The Corner House. Fred M. White
hoarsely. "I did find you out, and here I am. Oh, it was a cunning plot of yours--so near and yet so far away. And as much brandy as I could drink so that I might drink myself to death, and after that perhaps a handsome monument testifying to my virtues. But I'm not going to stand it any more, I'm not going back there."
No reply for a moment, nothing but a quick heaving of the broad bosom, a livid play like summer lightning in the dark eyes. The man lighted a cigarette and puffed it noisily.
"I've got you, my lady," he said hoarsely. "Last time we parted you were not so comfortable as you are now, a troisième and a few francs per day out of the cards when the police were complaisant. Here you have everything. There are a score of things that I could pawn for enough to keep me going for months. Ma foi, but you must be very rich."
"I have not £20 of ready money in the world."
"Give me carte blanche and I will put that right for you. I bear no malice. Reverse the positions and I shall do my best to put you out of the way. But I am not going back there any more."
"What do you propose to do, then?"
"Retire to the Continent. Tomorrow you let me have £500 as a guarantee of good faith. Then I leave you--for the present. After that you can marry the young doctor who has won your affections and be happy--for, say a week."
Leona Lalage's white teeth came together with a click. It was good for the man that she had no weapon in her hand. It was hard work to keep down the tornado of passion that filled her. It seemed hard to imagine that she had once loved this man. Heavens! what a fool she once was.
"You know too much," she said quietly. "If that fool Giuseppe had done his duty you would have gone down to your drunkard's grave in ignorance. But you are not going on the Continent tomorrow or the next day. Fool, fool, have you not lived long enough to know that all that glitters is not gold! For the moment I am living on my reputation and the splendour of this house. Not one penny have I paid for it. People hold documents and title deeds of mine that are forgeries. I have a grand coup that may come off, and again it may fail. For the moment I am penniless."
The man nodded. The woman was speaking the truth, and he knew it.
"And in the meantime what do you propose to do?" she asked, swiftly.
"There is but one thing for it," the man responded. "There is ever before my eyes the fear of the police. Therefore I go back to my prison house till you are ready. But I have escaped once, and I shall escape again. Play me false, and I will come out and denounce you before a whole crowd of your painted butterflies. I could say to your medical Adonis----"
"Be silent," Leona Lalage hissed, "take heed lest you go too far. Begone, get back to your kennel, anywhere out of my sight. Do you think I want to keep you near me an hour longer than is necessary?"
He was gone at last; the hall door closed behind him. His footsteps echoed on the pavement a few yards and then stopped. After that the whole world seemed to be wrapped in silence. It was nearly dawn before Leona Lalage crept into bed. She carefully locked away some papers that she had almost committed to heart. There was triumph in her sleepy eyes.
"Freedom and revenge," she murmured. "What good words they are. Tomorrow! Well, tomorrow shall be my destruction or my Waterloo!"
CHAPTER VI.
A VISITOR.
On the whole, Gordon Bruce was persuaded that the world was a pleasant place to live in. He had youth and intellect and ambition that looked likely to be satisfied. Two years before he had recklessly ventured his small capital on a suite of ground floor rooms in Duke Street, and for some little time he had had a hard struggle to keep up appearances, and pay the instalments as they came due on his somewhat showy furniture.
But it had all come right in the end. He had had a little luck, but his great good fortune, or so it seemed, was when he had been called in to attend little Mamie Lalage. The Countess was just beginning to swim then upon the high tide of popularity. That the woman in her passionate, headstrong way had fallen in love with him Bruce never dreamt. It was only Hetty's woman's eyes and woman's instinct that had found the truth.
But the Countess was the fashion, and her doctor looked like being the fashion, too. A Duchess had taken him up; she had firmly persuaded herself that Bruce had saved the life of one of her children. From a hundred or two, Bruce suddenly found his income expanded to as many thousands. No wonder that his dreams were pleasant as he lay back smoking a cigarette after dinner. There was only one drawback--most of those two thousand pounds were on his books.
Well, his credit was good. If he could lay his hands upon a hundred or two now, he would begin to furnish the house in Green Street at once. Then when the season was over he and Hetty could be married. Yes, on the whole Gordon Bruce's cigarette just then was an enchanting one.
There was a ring at the hall and a servant came in. Gordon hoped that it was not a patient. He was dressed for a party, where he hoped to meet Hetty; not a grand affair, but a few friends in Gilbert Lawrence's luxurious chambers. Bruce looked at the card in his hand.
"I wonder who Herr Max Kronin is?" he muttered. "Ask the gentleman in."
He came, a mild-looking elderly German, heavy grey moustache, and eyes hidden behind a pair of silver-rimmed spectacles. He was slow of speech and gasped a great deal as if he had some trouble at his heart.
"You wished to speak to me," said Gordon. "Pray sit down."
The elderly stranger did so, and immediately the atmosphere was impregnated with an odour of strong tobacco.
"It is not as a patient I came," he said. "I take the liberty to occupy some of your valuable time. If you are in one hurry--"
"Not in the least," Bruce replied. "I have half an hour at your disposal. Your case----"
"Ach, but I have no case, I am not what you call a patient. It is another matter--a matter of sentiment."
Gordon bowed again; evidently a lunatic of the harmless type.
"Some days ago you bought a picture," Herr Kronin proceeded. "It was a small picture of the early Dutch School, signed J. Halbin. A woman nursing a sick child, and the father looking on. Not a valuable picture."
"Certainly not," Bruce agreed. "I happen to know an expert who told me so. It took my fancy and I gave ten pounds for it, which, I understand, is about a tenth of its full value."
Herr Max Kronin nodded approvingly.
"That is so. Otherwise I should not be here tonight. As pictures go, £100 is not much. But that picture belonged to my mother's family--in fact, she is descended from the J. Halbin who painted it. It was sold some years ago at a time of great distress. We were sorry. Sentimental, you say, but it would be a bad world without sentiment. My sister, she never ceased to mourn over that picture. When the good time comes she try to get him back. But he has disappeared. Picture my delight when I see him in a little time ago in a shop window. I go home for my chequebook--for I am not a poor man, Herr Bruce, now--and I hurry back to the shop. On my way I send a telegram to my sister to say the picture is found. When I reach the shop you have beaten me by ten minutes."
Herr Kronin paused, overcome by deep distress. His eyes behind the big glasses looked appealingly at Bruce.
"So you want to buy it from me," he suggested encouragingly.
"Oh, that is it, Herr Bruce, beyond doubt, that is it. It will be easier for me, I shall not be so distressed, if you let me make a bargain with you. Herr Bruce, I will give you £200 for the picture."
Bruce hesitated for a moment. But why not? The man was wealthy, and the picture was worth half what he asked, perhaps more, for experts are not always correct. And £200 would mean the beginning of the furnishing of the new house. Dim visions of a happy honeymoon rose before him.
"Very well," he said. "You shall have the picture.