Читать книгу The Grey Woman - Fred M. White - Страница 5

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It was getting late before Joe Musgrave's little party turned out of the Metrodrome and made their way as far as the dance club which the host had selected as an appropriate spot with which to wind up the evening. It had not been a successful birthday party, and Joe, on his part, would be glad enough to see the end of it. As far as he was concerned, he had not the least desire to go on to the Aphrodite, which had been a concession to Pamela and that pose of hers of which he was getting heartily tired. Again, he knew perfectly well that Daphne's mother strongly objected to that sort of thing, and that if she ever found out how he had taken advantage of her absence from London, she would most certainly make things unpleasant for him. He glanced from time to time at the pearls round Daphne's neck and hoped that all might be well with them. Other girls at The Aphrodite were equally equipped with such costly ornaments, but there was always the risk of trouble, even in the very best appointed dance clubs in London. Joe made up his mind that the expiration of another hour would see him and his friends on their way home.

A clock somewhere was striking one as they entered the club. It was the last word in London's dancing halls, and a fine cosmopolitan crowd had gathered there. A good many of the dancers belonged to the same class as Joe and his party and, on the other hand, a great many of them didn't. But, for the moment, at any rate, The Aphrodite had a cachet of its own, which was denied to other resorts of the same calibre. A sporting peer with somewhat of a hectic past was supposed to be behind it, and for the moment at least he was mending his broken fortunes there. Anyway Society had smiled on The Aphrodite and was according it a pleasing measure of its golden favours. But exclusive it never could be, and there were many strange fish swimming in those tropical waters. This was a fact that did not waste itself on the argus eyes of the law whose extensive knowledge of the roseate past of the noble owner inclined to carefulness so far as that Haymarket establishment was concerned. Meanwhile the ball rolled merrily and London's capital gathered there o' nights with a leavening of the cosmopolitan element, a deal of which had come in contact with justice in her sterner moments.

The dining and supper rooms of The Aphrodite were in the basement, with the dancing room and bar on the first floor. Behind the men's cloakroom was a mysterious door that seemed to lead to nowhere, though some of those in the know might have thrown some light on the subject. But nobody had ever seen the door open and, with average luck, probably never would.

As Joe led his party into the room where dancing was in full fling, he saw that the floor was crowded. He was still a little quiet and moody, with Daphne rather frightened and Pamela hiding her physical weariness behind a cloak of bored cynicism.

"What a mob," she drawled, none too quietly. "An engaging mixture of high Society and high crime. And, upon my word, the submerged tenth seem to be better turned out than the caste of Vere de Vere. Oh, look at that man with the curly hair. I should like to have a dance with him."

"Would you?" Joe asked grumpily. "I happen to know something about him. Sort of man-about-town who is always well turned out and with money to burn. Lives in a luxurious flat and is strongly suspected of having had a hand in the disappearance of Lady Maidenham's jewels. Educated and all that and very nearly 'just so,' but the sort of chap to be avoided."

"You are right there," a voice broke in at Joe's elbow. "Miss Dacre, Joe knows what he is talking about."

Pamela swung half insolently round to confront a very old man, absolutely bald, but whose clear blue eyes and magnificently false teeth detracted at least 20 years from what must have been his age. A very old man, yet carrying himself jauntily and with a vivacity that was truly astonishing.

"What, you here!" she said. "Well, there is something about modern dancing after all. Who was it said that there is nothing like dancing to keep one young?"

Sir John Goldsworthy, man of the world, diplomat of distinction and, incidentally, an octogenarian, fixed his glass in his eye and regarded Pamela with flattering approval.

"It is, indeed, the secret of perennial youth, my dear young lady," he smiled. "Look at me. Eighty years of age and footing it with the best of them. But my friend Joe Musgrave was quite right in what he was saying about that young man with the Hyperion locks. I know you modern girls don't care who you dance with so long as your partner is good, but if you will take my advice you will give Vivian Beaucaire a wide berth. But don't let me interrupt you."

With that the aged Adonis slipped away into the crowd and was speedily lost to view.

