Читать книгу The Curious Quest - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 11

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That night something happened to Bliss which he had anticipated many times in his dreams since the day when he had marched out of the shop in Regent Street with his working clothes in a parcel under his arm, and a queer and most unaccountable lump in his throat. He had taken his usual respectful adieu of his employer and was walking rather aimlessly down King Street, when he came face to face with two girls. The one nearest to him was the young lady who had visited Mr. Cockerill on the first afternoon of his engagement. The other he recognised with a thrill of pleasure—a pleasure that came to him almost as a shock. It was Frances Clayton.

"Mr. Bliss!" she exclaimed, stopping abruptly on the pavement before him. "Why, whatever—How delightful to see you again!" she broke off with quick tact.

He shook hands silently with an amazing sense of content. She was very well dressed and an entirely different person from the rather sad-eyed young woman who had resented his appointment as traveller to the firm of Masters and Company. He was ridiculously glad to see her.

"Why did you behave so unkindly?" she went on reproachfully.

"Couldn't be helped," he assured her. "Tell me about the cooking stoves. How are they going?"

"Going?" she repeated beamingly. "I wouldn't dare to tell you how many thousands we have sold. Mr. Masters is down in the country now negotiating for a new factory. And you—you ought to be there with him."

Bliss sighed.

"It was great sport selling those stoves," he remarked evasively.

She kept her hands in her muff, but she leaned a little towards him. Her eyes challenged his.

"Before you move," she insisted, "you've got to tell me absolutely why you behaved in such an extraordinary manner."

"Extraordinary manner?" he echoed feebly.

"You know quite well what I mean," she continued. "You saved Mr. Masters from ruin. He has started upon a new lease of life. You laid the foundations of his fortune, then, instead of taking a thing for yourself, you disappeared."

"I couldn't help it," he protested.

His answer was baffling in its very simplicity. She looked him over. His clothes were just respectable, but no more.

"What are you doing now she demanded.

"I have a situation in this street," he answered.

The other girl, who had been standing a little way off, suddenly gave a cry. He knew then that he was recognised.

"Why, you are the young man who let me in to Mr. Cockerill's rooms the other day!" she exclaimed. "Frances, come here a moment."

The two girls talked together earnestly. Presently they returned.

"Mr. Bliss," Frances said, "this is Miss Morrison, a friend of mine. She has been telling me some rather extraordinary things about your employer, Mr. Cockerill. How long have you been with him?"

"Just over three weeks."

Miss Morrison leaned a little forward and intervened. She lowered her voice.

"Did you know anything about him before you went there?" she asked.

"Not a thing," he answered. "I just heard of the job through a Registry Office. One does not require a reference from an employer when one wants work."

"Where are you going now?" Frances broke in a little abruptly.

"Nowhere particular," Bliss replied. "I've just left work."

"Will you come and have some tea with us?" Miss Morrison begged. "I want to talk to you for a few minutes, and I'm quite sure Frances does too. She told me all about you long ago."

"With pleasure," Bliss agreed promptly. "Where shall we go? Rumpelmayer's?"

They stared at him for a moment. Then Frances laughed.

"Absurd!' We'll go to a little place I know. It isn't far, and we can talk in peace. This way."

They found a little tea-shop not far from Piccadilly Circus. There were very few people in the place, and no one within half a dozen yards of their corner table. Yet Miss Morrison lowered her voice when she spoke. She leaned forward across the table with her head supported upon her hands.

"Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Bliss, that you have been with Mr. Cockerill for nearly a month, and you haven't seen through that bird business yet?"

"Seen through it?" Bliss repeated.

"He's a fraud, that's what the man is," she declared tremulously. "He cares no more for birds than you or I. It's all a blind."

The girl pushed back her veil, and in the light of the incandescent gas her face was almost ghastly in its earnestness.

"Frances swears that you are to be trusted, so I want you to listen, and I will tell you all I know of him," she continued. "A month or so ago, I received a letter from him asking me to call at his office in King Street. The letter hinted quite vaguely at a certain episode in my life which I had not imagined that any one save my lawyer and myself, and one other person who is dead, knew anything of. I hesitated for some time. Then I went. I had no idea why. I just wanted to ask for an explanation of his letter. I can remember those awful minutes even now. The birds were singing, that wretched parrot was sitting on his shoulder. He leaned back in his chair, and he calmly reproduced the whole story before me, detail by detail. He sat there with that good-natured smile upon his lips, and he just—watched. When he had finished, he asked me questions, and all the time I struggled to answer them, he still watched. Then he told me word for word the contents of a letter I had once written, a letter I would have given my life to have recalled. Do you know that after I left his office I did not sleep for three nights."

"Do you mean to suggest that he is a blackmailer?" Bliss asked bluntly.

"Of course he is," the girl replied chokingly. "As yet, he hasn't given himself away, simply because he wants to find out how much money I can raise. He has made me go there three times on some pretext or other; and each time he just talks that hideous affair over and watches me."

"He has just written to Miss Morrison asking her to go and see him again next Monday," Frances intervened.

"And when I go," the girl faltered, "I know precisely what will happen. He will make me tell my story all over again."

"And in the end he will want money," Frances broke in. "Any one can see that."

"And I haven't got a penny," Miss Morrison exclaimed hopelessly. "I haven't a penny."

Bliss sat back a little grimly in his chair. In a way, the girl's story had been a shock to him.

"Tell me exactly what I can do in the matter?" he asked.

"Search his rooms," Frances answered promptly. "Spy upon him. Get some evidence to prove that he is really a blackmailer."

Bliss sighed. Both the girls were almost hanging over him in their excitement.

"Well, we'll see," he promised. "I will do what I can."

He paid for the tea bravely. No one would have guessed from his manner that it was his last half-sovereign which he handed over the counter for change. Frances scribbled upon a piece of paper and gave it to him.

"There's my address," she said. "When will you come and see me?"

He hesitated.

"I will answer my own question," she continued firmly. "You will come on Sunday afternoon to tea."

He accepted cheerfully. Sunday had been, perhaps, the most miserable of all those purgatorial days. "About four o'clock I will be there," he promised.