Читать книгу The Mystery Lady - Robert William Chambers - Страница 14
II
ОглавлениеMr. Welper was seated by the fire in the lounge reading the Evening Post.
He looked up when Lanier and Maddaleen Dirck paused behind his chair, then he got up, cautiously.
“How are you, Barney?” said Lanier in his low, agreeable voice.
“Quite well, I thank you, John. I trust you, also, enjoy all the blessings of health.”
They shook hands.
“Miss Dirck,” said Lanier, “this is Mr. Welper. ... Barney, this is Miss Maddaleen Dirck.... Miss Dirck and I hope, some day, to live in a little house in Passy—No. 9 rue d’Alençon.... We know Paris: we wish to go back and live there.” ... He looked pleasantly at Maddaleen: “I think,” he said, “that money is the only obstacle to our marrying.... But I shall work very hard because I am very much in love.”
Mr. Welper’s beautiful but sly eyes were scarcely lifted to the girl’s flushed face. Then his veiled gaze slipped toward Lanier:
“I am very grateful,” he said in his mousy manner, “for the privilege of being presented to your ah—m—m—to your affianced wife, John.... Miss Dirck, I wish you every happiness.... If there is anything that I can do to—”
“There is, Barney.... We are only thirty-nine members in this club to-day. I propose my fiancée.”
After a silence and a slight veiling of the shifting eyes: “Do I quite understand you, John?—”
“You do.”
“Then your affianced wishes to become your—ah—m—m—helpmeet—ah—prior to the—m—m—nuptial ceremony?”
“We have no time to lose,” interrupted the young man bluntly, “either waiting for money or for marriage.”
“That is true,” murmured Welper with a slight sigh; “time is the one thing none can afford to lose. Ah, time! fugacious time! ... Temporibus mores sapiens sine crimine mutat. Ah, yes, yes. Ardua res haec opidus non tradere mores.”
The epigram, the stealthy side-look, the unctuous inclination he bestowed upon the girl, all were evil. The hot colour in Maddaleen’s cheeks deepened. But her daring smile flung across Welper to Lanier was utterly enchanting.
“Argilla quidvis imitaberis uda,” she said; “soft clay, you know, takes any form you please, John Lanier. What I shall become depends on you.”
Now the sly, hazel eyes and long lashes of Barney Welper remained intent upon Maddaleen Dirck.
“You see,” said Lanier, “she is perfectly qualified for membership.”
“Doubtless,” murmured Welper, “you have already instructed Miss Dirck concerning our—ah—little family here in the Forty Club? Our quaint customs, and ah-m—m—our little prejudices—”
“I’ve explained it all. She knows. I’m entirely responsible for her, Barney.”
“Very well, John.” ... He turned with an almost slinking inclination to the girl. “Then there remains only to—ah—to offer you my respectful felicitations ... and the freedom of the Forty Club, Miss Dirck, as soon as you care to m—m—to—ah—consummate the happy event.”
Maddaleen smiled, opened her black reticule, and offered ten one-thousand-dollar bills to Mr. Welper.
“I thank you,” he said with unction. “You are now at home, Miss Dirck. I pray you to accept the hospitality of our little club until a happy fortune renders you again m—m—ineligible.... I thank you; I thank you. I am always your servant to command.” With his horridly small, soft hand he lifted hers and bowed very low over it.
Lanier coolly slipped his arm through Maddaleen’s: “Thank you, Barney, for congratulations,” he said gaily. “I’d like to show my future wife around a bit. You speak to Gorm and tell everybody it’s all right—” To the girl: “I want you to see our club, dearest.”
Together they turned and strolled across the room through the mellow lamp radiance.
“Who is Gorm?” she asked, still rosy from his easy familiarity of speech and touch.
“The doorman. He saw you come in. Welper will tell him you’re one of us. Shall we go upstairs?”
They went up over a soundless velvet carpet:
“There’s the library. You mustn’t talk in there. It’s a fine library—for students in our profession,—full of standard practical working volumes—art, science, psychology,—and hundreds of forbidden books,—a lot of privately printed stuff, too.”
“What sort?”
“Oh, on poisons, for example. And on the manufacture of forbidden implements.”
“Burglars’ tools?”
“Oh, yes, everything of interest to us.”
She glanced around the empty library; then, guided by his arm, they moved into a writing-room where, in alcoves, desks stood.