"Wonderful old boy," Jimmy Primrose murmured. "There is a man who knows more of English family secrets than anyone alive. Lord, what a biography he could write. Talk about Samuel Pepys, why he wouldn't be in it with Goldsworthy. Fifty years in the Diplomat's Service, too. The biggest old gossip in London. He ought to have been dead long ago."

"Nobody dies nowadays," Pamela drawled. "They haven't the time. But really, Joe, is that man with the curly hair as bad as you make him out to be. He looks to me more like an Admirable Crichton than a picturesque villain."

"Most of that class do, nowadays," Joe said grimly. "But he's a real bad lot. His mother was English but his father was French. Supposed to belong to a fine old family. Anyway, he was at Winchester and Oxford, and didn't do badly in the war. I suppose his name is really Beaucaire, though I must confess that it has a Claude Duval flavour about it. Oh, yes, he is handsome enough, and fascinating too, and belongs to one or two good clubs, but he is suspect, all the same. Sort of man people are always talking about, without ever being able to lay hands upon any sinister spot. But never mind about him. If we are to make effort to enjoy this sort of thing, the sooner we start the better. Now, come along."

An hour or so elapsed and Musgrave was beginning to wonder how much longer Pamela could keep it up. That she was utterly worn out in mind and body he could plainly see, and yet, at the same time, he knew that any hint from him as to bed would be resented with scorn and contumely. His moody eye took in the the motley throng dancing on the crowded floor. A queer sort of social leavening which would have been impossible before the war. The dainty aristocrat and Madame Anonyma members of the same house-party, so to speak. A sleek Hebrew slid by with the most beautiful woman in the room on his arm. A tall goddess she, in flaming red, who might have come direct from an imperial palace if she had not happened to be an assistant in a Dover-street modiste's establishment.

Pamela tapped her foot impatiently on the floor. She had danced once or twice with her own party, but that had not satisfied a natural thirst for adventure. Tired as she was, she had reacted strongly to the exotic atmosphere. Those cocktails, that Joe so loathed and hated, together with two glasses of champagne at dinner, acted as a charm in washing out the deadly tiredness that she had brought with her when first she passed through the front door of The Aphrodite. That high racial courage of hers and calm sense of superiority stood her in good stead now and the spirit of adventure moved her to a certain recklessness.

"Come on, Joe," she ordered. "On with the dance, let joy be unconfined. Don't stand there with a moody frown on your brow, like Brunswick's fated chieftain."

Daphne and Jimmy Primrose had disappeared somewhere amongst the giddy throng that swayed on the floor. But still Joe Musgrave held back. Troubled in the honest mind of his was Joe—troubled and worried about Pamela. Those cocktails he could not, somehow or other, get out of his mind. He knew only too well the source of excitement which was carrying her on when she was not far off a physical collapse. So easy to begin like this, so difficult to leave off later. And practically no rest day or night. In the country, on the links, in the saddle, on the moorside, there was a different Pamela altogether. No seeking artificial stimulation there. If he could not get her out of this into the open again for good, with, perhaps, a week of two in town occasionally, Pamela of the rosy tinted cheeks would come back again. But for the moment——

"I suppose Achilles prefers to sulk in his tent," Pamela went on. "Even so, my lord?"

"It isn't that," Joe protested. "You are done to the world, and you know it. Why not own up and go to bed? I haven't had a day to compare with yours, and yet I can hardly keep my eyes open. There is reason in all things, Pam."

"Very well," Pamela retorted. "Even so, my lord. Then I will seek solace elsewhere. I see Billy Sefton over there without a partner. He will welcome me with open arms."

Pamela had vanished before Joe could protest. She was more angry with him, despite her assumed cynical indifference, than she cared to confess. She had always known in the back of her mind that, sooner or later, she and Joe would make a match of it. Everybody looked forward to that consummation as a matter of course. There were all the gifts of the gods on both sides, with youth and beauty as the crowning glory.

And all might have been well but for Pamela's cynical pose. She liked to assume the detached air of a mature wisdom, regarding with half-closed eyes the empty follies of poor humanity, much as the theatre-goer in the stalls criticises a brilliant comedy in the light of personal experience. Jimmy Primrose always maintained that Pamela had caught the trick from some matinee idol whom she had secretly admired. Still, there it was and, what was more, it had lasted for the better part of twelve months. That and the cocktails and the——

"All alone, Joe," Jimmy struck in on Joe's pensive moodiness. "Where have you shed Pamela?"

