The dangerous game
That night, on entering the big _salle à manger_ of the hotel, he
noted that Mrs. Caborn was sitting alone. She beckoned to him and
said:
“Do come and sit here, Mr. Darville. My husband has left for Italy. He
had an urgent telegram this afternoon, and was just able to catch the
mail-boat!”
“Gone?” exclaimed Darville in blank surprise which he failed to
conceal. His exclamation was indeed one of consternation.
“Yes,” she replied looking up at him with a rather strange expression.
“Are you very sorry?” she asked in a low, appealing voice.
“Of course not,” he laughed, instantly recovering his surprise. “How
long are you to be alone?” he inquired, smiling, as he seated himself
in her husband’s place at the little _table à deux_.
“Oh! about a fortnight, I think. He suggested I should stay, as he has
to travel on business up to Milan and Zurich, and he thought, if I
remained here, I should be more comfortable than traveling
continuously, as he is sometimes forced to do.”
“Then he ought to be back on Wednesday week--eh?” remarked Darville,
as the waiter placed the soup before him. The novelist moved the big
vase of mimosa aside, so that he could see her without interruption.
She was dressed in a sleeveless frock of dark purple velvet with four
narrow shoulder-straps, which enhanced the whiteness of her skin,
while around her neck was her only ornament, a rope of valuable
pearls.
As he ate his soup he decided that she was attractive, and that the
opportunity thus afforded them of being constantly in each other’s
society for a whole fortnight was exactly what he desired.
Their conversation soon drifted to winter sports and traveling. She
told him that very frequently her husband journeyed to and fro across
Europe to one or other of the capitals on business. Darville
understood that he was an exporter of Greek produce, and had his chief
office in Athens, with a branch at Salonica, his trade being mainly
with France and England. As for herself, she had told him of her own
many travels. She loved traveling, and had been in America and Canada,
in Spain and Egypt. On her husband’s return they were taking the
Trieste steamer and going to Vienna for a few weeks on pleasure.
That night, as they sat over their coffee in the lounge, without
seeming unduly inquisitive, he obtained from her some facts concerning
Mr. Caborn’s travels which rather puzzled him, and especially in
reference to his hurried departure from the island.
“Do you think your husband’s travels this time will take him to
England?” asked Darville presently, between the whiffs of his
cigarette.
“No,” she answered decisively. “I’m certain he won’t go to England, or
he would have taken me.” The positive tone of her voice aroused his
curiosity.
“His departure was certainly very sudden. I wish I had had an
opportunity of bidding him _bon voyage_,” he remarked.
“Do you?” she asked, with that strange, mysterious look again in her
eyes.
“Why, of course,” he laughed. “When did he receive the telegram?”
“At three o’clock. The boat left at four.”
Darville remained silent for some moments, and then began to chat
about other things, and suggested a motor run together on the
following morning, after he had finished his usual morning’s work,
which occupied him daily from six o’clock to eleven, with an interval
for his _café complet_, brought to his room.
At half-past eleven o’clock she put out her cigarette, drained her
liqueur, and, wishing him a merry “good-night,” left him.
As soon as she had disappeared into the lift, he went across to the
_concierge’s_ bureau, and in confidence inquired at what hour a
telegram had arrived for Mr. Caborn.
“There has been no telegram to-day, monsieur,” replied the man with
the crossed keys upon the lapels of his black velvet-collared coat,
speaking with an Italian accent. “I have been on duty since noon, and
all telegrams are delivered to me here. I keep in this book a register
of all received”; and he indicated a long, narrow memorandum-book
which lay open on the table. “You see the names of all visitors who
have received telegrams to-day. Monsieur Caborn’s name is not among
them.”
“Thank you,” replied the novelist. “You need not say that I made an
inquiry”; and he ascended to his room, a grin of satisfaction upon his
round, good-humored face.
“I thought so!” he muttered to himself, when in his own room. “I
wasn’t mistaken, after all! A very clever pair--extremely clever! The
game is becoming highly interesting. Joan is a very clever little
woman!”
From his usual careless languor Seton Darville instantly became
bustling and active.
Seating himself at his writing-table, he wrote out a curious telegram.
He addressed it to a code address in London, and gave what seemed to
be financial quotations.
To the ordinary eye it was only a commercial telegram, and as such it
was accepted at the chief telegraph office, to which he walked in the
bright moonlight. But at the address in London he knew it would cause
a great flutter of excitement, and that within an hour the tentacles
of a great octopus-like organization would be spread, with eyes and
ears ever open, by night as well as by day, all over Europe.
Seton Darville possessed two separate and distinct personalities. One
was the popular and prosperous erratic novelist imbued with the true
artistic temperament, a lonely man who sought distraction at
night-cafés and night-clubs merely because he could never sleep till
early morning. The other side of his highly complex nature was that of
a shrewd, hard, relentless man, clever, calculating, cunning,
far-seeing, even inhuman and unscrupulous. That second nature of his
he seldom, if ever, showed. Only if his anger were aroused did the
evil side of his dual character reveal itself. At other times he was
able to conceal it beneath his calm, unruffled, Bohemian exterior.
