprised at you, a young lady as I always
thought you were.”
“Continue to think so,” said Thalia coolly. “I’m both young and
ladylike.”
But the stout landlady was not to be checked in her well-rehearsed
indictment.
“A nice lady you are,” she said, “giving my house a bad name. You’ve
been in prison for a week. Perhaps you don’t think I know, but I read
the newspapers.”
“I’m sure you do,” said the girl quietly. “That will do, Mrs. Boled. I
leave your house next week.”
“And I should like to say----” began the woman.
“Say it on the mat,” said Thalia, and closed the door in the choleric
lady’s face.
As it was now growing dark, she lit a kerosene lamp and occupied the
evening by manicuring her nails, an operation which was interrupted by
the arrival of the nine o’clock post. She heard the rat-tat at the
door and the heavy feet of her landlady on the stairs.
“A letter for you,” called the woman.
Thalia unlocked the door and took the envelope from the landlady’s
hand.
“You had better tell your friends that you’re going to get a new
address,” said the woman, loath to leave her quarrel half-finished.
“I haven’t told my friends yet that I live in such a horrible place,”
said Thalia sweetly, and locked the door before the woman could think
of a suitable reply.
She smiled as she carried the envelope to the light. It was addressed
in printed characters. She turned it over, looking at the postmark
before she opened it, and extracted a thick white card. At the first
glance of the message her face changed its expression.
The card was a square one, and in the centre was a large crimson
circle. Within the circle was written in the same printed characters:
“_We have need of you. Enter the car which you will find waiting at
the corner of Steyne Square at ten o’clock to-morrow night._”
She put the card down on the table and stared at it.
The Crimson Circle had need of her!
She had expected the summons, but it had come earlier than she had
anticipated.
Chapter XI.
The Confession
At three minutes to ten the following night, a closed car drove
slowly into Steyne Square and came to a halt at the corner of Clarges
Street. A few minutes later Thalia Drummond walked into the square
from the other end. She wore a long black cloak, and the little hat
upon her head was held in its position by a thick veil knotted under
her chin.
Without a second’s hesitation she opened the door of the car and
stepped in. It was in complete darkness, but she could see the figure
of the driver indistinctly. He did not turn his head, nor did he
attempt to start the car, although she felt the vibration of the
engines beneath her feet.
“You were charged at the Marylebone Police Court yesterday morning
with theft,” said the driver without preamble. “Yesterday afternoon
you inserted an advertisement, describing yourself as a newly-arrived
colonial, your intention being to find another situation, where you
could continue your career of petty pilfering.”
“This is very interesting,” said Thalia without a tremor of voice,
“but you did not bring me here to give me my past history. When I had
your letter I guessed that you thought I would be a very useful
assistant. But there is one question I want to ask you.”
“If I wish to reply I shall,” was the uncompromising answer.
“I realise that,” said Thalia, with a faint smile in the darkness.
“Suppose I had communicated with the police and I had come here
attended by Mr. Parr and the clever Mr. Derrick Yale?”
“You would have been lying on the pavement dead by now,” was the calm
announcement. “Miss Drummond, I am going to put easy money in your way
and find you a very excellent job. I do not even mind if you indulge
in your eccentricity in your spare time, but your principal task will
be to serve me. You understand?”
She nodded, and then realising he could not see her, she said:
“Yes.”
“You will be well paid for everything you do; I shall always be on
hand to help you--or to punish you if you attempt to betray me,” he
added. “Do you understand?”
“Perfectly,” she replied.
“Your job will be a very simple one,” went on the unknown driver. “You
will present yourself at Brabazon’s Bank to-morrow. Brabazon is in
need of a secretary.”
“But will he employ me?” she interrupted. “Must I go in another name?”
“Go in your own name,” said the man impatiently. “Don’t interrupt. I
will pay you two hundred pounds for your services. Here is the money.”
He thrust two notes over his shoulder and she took them.
Her hand accidentally touched his shoulder, and she felt something
hard beneath his fleecy coat.
“A bullet-proof waistcoat,” she noted mentally, and then aloud: “What
am I to say to Mr. Brabazon about my earlier experience?”
“It will be unnecessary to say anything, or do anything. You will
receive your instructions from time to time. That is all,” he added
shortly.
A few minutes later Thalia Drummond sat in the corner of the taxi-cab
which was taking her back to Lexington Street. Behind her, at
intervals, came another taxi-cab which slowed when hers did, but never
overtook her, not even when she descended at the corner of the street
where her lodgings were situated. And when she turned the key of her
street door, Inspector Parr was only a dozen paces from her. If she
knew that she was being shadowed, she made no sign.
Parr only waited for a few minutes, watching the house from the
opposite side of the roadway, and then, as her light appeared in the
upper window, he turned and walked thoughtfully back to the cab which
had brought him so far eastward.
He had opened the door of the cab and was stepping in, when somebody
passed him on the side-walk; somebody who was walking briskly with his
collar turned up, but Inspector Parr knew him.
“Flush,” he called sharply, and the man turned round on his heel.
He was a little dark, thin-faced, lithe man, at the sight of the
Inspector his jaw dropped.
“Why--why, Mr. Parr,” he said, with ill-affected geniality, “whoever
thought of seeing you in this part of the world?”
“I want a little talk with you, Flush. Will you walk along with me?”
It was an ominous invitation, which Mr. “Flush” had heard before.
“You haven’t got anything against me, Mr. Parr?” he said loudly.
“Nothing,” admitted Parr. “Besides, you’re going straight now. I seem
to remember you telling me that the day you came out of prison.”
“That’s right,” said “Flush” Barnet, heaving a sigh of relief. “Going
straight, working for my living, and engaged to be married.”
“You don’t tell me?” said the stout Mr. Parr with well-simulated
astonishment. “And is it Bella or Milly?”
“It is Milly,” said “Flush,” inwardly cursing the excellent memory of
the police inspector. “She’s going straight, too. She’s got a job at
one of the shops.”
“At Brabazon’s Bank, to be exact,” said the inspector, and then turned