“There’s no monogram or address on our club paper,” remarked Lanier, smiling. “No water mark, either. And usually we wear gloves when we write letters.”
Other rooms were private dining-rooms.
“Things are hatched in here,” he said carelessly. “These private dining-rooms are great incubators. ... And that door over there leads into the ladies’ room. Take a look at it.” He dropped her arm and stood aside.
When the girl emerged she said: “It’s really quite pretty. Only there’s no maid in attendance—”
“We get along with few servants. It’s safer,” he said drily.
“Do any members live here?”
“Barney Welper and I live here permanently.”
“Are there other rooms? Could a woman take up quarters here?”
“Do you wish to take a room here?” he asked curiously.
“I’d like to, for a week or so. Could I see one of the bedrooms now?”
“Certainly.” He unhooked the transmitter of a service telephone: “Gorm? ... It’s Mr. Lanier. Send Dan Supple up with the master-key. I want to show the bedrooms to Miss Dirck, our new member.... All right.”
In a minute or so the same servant who had served their luncheon came with a little key-ring from which dangled nine Yale keys.
Asking pardon he led the way to the floor above, selected the master-key, opened the first door, lettered E.
It was a clean bedroom in white muslin, with private bath adjoining.
After Maddaleen had inspected it she sauntered out to the corridor again and glanced along the row of doors.
“May I select any of these rooms?” she inquired of Lanier.
“Any except A and H. Mr. Welper inhabits A and I live in H.—”
“Then,” she said with her enchanting smile, “I shall take room G, so we can talk through the door if I’m lonely.” And, to Supple: “Please give me my key.”
“These are duplicate keys, Madam. Your key is in Mr. Gorm’s office.”
“Can you get it now?”
“Yes, Madam, I can run down and fetch it.”
She stretched out her pretty arm and took the key-ring out of his hand, saying that she’d open Room G with the master-key while he was gone.
“Open your door, too; I wish to look in,” she said gaily to Lanier.
As they walked together toward Room H her fingers were carelessly occupied with the keys—more swiftly still as soon as Lanier turned to unlock his own door.
Even before he could open it the girl had detached the master-key from the ring and substituted for it a Yale key from her own reticule.
“So that is where you live,” she said, glancing around the room from the threshold.
“Won’t you come in?”
“Ought I? I suppose it makes no difference in a club of this kind.”
“None. Will you come in?”
She seemed to hesitate, a faint smile on her lips. And before she arrived at a decision the servant, Supple, returned with the key to Room G.
“Thank you,” she said, handing him the key-ring and taking the key he offered. She unlocked the door, walked in, glanced around, walked out, closed and locked the door.
“I’ll take it,” she said briefly.
When Supple had gone away with his keys, jingling down the corridor, Maddaleen Dirck signed to Lanier to close his own door.
“Another time,” she said coolly; “I must be going now.”
Together they turned to retrace their steps, descended the staircase, paused on the next landing.
“Are there any other women members in this Club?” she inquired.
“Yes; four or five.”
“Women of—”
“Yes; crooked,” he said coldly. “But don’t ask who they are. Nobody ever asks that question in this club. Members talk to one another if they are inclined. But our members are very busy with their own business, and nobody would presume outside, on casual acquaintance made in here.... You see you might meet any of our members almost anywhere in any social environment in the world.”
“I understand.”
“Well, then, that is the Forty Club. You can’t come here unless you appear to be well-bred, cultivated, accustomed to the forms and traditions of fastidious society. ... That’s what makes us dangerous.... And yet, we’re not criminal at heart—the majority of us. ... Are we, Maddaleen, dear?”
His bantering smile took the edge off the impertinence; and he was so very good-looking, and so indefinably agreeable that the familiarity scarcely displeased her.
“I wonder,” she said, “what you think our relations are likely to be, Mr. Lanier?”
“Crooked, I hope—”
“What!” she asked crisply.
“Why, crooked, of course. You’re going to pick pockets and go halves with me. That’s not a moral relation, is it?”
The swift flush of annoyance in her face still lingered when she realised he was poking sardonic fun at her.
“Our relations,” she said, “will always remain on a business basis.”
“You don’t like me, personally?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we are affianced.”
“Oh, yes; I forgot.”
“Don’t forget. It’s the only reason Barney Welper let you in. Our manner toward each other, here, ought to confirm the idea.”
“Oh.”
“You are an actress; you ought to play the sweetheart convincingly.”