As he walked back along the sea front, where the moonlit waves lapped
lazily upon the beach, amid a truly fairy-like scene, he gritted his
teeth. His suspicion of little Mrs. Caborn had been confirmed within
that half-hour, for he saw that she had lied to him about her husband.
He halted beneath the shadow of a great palm and lit a fresh
cigarette. Then, as he tossed aside the match and strode forward, he
exclaimed aloud to himself:
“This is now a cat-and-mouse game! The cat must watch. I wonder if
what I suspect is true?--I wonder? If it is--then--then I’ll----”
And, without concluding his sentence, he uttered a queer, artificial
laugh, which sounded strange and unreal in the dead silence of the
brilliant night.
CHAPTER II.
LOVE AND CURIOSITY
When the thin-faced Greek waiter brought Darville his _café
complet_ next morning, a telegram lay upon the tray.
He roused himself quickly, opened it with interest, and then a smile
of contentment overspread his round face.
After eating his roll and swallowing the excellent black coffee, he
lit a cigarette, and then leisurely shaved and dressed. Twice he
glanced at the telegram, which to the ordinary eye was a commercial
message regarding a cargo of currants on their way to London from the
island of Zante. But it conveyed much to the popular novelist. So
much, indeed, that, as he brushed his hair, he chuckled to himself and
muttered:
“I wonder what the next move will be? Whatever it is, it will be
checkmated!”
Presently he passed into his private sitting-room, and, seating
himself at the small writing-table, took up his pen and resumed work
upon his new novel which, in perhaps a year’s time, would be published
simultaneously in England, America, France, and the Colonies.
When the gong for _déjeuner_ sounded he rose, wearily stretched
himself, brushed his hair, and then descended to the big _salle à
manger_.
As he entered, he saw that the Caborns’ table in the window was empty.
He seated himself there and awaited Joan. The meal commenced, but she
remained absent, much to his surprise. Did she dare to face him?
Perhaps not, if her suspicions had been aroused. Yet he had been very
circumspect. How could his actions cause her any alarm?
Suddenly, when the meal was nearly over, and, indeed, some of the
visitors had already risen and left, she came in, bustling, smiling,
and apologetic.
“My dear Mr. Darville!” she cried. “Do forgive me! I see you haven’t
waited. That is good. I’ve been for a long walk in the country, and it
has taken me more time to get back than I anticipated.”
“My dear Joan,” he said; for he was now sufficiently intimate to call
her by her Christian name. “I thought that perhaps you were lunching
elsewhere so I commenced. Pray forgive me.”
“Of course. It’s all my fault,” she declared, seating herself and
drawing off her gloves. She looked very handsome in her cool, white
gown and neat, black hat.
While she ate her meal she chatted vivaciously, for she was always
full of wit and high spirits. Darville knew that only by making
pretence of loving her could he worm from her the great secret which
she held.
So he invited her up to his pleasant sitting-room, where she threw
herself into a big lounge-chair, and, tossing her hat aside, took a
cigarette from his case and allowed him to light it for her.
When the coffee and liqueurs had been brought and the waiter had
retired again, he crossed the room in silence, and, with his eyes
fixed upon hers in pretended affection, he took her white hand in his
and, bending gallantly, kissed it.
“Mr. Darville,” she said, drawing it away instantly. “Please don’t.
Please remember we are only friends. Do let us remain as such.”
“But, Joan!” he cried, taking her hand again, and bending over her.
“Can’t you see--haven’t you seen? How--how you have fascinated me--how
you are all in all to me--how fondly I love you--how----?”
“Love!” she cried, interrupting coldly. “I have no love to give you,
Seton--nothing to give you in return. So let us drop the subject. Do,
I beg of you!”
“But I can’t--I really can’t!” he declared imploringly, his face pale
and earnest as he still held her hand, and before she became aware of
it his lips had met hers and had imprinted a kiss upon them.
“You do this in my husband’s absence!” she exclaimed angrily, never
dreaming that he was making hollow pretence. “It is too cruel of you!
How can I hold you in esteem when you make love to me like this? I am
sadly disillusioned, I tell you frankly, Seton. I believed you to be a
dear friend, a good pal to me, and a good friend to my husband.”
In a second Seton Darville’s face changed. His eyes grew smaller, and
there was a hardness about his mouth.
“And why should I be a good friend to your husband, Joan?” he asked in
a low, confidential voice, his face bent to hers. “Why should I study
him when I happen to know with what infernal brutality he behaves to
you, and how damnably he treats you when you are alone? All Greeks
treat their women without consideration and without respect. Why
should I extend the hand of friendship to such a fellow?”
“He is, after all, my husband,” was her simple reply in a quiet,
trembling voice as low as his own. The tone of her reply revealed the
truth to him.
He feigned regret as he slowly released her hand. But, still looking
straight into her face, he whispered:
“Joan! I can only repeat that I love you!”
She rose resolutely from her chair, taking up her hat preparatory to
leaving the room.
The novelist gripped her wrist and took the hat from her fingers. Upon
his face was a look of deep resolution.
“I love you, Joan. I am devoted to you, and you must hear me.”
“I refuse!” she cried. “Let me go to my room. This is wrong of
you--very wrong.”
“No. Listen to me--listen to reason, Joan.”
“I’ll hear nothing. I’ve heard enough!” she protested. “I had no idea