Читать книгу The Leopard's Spots - Fred M. White - Страница 12

Table of Contents

It was just after 8 o'clock before Stagg, beautifully turned out, and looking rather more distinguished than usual, strolled into the famous Venetian dining-room at Tagoni's and asked for a table. He had been there more than once before, so that the waiter recognised him for an aristocratic client and piloted him across the crowded room. So far as Stagg could see there was not an empty table anywhere, a fact that he pointed out presently to Senor Tagoni himself.

"It appears that I have come too late," he said in his usual pleasant fashion. "Your advertisement in the 'Times' appears to have been very successful."

The Italian, shrugged his shoulders.

"That was no doing of mine," he said. "We have no occasion for such methods, sir. An appointment, what you call the assignation. A meeting of the lovers, perhaps, what you will, but an advertisement, never."

Stagg smiled, for he had gained the information he needed, and presently he saw a vacant seat at a table for two, the other chair being occupied by a young man who was dining alone.

"That will do for me," Stagg said. "Tomorrow you will perhaps keep me a table—in fact, you might keep me a table all the week. Oh, there is no occasion to apologise. Besides, I rather like the look of that young man."

Stagg sat down and chose his dinner from the menu with meticulous care. He might, or might not, be in for an evening's adventure, but he was perfectly sure of the fact that this contingency was not going to spoil his dinner. When he had dispatched his fish, and finished his first glass of champagne, he turned to his vis-a-vis with some trivial remark with a view to opening a conversation. Like every man who fully appreciates the pleasures of the table, Stagg hated to dine in silence. But he spoke twice before the young man opposite looked up from his plate and seemed to hear what was said.

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "But I am afraid my thoughts were elsewhere. Yes, an excellent dinner."

"You are familiar with the place?" Stagg asked.

"I don't know," the other said vaguely.

It was a particularly astonishing remark, and one that arrested Stagg at once. He glanced keenly across the table. He saw a young man, exceedingly well dressed in a suit of grey flannel, probably the only morning suit in the restaurant; a young man with well cut features and clean-shaven, slightly anxious-looking mouth. An athlete and outdoor man beyond question from the clear bronze of his cheeks, under which, however, a curious sort of pallor lay. The light-blue eyes were keen and steadfast enough, but just a little absent, with a faint suggestion of fear in them. All this Stagg noticed in that quick way of his, though his face was innocent enough of curiosity.

"I don't quite understand you," he said. "How do you mean? You don't know—"

"I don't," the young man said, "I don't really."

"Oh, well, I suppose you mean you have forgotten whether you have been here before or not. I can understand that in the case of a man who has travelled a great deal, and I should hazard a guess that you have seen much of the world."

"I have indeed," the other man smiled oddly. "Europe, China, Japan, South Africa, to say nothing of the States. In my many adventures there was not one more singular than the one I am up against at the present moment."

"I should like to hear," Stagg said.

He settled himself down easily in his chair. It was no new thing for him to find people telling him their troubles. That innocent face of his, those smiling good-natured eyes, and, above all, his silvery hair, were assets in the shape of confidences that he had never known to fail. And that this young man was in some great trouble Stagg did not for a moment doubt. He lay back in his chair positively exuding sympathy and overflowing with fine benevolence.

"Pray tell me," he said. "You will find in me a good listener. And if I can help you—"

"Oh, I am sure you can," the young man said. "Anybody can see you are a gentleman, one accustomed to good society and in easy circumstances. You asked me just now if I have ever been here before, and I said I didn't know. And that, my dear sir, is the gospel truth. The waiters' faces are vaguely familiar, and so are some of the people dining here. I came here quite unconsciously, I might say, and yet I found my way to the vestibule and lounge as if I had been coming here every day of my life. But who I am, and what I am doing, is an absolute blank to me. In other words, I have lost my memory. I have been wandering about London for two days in the hope that I might meet someone who knew me. I have a bedroom in a little hotel off the Strand where I have established a sort of wardrobe, but who I am and where I came from I don't know more than the dead. Perhaps I am not an Englishman at all. I may be an American who is far away from home and friends; in which case, I might drift on indefinitely."

"Well, there's one thing you can rely upon," Stagg said. "You are no American with that accent. My dear young friend, you have public school and varsity written all over you, and that exceedingly well-cut flannel suit of yours could have come from nowhere but Bond-street. You are English, right enough. Now, tell me what you can recollect."

"Well, one day last week," the other said, "I woke up early in the morning out of doors on a common. I was all a mass of blood, my hat was smashed, and I had a nasty wound on the back of my head. I managed to wash myself in a pond, then in a local shop I bought myself a shirt and collar and a straw hat. I changed in a wood and burnt the other things, because, for some vague reason, I was afraid. I thought at first that I had been clubbed for the sake of my valuables. But I found all my money intact, what there was of it, and at the time it so happened I wasn't wearing a watch. Then I came on to London and put up at the place I told you about. But though I know that I have been all over the world, I can remember nothing that happened before last Friday morning. You can't imagine what a relief it is to tell somebody."

"I think I can," Stagg said sympathetically. "But why didn't you go to the nearest police station?"

The young man hesitated for a moment or two.

"I think I had better tell you," he said. "Now, sir, I ask you, do I look like a thief? Do I in any way resemble a criminal? I don't feel one. I have tried to feel one, but the mere idea is abhorrent to me. And yet I don't know, I really don't Mr.—er—'"

"Stagg. Montagu Stagg is my name."

"Well, I don't know, Mr. Stagg. Give me that paper, or hold it up in front of you. Now, what do you think of this? I found these things in an envelope in the outside pocket of my coat. I don't want anybody to see them, because it is just possible that somebody is watching me."

Stagg made a sort of shield of the evening paper, and on it the young man proceeded to pour a handful of glittering diamonds, together with an ornament set with the same sort of stones which looked to Stagg uncommonly like a five-pointed star. When he came to examine it more closely he saw from a tiny fracture on two of the edges that it was beyond question the counterpart of the star that he had picked up in the house in Porchester-place.

"Put those back in your pocket," he said sharply. "You are quite safe in my hands, and if it is any consolation to you, I implicitly believe all you have said. But, at the same time, you are in deadly peril. Never mind how I know, let it be sufficient that you are. Now, finish your dinner quickly and go out, and I will meet you in half an hour's time on the Embankment by Cleopatra's Needle. No; on second thoughts, wait. That is if you can trust me."

"Oh, yes," the young man said. "I do trust you. I must."