The girl from Scotland Yard
Her cigarette had gone out. She opened her bag with an impatient tug
and searched.
“Matches? Never mind.”
There was a letter in the bag; she tore a strip from the top and,
bending, lit the paper at the fire.
“Who is Leslie Maughan?”
She was glancing at the signature which footed the letter.
“Leslie Maughan! I don’t know him. Why?”
Anita crumpled the paper into a ball.
“Leslie Maughan would like to see me on a personal matter.” Anita
invented the stilted and supercilious accent which she supposed the
writer of the letter might assume. “And Leslie Maughan will be glad to
know what hour will be convenient for me to see him. He is an inventor
or a borrower of money, or he has an expedition to the Cocos Islands
that he would like me to finance. To the devil with Leslie Maughan!”
CHAPTER II.
THE GIRL DETECTIVE
Druze had come in noiselessly at the door and stood, hand clasping
hand. His face was strangely pale; as he spoke, his right cheek
twitched spasmodically.
“Yes?”
“Will your ladyship see Miss Leslie Maughan?”
“Miss!” exclaimed Anita, as Jane Raytham rose.
“Miss Leslie Maughan of the Criminal Investigation Department,
Scotland Yard?”
Lady Raytham put out her hand and gripped the back of the chair; her
face was bloodless; she opened her mouth to speak, but no word came.
Greta was staring at the big woman, but Princess Anita Bellini had no
eyes but for the pale butler.
“I will see her--in the small drawing room, Druze. Excuse me.”
She swept out of the room and pulled the door behind her until Druze
had disappeared round the lower landing. By her right hand was the
door of her own room, and she entered swiftly and noiselessly,
switching on the lights as she closed the door. She stared into the
mirror. Ghastly! That white, drawn face of hers carried confession.
Had she been betrayed? Had they fulfilled their threat?
Pulling out a drawer of her dressing table, she fumbled for and found
a little pot of rouge and with a quick, deft hand brought an
unaccustomed bloom to her cheeks.
Another glance at her face in the glass and she went out and sailed
down the stairs, a smile on her lips, and in her heart despair.
All the lights were lit in the little drawing room, and her first
emotion was one of surprise and relief. She had not known there were
women detectives at Scotland Yard, but she could imagine them as
hard-faced, sour creatures in ready-made clothes.
The girl who stood by the table looking down at the illustrated
newspaper that Druze had supplied looked to be about twenty-two. She
wore a straight nutria coat, a big bunch of violets pinned to one of
the revers. She was as tall as Jane Raytham and as straight; trim
silken ankles, neatly shod. The face under the upturned brim of a
little felt hat was more surprising yet. A pair of dark eyes rose to
meet Jane Raytham’s. The lips red as Greta’s, yet owing nothing to
artifice, were finely moulded. She had a firm, round chin, and the
hint of a white throat somewhere behind the protective fur. In some
confusion Lady Raytham catalogued the visible qualities of her
unexpected caller.
“You are not Miss Maughan?” she asked.
When Leslie Maughan smiled, she smiled with eyes and lips, and the
dimpled hollows that came to her cheeks made her seem absurdly young.
“Yes, that is my name, Lady Raytham. I am awfully sorry to bother you,
but my chief is rather a martinet.”
“You are a detective? I didn’t know----”
“That there were women detectives?” asked the girl. “And you’re right!
My position is unique. I am an assistant to Chief Inspector Coldwell.
The commissioners, who are rather conservative people, do not object
to that. But I suppose I really am a detective. I make inquiries.”
She stood by the table, one hand on her hip, one playing with the
leaves of the picture paper, her unwavering gaze fixed on Jane
Raytham.
“I’m making inquiries now, Lady Raytham,” she said quietly. “I want to
know why you drew twenty thousand pounds from your bank last Monday.”
For a second the woman was panic-stricken; so far lost control that
she all but stammered the truth. The will that held her silent,
apparently unmoved, was the supreme effort of her life. Then her
training came to her rescue.
The control of her voice was perfect.
“Since when have the police had authority to supervise the banking
accounts of private citizens?” she asked in cold, measured tones.
“That is an extraordinary request! Is it then an offence for me to
withdraw twenty thousand pounds from my own account? How did you
know?”
“One gets to know things, Lady Raytham.” She was cool, unruffled by
the indignation, real or simulated. “Lady Raytham, you think we are
being very impertinent and abominable. And it is certain that, if you
report this matter to Scotland Yard, I shall be reprimanded. But we
expect that----”
Jane Raytham had so far recovered toward the normal that she could
open her gray eyes in astonishment.
“Then why on earth have you come?” she asked.
She saw Leslie Maughan draw a deep breath; the ghost of a smile
trembled at the corner of her mouth and vanished.
“Twenty thousand pounds is a lot of money,” she said softly. There was
a note of pleading in her voice, and suddenly, with a cry she could
not suppress, the significance of the visit flashed upon the woman.
They knew. The police knew the destination or purpose of that money.
Her breath came faster; she could only look into those dark eyes in
fear and try as best she could to order her thoughts. Dark
eyes--violet, not the burned brown of Greta’s, but a violet that was
almost black. A detective--this slip of a girl! She was well dressed,
too; the femininity in Jane Raytham took stock of it unconsciously.
The gloves were from Renaud’s; only Renaud cut that quaint,
half-gauntlet wrist.
