Читать книгу Mysterious Mr. Sabin - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 15

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Wolfenden, for an idler, was a young man of fairly precise habits. By ten o’clock next morning he had breakfasted, and before eleven he was riding in the Park. Perhaps he had some faint hope of seeing there something of the two people in whom he was now greatly interested. If so he was certainly disappointed. He looked with a new curiosity into the faces of the girls who galloped past him, and he was careful even to take particular notice of the few promenaders. But he did not see anything of Mr. Sabin or his companion.

At twelve o’clock he returned to his rooms and exchanged his riding-clothes for the ordinary garb of the West End. He even looked on his hall-table as he passed out again, to see if there were any note or card for him.

“He could scarcely look me up just yet, at any rate,” he reflected, as he walked slowly along Piccadilly, “for he did not even ask me for my address. He took the whole thing so coolly that perhaps he does not mean even to call.”

Nevertheless, he looked in the rack at his club to see if there was anything against his name, and tore into pieces the few unimportant notes he found there, with an impatience which they scarcely deserved. Of the few acquaintances whom he met there, he inquired casually whether they knew anything of a man named “Sabin.” No one seemed to have heard the name before. He even consulted a directory in the hall, but without success. At one o’clock, in a fit of restlessness, he went out, and taking a hansom drove over to Westminster, to Harcutt’s rooms. Harcutt was in, and with him Densham. At Wolfenden’s entrance the three men looked at one another, and there was a simultaneous laugh.

“Here comes the hero,” Densham remarked. “He will be able to tell us everything.”

“I came to gather information, not to impart it,” Wolfenden answered, selecting a cigarette, and taking an easy chair. “I know precisely as much as I knew last night.”

“Mr. Sabin has not been to pour out his gratitude yet, then?” Densham asked.

Wolfenden shook his head.

“Not yet. On the whole, I am inclined to think that he will not come at all. He doubtless considers that he has done all that is necessary in the way of thanks. He did not even ask for my card, and giving me his was only a matter of form, for there was no address upon it.”

“But he knew your name,” Harcutt reminded him. “I noticed that.”

“Yes. I suppose he could find me if he wished to,” Wolfenden admitted. “If he had been very keen about it, though, I should think he would have said something more. His one idea seemed to be to get away before there was a row.”

“I do not think,” Harcutt said, “that you will find him overburdened with gratitude. He does not seem that sort of man.”

“I do not want any gratitude from him,” Wolfenden answered, deliberately. “So far as the man himself is concerned I should rather prefer never to see him again. By the bye, did either of you fellows follow them home last night?”

Harcutt and Densham exchanged quick glances. Wolfenden had asked his question quietly, but it was evidently what he had come to know.

“Yes,” Harcutt said, “we both did. They are evidently people of some consequence. They went first to the house of the Russian Ambassador, Prince Lobenski.”

Wolfenden swore to himself softly. He could have been there. He made a mental note to leave a card at the Embassy that afternoon.

“And afterwards?”

“Afterwards they drove to a house in Chilton Gardens, Kensington, where they remained.”

“The presumption being, then——” Wolfenden began.

“That they live there,” Harcutt put in. “In fact, I may say that we ascertained that definitely. The man’s name is ‘Sabin,’ and the girl is reputed to be his niece. Now you know as much as we do. The relationship, however, is little more than a surmise.”

“Did either of you go to the reception?” Wolfenden asked.

“We both did,” Harcutt answered.

Wolfenden raised his eyebrows.

“You were there! Then why didn’t you make their acquaintance?”

Densham laughed shortly.

“I asked for an introduction to the girl,” he said, “and was politely declined. She was under the special charge of the Princess, and was presented to no one.”

“And Mr. Sabin?” Wolfenden asked.

“He was talking all the time to Baron von Knigenstein, the German Ambassador. They did not stay long.”

Wolfenden smiled.

“It seems to me,” he said, “that you had an excellent opportunity and let it go.”

Harcutt threw his cigarette into the fire with an impatient gesture.

“You may think so,” he said. “All I can say is, that if you had been there yourself, you could have done no more. At any rate, we have no particular difficulty now in finding out who this mysterious Mr. Sabin and the girl are. We may assume that there is a relationship,” he added, “or they would scarcely have been at the Embassy, where, as a rule, the guests make up in respectability what they lack in brilliancy.”