"Dancing with Bill Sefton," Joe explained. "Somewhere in the thick of the scrum. I haven't caught sight of her during the last half hour. Ah, there she is."

Pamela flashed out of the mob of dancers so close to the table where the others were standing that they could almost have touched her. Came a gasp of astonishment from Daphne, something like a whistle from Jimmy, and a smothered curse from Joe.

For Pamela was dancing with the curly-haired man!

She came back to the table presently with a slow smile dawning on her face. She threw a challenge at Joe.

"A wonderful dancer," she drawled. "Positively the first time I have really enjoyed the Charleston."

"How—how did you manage it?" Daphne stammered.

"Oh, I asked Billy Sefton. He seemed to know the man and brought us together. And, of course, Billy Sefton being what he is, would never have introduced Vivian Beaucaire unless he had been all right, whatever Joe may say."

Joe rose from his chair with a grim expression on his face.

"I have had about enough of this," he declared. "I am going home, right here and now. Of course, if you others like to remain, you can, it is no concern of mine."

"Going to leave me here," Pamela gibed.

"That is for you to say. You heard what Goldsworthy had to say about Beaucaire, and yet in the face of that you deliberately choose to dance with the man. Have you no sort of regard for your reputation?"

"I think I can take care of that," Pamela said icily.

"Oh, be a sport, Joe," Jimmy pleaded. "Don't spoil the evening because Pamela likes to cut a caper. Hang it all, we are your guests here, don't you know."

"I haven't forgotten it," Joe growled. "But even a host is entitled to some sort of consideration. I am going home and you others can stay or not, as you like."

"Here I am and here I stay," Pamela quoted. "Besides, this cave-man stuff doesn't appeal to me."

"Just a little longer, Joe," Daphne implored.

"Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb," Jimmy suggested. "I mean Daphne might. I'll see her home."

"Very well," Joe said grimly. "You others can do as you like. I am going home to bed."

With his head high in the air, Joe stalked out and the place knew him no more. Pamela smiled languidly.

"What a masculine act," she exclaimed. "Where do these Victorian survivals come from. And what ought we to feed them on? Dear old Methuselah."

"Think he really has gone home?" Jimmy asked.

"Beyond the shadow of a doubt," Pamela laughed. "It was ever Joe's habit, when peeved, to go straight to bed. He will probably lie awake the rest of the night worrying about us and wondering if he did the right thing. When I get back home I will ring him up on the telephone. He has an extension to his bedside, and, it might soothe his anxious mind to know that I have not been abducted by a sort of West End sheik. And now let's get on with it. I am fed up with Joe."

But somehow Pamela did not get on with it. A wave of tiredness swept over her, a tiredness which was not altogether without a touch of remorse. She would pick up a partner presently, she told the others; meanwhile she would sit and look on. There were several men in the room who were known to her and one of them would come up and ask her for a dance.

So she sat there alone, in that fine calm pose of hers, feeling a little dejected and unhappy. Not that she was worrying about Joe—oh dear, no, Joe would be all right when they met on the morrow, as he always was after a tiff. It was part of the ritual. Still, she wished now——

Some sort of a disturbance at the far end of the floor distracted her introspective philosophy. An erratic performer, probably the worse for a glass or two of the club's vile champagne, charged into a passing couple and brought them down. Just for a moment the suggestion of a football scrimmage was there. Then the tangle of silk and black and white resolved itself, and from it emerged Daphne and Jimmy, hot and indignant.

"Drunken swine," Jimmy fumed. "Barged right into us. And if some chap hadn't given Daphne a hand she might have been hurt. Took a toss as it was, poor girl."

"So you were in the melee?" Pamela asked. "In my more penitent moments, I wonder why we come to these places. But, Daphne, old thing, what has become of your pearl necklace?"

Daphne put a trembling hand to her throat and gasped. The precious family pearls were no longer there.

"Pinched for a million," Jimmy groaned. "Let's raise the cry. Have the door locked and everybody searched."