“Won’t you tell me? It might save you so much unhappiness. We try to
do that at the Yard--save people unhappiness. You’d never dream that,
would you? But the police are more like big brothers than ogres. Won’t
you?”
Jane Raytham shook her head; it was a mistake, the only one she made,
to attempt speech.
“No, I won’t!” she said breathlessly. “There is nothing to tell. Your
interference is unwarrantable. I shall write. I shall write.”
She swayed, and instantly Leslie Maughan was by her side; and the
strength of her grip was the second surprise that Jane Raytham had.
With an effort, she wrenched her arm free.
“Now you can go, please! And if I do not report you, it is because I
think you have acted in ignorance--overzeal.”
She nodded toward the door, and Leslie slowly gathered up her bag and
her umbrella.
“If you ever want me, you will find my telephone number on my card.”
Lady Raytham still held the crumpled card in her hand. Now she looked
at it and very deliberately walked to the fire and dropped it into the
flames.
“Or the telephone book,” said Leslie, as she went out.
Druze was in the hall, dry-washing his hands with nervous rapidity. He
hastened to the street door and opened it.
“Good-night, miss,” he said huskily, and she looked at him and
shivered. Why Leslie Maughan shivered she did not know, but she had at
that moment a vivid and terrifying illusion.
It was as though she were looking into the blank eyes of one who was
already dead.
CHAPTER III.
MEETING PETER
Leslie came striding briskly along the Thames Embankment. It was a
bitterly cold night, and the nutria coat was not proof against the icy
norther that was blowing. The man who walked by her side was head and
shoulders taller than she. He had the gait of a soldier, and his
umbrella twirled rhythmically to his pace.
“Suicide on the left,” he said pleasantly, as though he were a guide
pointing out the sights.
The girl checked her pace and looked back.
“Really? You don’t mean that, Mr. Coldwell?”
Her eyes were fixed upon the dark figure sprawling across the parapet,
his arms resting on the granite crown, his chin on his hands. He was a
gaunt figure of a man, differing in no respect from the waifs who
would gather here from midnight onward, and strive to snatch a little
sleep between the policeman’s visits.
“It is any odds,” said Mr. Coldwell carefully, “when you see one of
these birds watching the river in that way, he is thinking up a new
way of settling old accounts. Are you interested--sentimentally?”
She hesitated.
“Yes, a little. I don’t know whether it’s sentiment or just feminine
curiosity.”
She left his side abruptly and walked back to the man, who may have
been watching her out of the corner of his eyes, for he straightened
himself up quickly.
“Down and out?” she asked, and heard his soft laugh.
“Down but not out,” he replied, and it was the voice of an educated
man, with just a trace of that drawl, the pleasant stigmata which the
universities give to their children. “Did I arouse your compassion?
I’m sorry. If you offer me money I shall be rather embarrassed. You
will find plenty of poor beggars on this sidewalk who are more worthy
objects of--charity. I use the word in its purest sense.”
She looked at his face. A slight moustache and a ragged fringe of
beard did not disguise his youth. Chief Inspector Coldwell, who had
come closer, was watching him with professional interest.
“Would you like to know what I was really thinking about?” There was
an odd quality of banter in his voice. “I was thinking about murder!
There is a gentleman in this town who has made life rather difficult
for me, and I had just decided to walk up to him at the earliest
opportunity and pop three automatic bullets through his heart when you
disturbed the homicidal current of my thoughts.”
Coldwell chuckled.
“I thought I recognized you. You’re Peter Dawlish,” he said, and the
shabby figure lifted his hat with mock politeness.
“Such is fame!” he said sardonically. “And you are Coldwell: the
recognition is mutual! And now that I have hopelessly committed
myself, I presume you will call the nearest city policeman and put me
out of the way of all temptation.”
“When did you come out?” asked Coldwell.
The girl listened, staggered. They had been discussing this man not a
quarter of an hour before; she had spent the afternoon thinking of
him; and now to meet him on that wind-swept pavement, he of all the
millions of people in London, was something more than a coincidence.
It was fatalistic.
“Mr. Dawlish, I wonder if you will believe me when I say that you’re
the one man in London I was anxious to meet. I only knew to-day that
you were--out. Could you call and see me to-night?”
The man smiled.
“Invitations follow thick and fast,” he murmured. “Only ten minutes
ago I was asked into a Salvation Army shelter! Believe me, madam----”
“Mr. Dawlish”--her voice was very quiet, but very clear--“you are
being awfully sorry for yourself, aren’t you?”
She did not see the flush that came to his face.
“I suppose I am,” he said, a little gruffly. “But a man is
entitled----”
“A man is never entitled to be sorry for himself in any
circumstances,” she said. “Here is my card.”
She had slipped back the cover of her bag, and he took the little
pasteboard from her hand, and, bringing it close to his eyes, read, in
the dim light that a distant lamp afforded:
Will you come and see me at half-past ten? I shan’t offer you money; I
won’t even offer to find a job for you cutting wood or sorting waste
paper. It is a very much bigger matter than that.
He read the name and subscription again, and his brows met.
“Oh, yes. Really--yes, if you wish.”
He was, of a sudden, awkward and uncomfortable. The girl was quick to
recognize the change in his manner and tone.
“I’m afraid I’m rather a scarecrow, but you won’t mind that?”
“No,” she said, and held out her hand.