“As to the relationship,” Wolfenden said, “I am quite prepared to take that for granted. I, for one, never doubted it.”

“That,” Harcutt remarked, “is because you are young, and a little quixotic. When you have lived as long as I have you will doubt everything. You will take nothing for granted unless you desire to live for ever amongst the ruins of your shattered enthusiasms. If you are wise, you will always assume that your swans are geese until you have proved them to be swans.”

“That is very cheap cynicism,” Wolfenden remarked equably. “I am surprised at you, Harcutt. I thought that you were more in touch with the times. Don’t you know that to-day nobody is cynical except schoolboys and dyspeptics? Pessimism went out with sack overcoats. Your remarks remind me of the morning odour of patchouli and stale smoke in a cheap Quartier Latin dancing-room. To be in the fashion of to-day, you must cultivate a gentle, almost arcadian enthusiasm, you must wear rose-coloured spectacles and pretend that you like them. Didn’t you hear what Flaskett said last week? There is an epidemic of morality in the air. We are all going to be very good.”

“Some of us,” Densham remarked, “are going to be very uncomfortable, then.”

“Great changes always bring small discomforts,” Wolfenden rejoined. “But after all I didn’t come here to talk nonsense. I came to ask you both something. I want to know whether you fellows are bent upon seeing this thing through?”

Densham and Harcutt exchanged glances. There was a moment’s silence. Densham became spokesman.

“So far as finding out who they are and all about them,” he said, “I shall not rest until I have done it.”

“And you, Harcutt?”

Harcutt nodded gravely.

“I am with Densham,” he said. “At the same time I may as well tell you that I am quite as much, if not more, interested in the man than in the girl. The girl is beautiful, and of course I admire her, as every one must. But that is all. The man appeals to my journalistic instincts. There is copy in him. I am convinced that he is a personage. You may, in fact, regard me, both of you, as an ally rather than as a rival.”

“If you had your choice, then, of an hour’s conversation with either of them——” Wolfenden began.

“I should choose the man without a second’s hesitation,” Harcutt declared. “The girl is lovely enough, I admit. I do not wonder at you fellows—Densham, who is a worshipper of beauty; you, Wolfenden, who are an idler—being struck with her! But as regards myself it is different. The man appeals to my professional instincts in very much the same way as the girl appeals to the artistic sense in Densham. He is a conundrum which I have set myself to solve.”

Wolfenden rose to his feet.

“Look here, you fellows,” he said, “I have a proposition to make. We are all three in the same boat. Shall we pull together or separately?”

Harcutt dropped his eyeglass and smiled quietly.

“Quixotic as usual, Wolf, old chap,” he said. “We can’t, our interests are opposed; at least yours and Densham’s are. You will scarcely want to help one another under the circumstances.”

Wolfenden drew on his gloves.

“I have not explained myself yet,” he said. “The thing must have its limitations, of course, but for a step or two even Densham and I can walk together. Let us form an alliance so far as direct information is concerned. Afterwards it must be every man for himself, of course. I suppose we each have some idea as to how and where to set about making inquiries concerning these people. Very well. Let us each go our own way and share up the information to-night.”

“I am quite willing,” Densham said, “only let this be distinctly understood—we are allies only so far as the collection and sharing of information is concerned. Afterwards, and in other ways, it is each man for himself. If one of us succeeds in establishing a definite acquaintance with them, the thing ends. There is no need for either of us to do anything with regard to the others, which might militate against his own chances.”

“I am agreeable to that,” Harcutt said. “From Densham’s very elaborate provisoes I think we may gather that he has a plan.”

“I agree too,” Wolfenden said, “and I specially endorse Densham’s limit. It is an alliance so far as regards information only. Suppose we go and have some lunch together now.”

“I never lunch out, and I have a better idea,” said Harcutt. “Let us meet at the ‘Milan’ to-night for supper at the same time. We can then exchange information, supposing either of us has been fortunate enough to acquire any. What do you say, Wolfenden?”

“I am quite willing,” Wolfenden said.

“And I,” echoed Densham. “At half-past eleven, then,” Harcutt concluded.