Pamela laid a restraining hand on his arm. It was in moments like this that her natural courage and coolness stood her in such good stead.

"Be quiet," she whispered. "Sit down. Don't let anybody see that we are disturbed. If we pretend not to notice the loss the thieves, who are probably watching us, will stay where they are. Once we start a hue and cry, then they will go hand to hand and Daphne will never see her family treasures again. Probably even the waiters are in league with the thieves. No, our only chance is to keep quiet and watch. We don't want a scandal, or to give the papers anything to talk about. Now, Daphne, try and look natural. Smile at me, smile as if you had nothing on your mind. That's better. Did you notice any sort of snatch, Daphne? I mean, when that man picked you up?"

"I believe I did, now I come to think of it," Daphne declared. "The man who caught me as I was falling was probably the cause of all the trouble."

"Could you pick him out?" Pamela asked.

"Of course, I could," Daphne said. "He is the man you were dancing with. The man called Beaucaire."

"By Jove, you are right," Jimmy exclaimed. "Let me go and speak to him. Take him on the side and punch the stones out of him. That's the idea, Pamela."

"Really," Pamela smiled pityingly. "And get punched for your pains. You would have half a dozen confederates on you at once. For goodness' sake let us keep our heads. Daphne, pretend to ignore your loss. Act as if you were ignorant of the robbery. The man won't leave the club yet, he is too cool a hand at the game for that. There! You see, he is dancing again with that lovely Dover-street girl just as if nothing had happened. What a splendid nerve."

"And meanwhile I sneak out for the police?" Jimmy queried.

"Meanwhile you do nothing of the sort," Pamela said scornfully. "We stay here and watch—at least, I stay and watch while you two go on dancing. When that man leaves, we follow him. Track him to his flat in a taxi. Then perhaps Jimmy can bring off his famous right hook, or whatever they call it in pugilistic circles. Man to man, you are worth two of him. That is, when you are alone together. And it's any money that he has got the pearls, or will have before he leaves the club, because he is not the type to trust anybody else. Buck up, don't look so scared. Off you both go."

For the best part of an hour Daphne kept a narrowed eye on the fair-haired man. She could see him weaving in and out of the kaleidoscope of dazzling froth of colour on the floor. Then suddenly a whisper ran through the throng which shaped itself presently into one word, and that "Police."

Followed a sort of frightened silence, like that of scared rabbits when a dog approaches the staccato scream of a woman and the hurried hiding of glasses under tables. There were countless vessels of contraband there, at that hour of the young morning. Then, in the main doorway, the gleam of a couple of police helmets and the voice of a man speaking with authority.

Pamela's pose of bored detachment fell from her like a garment. She had nothing to fear, neither had her party, for nothing in the way of refreshment had passed their lips since they entered the club. There might be talk and a little scandal, but nothing worse than that. And there were the pearls to consider. Nothing mattered so long as they were recovered.

The feeling of tiredness left her, the thirst for adventure ran through her veins. A mob of dancers drifted by her, like smoke driven by the wind, in the direction of the cloakroom at the back of the dancing floor, which was up a flight of stairs. And Pamela noticed the fact that these did not return. There were not many of them and their class was as the writing on the wall. In a flash it came to Pamela that these habitues were in the secret of a surreptitious way out. At the end of the queue came the man with the curly hair, who passed her with a languid bored air. She turned eagerly to her companions.

"Look after Daphne, Jimmy," she commanded. "There is no reason why you should get into trouble, because none of us has done any wrong. Get Daphne home and wait till you here from me on the telephone. I shall be all right."

Before Jimmy could expostulate Pamela had vanished in the direction of the steps leading to the floor above. She followed close behind the curly-haired man and reached him just as he slid into the gentlemen's cloakroom at the end of which Pamela noticed that a door stood open.

The secret exit, beyond the shadow of a doubt. Without the slightest hesitation Pamela snatched up a fur coat and threw it over her shoulders. She stepped through the black opening and laid her hand on the shoulder of the man in front.

"Adam," she said, "won't you give unhappy Eve the latchkey to this paradise before the angel represented by policemen requests her company—in other words, be my squire of dames?"