Peter Ruff and the Double Four. E. Phillips Oppenheim
was simple—he rose to his feet and strolled to the window.
“Some people who have lost their way in the fog, perhaps,” he remarked. “What a night!”
He laid his hand upon the sash—simultaneously there was a rush of cold air into the room, a half-angry, half-frightened exclamation from Adolphus in the passage, a scream from Miss Maud—and no Mr. Spencer Fitzgerald! No one had time to be more than blankly astonished. The door was opened, and a police inspector, in very nice dark braided uniform and a peaked cap, stood in the doorway.
Mr. Barnes dropped the port, and Mrs. Barnes, emulating her daughter’s example, screamed. The inspector, as though conscious of the draught, moved rapidly toward the window.
“You had a visitor here, Mr. Barnes,” he said quickly—“a Mr. Spencer Fitzgerald. Where is he?”
There was no one who could answer! Mr. Barnes was speechless between the shock of the spilt port and the appearance of a couple of uniformed policemen in his dining room. John Dory, the detective, he knew well enough in his private capacity, but in his uniform, and attended by policemen, he presented a new and startling appearance! Mrs. Barnes was in hysterics, and Maud was gazing like a creature turned to stone at the open window, through which little puffs of fog were already drifting into the room. Adolphus, with an air of bewilderment, was standing with his mouth and eyes wider open than they had ever been in his life. And as for the honoured guest of these admirable inhabitants of Daisy Villa, there was not the slightest doubt but that Mr. Spencer Fitzgerald had disappeared through the window!
Fitzgerald’s expedition was nearly at an end. Soon he paused, crossed the road to a block of flats, ascended to the eighth floor by an automatic lift, and rang the bell at a door which bore simply the number II. A trim parlourmaid opened it after a few minutes’ delay.
“Is Miss Emerson at home?” he asked.
“Miss Emerson is in,” the maid admitted, with some hesitation, “but I am not sure that she will see any one to-night.”
“I have a message for her,” Fitzgerald said.
“Will you give me your name, sir, please?” the maid asked.
An inner door was suddenly opened. A slim girl, looking taller than she really was by reason of the rug upon which she stood, looked out into the hall—a girl with masses of brown hair loosely coiled on her head, with pale face and strange eyes. She opened her lips as though to call to her visitor by name, and as suddenly closed them again. There was not much expression in her face, but there was enough to show that his visit was not unwelcome.
“You!” she exclaimed. “Come in! Please come in at once!”
Fitzgerald obeyed the invitation of the girl whom he had come to visit. She had retreated a little into the room, but the door was no sooner closed than she held out her hands.
“Peter!” she exclaimed. “Peter, you have come to me at last!”
Her lips were a little parted; her eyes were bright with pleasure; her whole expression was one of absolute delight. Fitzgerald frowned, as though he found her welcome a little too enthusiastic for his taste.
“Violet,” he said, “please don’t look at me as though I were a prodigal sheep. If you do, I shall be sorry that I came.”
Her hands fell to her side, the pleasure died out of her face—only her eyes still questioned him. Fitzgerald carefully laid his hat on a vacant chair.
“Something has happened?” she said. “Tell me that all that madness is over—that you are yourself again!”
“So far as regards my engagement with Messrs. Howell & Wilson,” he said, despondently, “you are right. As regards—Miss Barnes, there has been no direct misunderstanding between us, but I am afraid, for the present, that I must consider that—well, in abeyance.”
“That is something!” she exclaimed, drawing a little breath of relief. “Sit down, Peter. Will you have something to eat? I finished dinner an hour ago, but—”
“Thank you,” Fitzgerald interrupted, “I supped—extremely well in Streatham!”
“In Streatham!” she repeated. “Why, how did you get there? The fog is awful.”
“Fogs do not trouble me,” Fitzgerald answered. “I walked. I could have done it as well blindfold. I will take a whisky and soda, if I may.”
She led him to an easy-chair.
“I will mix it myself,” she said.
Without being remarkably good-looking, she was certainly a pleasant and attractive-looking young woman. Her cheeks were a little pale; her hair—perfectly natural—was a wonderful deep shade of soft brown. Her eyes were long and narrow—almost Oriental in shape—and they seemed in some queer way to match the room; he could have sworn that in the firelight they flashed green. Her body and limbs, notwithstanding her extreme slightness, were graceful, perhaps, but with the grace of the tigress. She wore a green silk dressing jacket, pulled together with a belt of lizard skin, and her neck was bare. Her skirt was of some thin black material. She was obviously in deshabille, and yet there was something neat and trim about the smaller details of her toilette.
“Go on, please, Peter,” she begged. “You are keeping me in suspense.”
“There isn’t much to tell,” he answered. “It’s over—that’s all.”
She drew a sharp breath through her teeth.
“You are not going to marry that girl—that bourgeois doll in Streatham?”
Fitzgerald sat up in his chair.
“Look here,” he said, seriously, “don’t you call her names. If I’m not going to marry her, it isn’t my fault. She is the only girl I have ever wanted, and probably—most probably—she will be the only one I ever shall want. That’s honest, isn’t it?”
The girl winced.
“Yes,” she said, “it is honest!”
“I should have married her,” the young man continued, “and I should have been happy. I had my eye on a villa—not too near her parents—and I saw my way to a little increase of salary. I should have taken to gardening, to walks in the Park, with an occasional theatre, and I should have thoroughly enjoyed a fortnight every summer at Skegness or Sutton-on-Sea. We should have saved a little money. I should have gone to church regularly, and if possible I should have filled some minor public offices. You may call this bourgeois—it was my idea of happiness.”
“Was!” she murmured.
“Is still,” he declared, sharply, “but I shall never attain to it. To-night I had to leave Maud—to leave the supper table of Daisy Villa—through the window!”
She looked at him in amazement.
“The police,” he explained. “That brute Dory was at the bottom of it.”
“But surely,” she murmured, “you told me that you had a bona-fide situation—”
“So I had,” he declared, “and I was a fool not to be content with it. It was my habit of taking long country walks, and their rotten auditing, which undid me! You understand that this was all before I met Maud? Since the day I spoke to her, I turned over a new leaf. I have left the night work alone, and I repaid every penny of the firm’s money which they could ever have possibly found out about. There was only that one little affair of mine down at Sudbury.”
“Tell me what you are going to do?” she whispered.
“I have no alternative,” he answered. “The law has kicked me out from the respectable places. The law shall pay!”
She looked at him with glowing eyes.
“Have you any plans?” she asked, softly.