The Crimson Blind. Fred M. White
the voice from the telephone told him that the case was a present and that it had come from the famous North Street establishment.
“By Jove!” David cried. “I’ll go to Lockhart’s tomorrow and see if the case is still there. If so, I may be able to trace it.”
Fairly early the next morning David was in North Street. For the time being he had put his work aside altogether. He could not have written a dozen consecutive lines to save the situation. The mere effort to preserve a cheerful face before his mother was a torture. And at any time he might find himself forced to meet a criminal charge.
The gentlemanly assistant at Lockhart’s remembered Steel and the cigar-case perfectly well, but he was afraid that the article had been sold. No doubt it would be possible to obtain a facsimile in the course of a few days.
“Only I required that particular one,” Steel said. “Can you tell me when it was sold and who purchased it?”
A junior partner did, and could give some kind of information. Several people had admired the case, and it had been on the point of sale several times. Finally, it had passed into the hands of an American gentleman staying at the Metropole.
“Can you tell me his name?” David asked, “or describe him?”
“Well, I can’t, sir,” the junior partner said, frankly. “I haven’t the slightest recollection of the gentleman. He wrote from the Metropole on the hotel paper describing the case and its price and inclosed the full amount in ten-dollar notes and asked to have the case sent by post to the hotel. When we ascertained that the notes were all right, we naturally posted the case as desired, and there, so far as we are concerned, was an end of the matter.”
“You don’t recollect his name?”
“Oh, yes. The name was John Smith. If there is anything wrong—-“
David hastily gave the desired assurance. He wanted to arouse no suspicion. All the same, he left Lockhart’s with a plethora of suspicions of his own. Doubtless the jewellers would be well and fairly satisfied so long as the case had been paid for, but from the standpoint of David’s superior knowledge the whole transaction fairly bristled with suspicion.
Not for one moment did Steel believe in the American at the Metropole. Somebody stayed there doubtless under the name of John Smith, and that said somebody had paid for the cigar-case in dollar notes the tracing of which might prove a task of years. Nor was it the slightest use to inquire at the Metropole, where practically everybody is identified by a number, and where scores come and go every day. John Smith would only have to ask for his letters and then drop quietly into a sea of oblivion.
Well, David had got his information, and a lot of use it was likely to prove to him. As he walked thoughtfully homewards he was debating in his mind whether or not he might venture to call at or write to 219, Brunswick Square, and lay his difficulties before the people there. At any rate, he reflected, with grim bitterness, they would know that he was not romancing. If nothing turned up in the meantime he would certainly visit Brunswick Square.
He sat in his own room puzzling the matter out till his head ached and the flowers before him reeled in a dazzling whirl of colour. He looked round for inspiration, now desperately, as he frequently did when the warp of his delicate fancy tangled. The smallest thing sometimes fed the machine again—a patch of sunshine, the chip on a plate, the damaged edge of a frame. Then his eye fell on the telephone and he jumped to his feet.
“What a fool I am!” he exclaimed. “If I had been plotting this business out as a story. I should have thought of that long ago…. No, I don’t want any number, at least, not in that way. Two nights ago I was called up by somebody from London who held the line for fully half an hour or so. I’ve—I’ve forgotten the address of my correspondent, but if you can ascertain the number… yes, I shall be here if you will ring me up when you have got it…. Thanks.”
Half an hour passed before the bell trilled again. David listened eagerly. At any rate, now he was going to know the number whence the mysterious message came—0017, Kensington, was the number. David muttered his thanks and flew to his big telephone directory. Yes, there it was—“0017, 446, Prince’s Gate, Gilead Gates.”
The big volume dropped with a crash on the floor. David looked down at the crumpled volume with dim, misty amazement.
“Gilead Gates,” he murmured. “Quaker, millionaire, and philanthropist. One of the most highly-esteemed and popular men in England. And from his house came the message which has been the source of all the mischief. And yet there are critics who say the plots of my novels are too fantastic!”
VII. NO. 218, BRUNSWICK SQUARE
The emotion of surprise seemed to have left Steel altogether. After the last discovery he was prepared to believe anything. Had anybody told him that the whole Bench of Bishops was at the bottom of the mystery he would have responded that the suggestion was highly probable.
“Still, it’s what the inimitable Dick Swiveller would call a staggerer,” he muttered. “Gates, the millionaire, the one great capitalist who has the profound respect of the labour world. No, a man with a record like that couldn’t have anything to do with it. Still, it must have been from his house that the mysterious message came. The post-office people working the telephone trunk line would know that—a fact which probably escaped the party who called me up…. I’ll go to Brunswick Square and see that woman. Money or no money, I’ll not lie under an imputation like this.”
There was one thing to be done beforehand, and that was to see Dr. Cross. From the latter’s manner he evidently knew nothing of the charge hanging over Steel’s head. Marley was evidently keeping that close to himself and speaking to nobody.
“Oh, the man is better.” Cross said, cheerfully. “He hasn’t been identified yet, though the Press has given us every assistance. I fancy the poor fellow is going to recover, though I am afraid it will be a long job.”
“He hasn’t recovered consciousness, then?”
“No, and neither will he for some time to come. There seems to be a certain pressure on the brain which we are unable to locate, and we dare not try the Röntgen rays yet. So on the whole you are likely to escape with a charge of aggravated assault.”
David smiled grimly as he went his way. He walked the whole distance to Hove along North Street and the Western Road, finally turning down Brunswick Square instead of up it, as he had done on the night of the great adventure. He wondered vaguely why he had been specially instructed to approach the house that way.
Here it was at last, 219, Brunswick Square—220 above and, of course, 218 below the house. It looked pretty well the same in the daylight, the same door, the same knocker, and the same crimson blind in the centre of the big bay window. David knocked at the door with a vague feeling of uncertainty as to what he was going to do next. A very staid, old-fashioned footman answered his ring and inquired his business.
“Can—can I see your mistress?” David stammered.
The staid footman became, if possible, a little more reserved. If the gentleman would send in his card he would see if Miss Ruth was disengaged. David found himself vaguely wondering what Miss Ruth’s surname might be. The old Biblical name was a great favourite of his.
“I’m afraid I haven’t a card,” he said. “Will you say that Mr. Steel would like to see—er—Miss Ruth for a few minutes? My business is exceedingly pressing.”
The staid footman led the way into the dining-room. Evidently this was no frivolous house, where giddy butterflies came and went; such gaudy insects would have been chilled by the solemn decorum of the place. David followed into the dining-room in a dreamy kind of way, and with the feeling that comes to us all at times, the sensation of having done and seen the same thing before.
Nothing had been