“How often do you come here, Mr. Lanier?”
“Quite often,” he replied with the slightest touch of a grin.
“Very well,” she said coolly, “my manner toward you will be theatrically correct.... And, by the way—may I not settle our luncheon check—”
She looked for annoyance in his face, discovered it with satisfaction, shrugged her pretty shoulders.
“Don’t presume upon the situation,” she said. “It isn’t funny. You are too much my own sort to take any liberty; too much of another sort to make any impudence agreeable.”
“Now,” he said, “I know you’re not a crook.”
“Do I say I am?”
“You said—”
“I said that I am not too good. I’m not. But what does that mean?”
“What does it mean?”
“Occupy your leisure with that problem,” she suggested, laughing, and moving to the door.
“That is exactly what I mean to do, Maddaleen. ... Because I like you a lot—”
She turned and looked hard at him. “Does it matter what you think as long as I pay you for your services, my nimble friend?”
“Do you feel that way?”
“Certainly.... If you’d let me be on friendly terms with you,—as a comrade,—on that footing,—very well. But anything further is not agreeable to me, Mr. Lanier.”
“You couldn’t tolerate any other footing from a crook. Is that it? Because it’s that, or you’re crooked too and you’ve got a ‘feller.’ ”
“You must draw your own conclusions.”
“All right,” he said amiably. After a pause she glanced at him. He was still smiling. She thought, with swift repugnance, that he looked well-bred—parodied in a disturbing manner the sort of man he was not. And, suddenly, the girl realised how terribly dangerous was such a man.
Prudence—perhaps fear—parted her lips in a forced smile:
“I’d like to be friends,” she said. “Anything more I simply don’t want. Do you mind?”
“Doesn’t it depend on the man—how much you tolerate?”
“I don’t want more from any man. Isn’t that quite clear?”
“Quite,” he said seriously.
After a moment’s silence they turned away together. She drew on her gloves as they descended the stairs.
At the front door she offered her hand: “I’m glad we understand,” she said. “We do; don’t we?”
“Yes.... Will you dine here this evening?”
“Perhaps. I’ll decide when I get home.”
“Where is home?”
“The Ritz—temporarily.”
“Please telephone me when you decide about dinner. Our private telephone is Stanwix 7205—” He scribbled it on a card and gave it to her. “Please call me and tell me what you are going to do this evening. Will you?”
“I think so.... Good-bye, Mr. Lanier—”
His clasp tightened, silencing her: “Don’t forget we’re closer than that. You’ll have to play your part better when we’re here.”
She smiled adorably: “Good-bye Jack, dear, et à bientôt!” she added with her enchanting little laugh.
The door clicked behind her.
After a moment Lanier turned on his heel and walked slowly into the lounge.
Welper, standing with his back to the fire, rolling an unlighted cigar between his fingers, looked up as the younger man approached.
“John,” he said softly, “why is your girl following me about town?”
“What!” demanded Lanier, thunderstruck.
“She followed me in a taxi to the Waldorf this morning. Why?”
“Nonsense!”
“And now she turns up here? Why?”
“You’re crazy, Barney. Why should she do that?”
“You ask her,” said Welper in his stealthy voice.
“What rot! Why don’t you ask her if you suspect her of—”
“No.”
“It’s ridiculous,” repeated Lanier; “you’re developing nerves, Barney. Where did you think you saw her?”
“I’m not perfectly sure. I did notice a girl in black. ... Your girl is in mourning, too. Her taxi dogged mine from Seventy-Second Street to the Waldorf.”
“Then what?”
“I lunched. I didn’t see her again until she turned up here with you.”
“Is that all?”
“And—I lost my coat check out of my pocket at the Waldorf.”
“What do you mean, Barney?”
“Nothing ... nothing.... It may have been somebody else ... who resembles your—ah—charming fiancée. Certainly it must have been somebody else. I don’t doubt it.”
“Well, what do you doubt, Barney? Me?”
The sly eyes sought the rug: “If I doubted you I wouldn’t have taken your girl’s money.... If it really was she who followed me in a taxi I’ll find out why. ... But I guess it was somebody else.... I guess so. Yes.... I guess so, John.”
“I guess so, too,” said Lanier, scornfully. And he dropped into a leather armchair and picked up an evening paper.
And whenever the paper concealed his face, the sly eyes of Barney Welper studied him intently from head to foot.
