Читать книгу A Debt Discharged - Edgar Wallace - Страница 4

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IT was Ladies' Night at the Terriers, and the street before the big club-house was filled with luxurious motor cars, for the Terriers is a most fashionable club, and Ladies' Night marks the opening of the season, though there are some who vainly imagine that the Duchess of Gurdmore's ball inaugurates that period of strenuous festivity.

The great pillared hall was irrecognizable to the crusty habitués of the club; though they were not there to recognize it, for there was a section of the Terriers who solemnly cursed this Ladies' Night, which meant a week's inconvenience to them, the disturbance of the smooth current of their lives, the turning of the card-rooms into supping places and the introduction of new waiters.

But to most of the Terriers, Ladies' Night was something to look forward to and something to look back upon, for here assembled not only all that was greatest and most beautiful in society, but brilliant men who ordinarily had neither time nor inclination to accept the Terriers' hospitality.

It was a pouring wet night when Wentworth Gold ascended the marble steps of the club, made slow progress through the throng in the hall, and reached the cloakroom to deposit his hat and cloak, and his inevitable goloshes.

Wentworth Gold was a man who had unusual interests. He was an American of middle height, clean shaven, with hair parted in the middle and brushed back in the style of jeunesse dorée. He had shaggy eyebrows, a chin blue with shaving, and he wore pince-nez, behind which twinkled a pair of grey eyes.

He was not handsome, but he was immensely wise. Moreover, he was the type, rather ugly than plain, with which women fall easily in love.

He was American, and admitted his sin with a pride which was about three cents short of arrogance.

He lived in England and liked the English. He said this in a tone of good-natured tolerance which suggested he was trying to humour poor creatures whom fortune had denied the privilege of birth in Shusha, Pa. And he was immensely popular, because he was really a patriot and really American. His great-grandfather had heaved a brick at Lord Cornwallis or something of the sort, and in such soil as this is patriotism sown.

He did not wave little flags, he did not wear a pork-pie hat, nor had his tailor, but the aid of cotton-wool and stiffening, given him the athletic shoulders which are the charm of college youth and amuse Paris.

What Gold did for a living besides playing auction bridge at the Terriers' Club few people knew. He called at the Embassy once or twice a week "for letters." Sometimes he would call for those letters at three o'clock in the morning, and the Ambassador would interview him in his ambassadorial pyjamas.

There was such an interview when the President of a small but hilarious South American Republic decided on aggressive action with another small and equally aggressive nation with a contiguous border line.

The chronology of the day in question may be thus tabulated:

5:00 p.m. Sr Gonso de Silva (private secretary to HE the President of Furiria) arrived at the Carlton.

5:30 p.m. M. Dubec (agent of the Compagnie d'Artillerie Belgique) also arrived, and was closeted with the secretary.

8:00 p.m. They dined in a private room.

9:00 p.m. M. Dubec left for the Continent.

2:00 a.m. Wentworth S Gold arrived at the Embassy.

5:00 a.m Señor de Silva visited by Inspector Grayson (Special Foreign Section of the Criminal Investigation Department).

9:00 a.m Señor de Silva left London in a state of great annoyance for Paris.

11:00 a.m Inspector Grayson and Wentworth S Gold met by accident on the Thames Embankment and solemnly exchanged winks.