Chapter EIGHTEEN: “a Lady to See You, Sir!”

Fagged and weary, I slept until the conductor brought me my coffee and biscuits.

“Laroche, m’sieur!” he said. And I knew we were fast approaching Paris. I pulled aside the blind, and saw the familiar long lines of poplars and the flat, uninteresting landscape.

I shaved and dressed leisurely, for I had no reason to go to the Embassy. The dispatches would be brought to me; for the Orient Express ended its long journey at Calais.

As we ran into Paris, I saw Pallant, one of the attachés, a tall, well-set-up figure, waiting with his driver, carrying two little white bags. Through the open window of my sleeping-berth I waved, perhaps rather wearily. And, in a few moments he joined me, followed by the chauffeur.

“Glad we got you, Hipwell,” he said. “There’s been a lot of trouble. All you fellows seem to be traveling just now.”

“Why didn’t Farmer go over to London?” I asked. “He’s always ready for a couple of days in town.”

“Got the ’flu, my dear fellow. If not, you bet Gerry would be the first to run over. They told us over the ’phone from Downing Street that you were in Vienna, so I wired to divert your journey here.”

“Thanks for nothing, my dear Pallant,” I laughed. “Anything special?” I asked, looking at the two ordinary little white canvas bags.

“Oh! yes,” he said. “I quite forgot,” and from his pocket he took one of the familiar narrow, blue envelopes with a cross printed on it. And he presented an official form for my signature, which I scribbled off, hurriedly.

“Nearly forgot what you came for!” I laughed.

The moment I entered my rooms that evening, Bruce met me on the threshold, saying:

“Mr. Gell has just rung up. He wants you to go to Queen’s Gate the moment you arrive.”

“And has the lady Illona called?”

“No, sir,” was his reply, and I saw the note still lying upon my table.

After a hasty wash, I jumped into a taxi in Piccadilly and drove to Joan’s father. Had he news of her, I wondered?

The moment we met, I saw that the whereabouts of my beloved was still a mystery.

“That fellow Dufour has been brought up at Bow Street again this afternoon,” he said. “The police know that he is an associate of criminals, but he refused to disclose where his wife was, declaring that she had left him and he did not know her whereabouts. The proper course would be to commit him for trial, but I hear the police think they can learn more if he were discharged. They could then watch his movements.”

“And allow him to slip through their hands as the fellow Owen has done?” I laughed.

“That’s just it! They hope to catch both in the end,” said the well known barrister. “My own idea is, that Dufour shot the young scoundrel Wilson out of revenge.”

“He surely didn’t run away with Dufour’s wife, eh?” I hazarded.

“By jove! I never thought of that,” he cried. “That might certainly have been the motive.”

“Yet, in any case, it brings us no nearer the solution of the problem of poor Joan,” I remarked.

“No,” he said, in a low, despondent tone. “Oh, if we could only find some clue as to where she really is! The police seem to regard the matter as hopeless.”

I remained silent. Was she dead, or did she still live? Of one thing I felt more than ever convinced, that the decoying of her away had been directed against me. My enemies, of whom Illona had warned me, had executed a vile and subtle plot in which I felt confident the man Owen was implicated. If he were the honest man he pretended to be, he would not have been an associate of the young thief, Tuggy Wilson; nor, finding himself watched, would he have so cleverly slipped away into obscurity.

Again, what was his true connection with Lisely Hatten who, with such amazing success, had imposed on me? And what could be the mysterious significance of that beautiful piece of clear, blue aquamarine with the double nought on it? Its receipt, no doubt, was some pre-arranged signal. In any case, my beloved Joan had fallen helpless and defenseless into the hands of my enemies.

Next day I heard from Mr. Gell that Dufour had been discharged from custody, owing to the lack of sufficient evidence. I knew that Scotland Yard would keep a very wary eye on him in the hope that he might meet the fugitive Owen.

Two days later, at about three o’clock in the afternoon, I was seated in my room with Teddy Day discussing the situation, when I heard a ring, and Bruce entered, saying:

“There’s a lady to see you, sir. She objects to giving her name.”

I rose in quick surprise, whereat Teddy took up his hat, and, making an excuse, left.

“Show her in,” I said, the instant my friend had gone.

Next moment I could scarce believe my eyes. Upon the threshold stood Angela--the Little Countess!

In an instant I recovered myself, determined not to allow her to know that my brain had returned to its normal balance. What could her visit to me portend?

“My dear Contessina!” I cried, rushing forward to greet her enthusiastically. “This is a surprise, indeed! Do come in and sit down.”

She laughed merrily, a dainty figure, in a cool summer gown of pearl-grey _crêpe-de-chine_.

“I thought I should surprise you, Signor Hipwell,” said the woman who had successfully prevented me from meeting Illona, and whom I knew to be my enemy.

It was strange, I could not help thinking, that from the first moment of the recovery of my senses in Rome, I felt certain that I had met her somewhere previously. It was strange, too, I contemplated, that not until I had stood with Owen, had I actually awakened to the fact that she and the City typist, whose associates were such desperate criminals, were identical.

“I have first to thank you for carrying out your promise to me,” said the slim, pretty girl who had so attracted me in Rome, and whose movements were so suspicious. As she sat in my arm-chair she certainly did not look like a criminal.

“I found Mr. Owen and delivered to him that pretty cut aquamarine. What a delightful pendant it was!”

“Yes,” she said carelessly. “Rather pretty. But the reason I’ve dared to call on you is because my friend Mr. Owen is missing. He disappeared early one morning, his man tells me, and has not returned.”

I pretended surprise, at the same time feeling that she was misleading me with some purpose of her own. I did not forget that she was my worst enemy. Nevertheless, it still seemed that, from the fact that I had discovered her at that assembly in Camberwell, she feared lest I should inform the police.

I remembered that it was she who had suggested that horrible punishment of putting out my eyes, and yet she had not carried out her brutal suggestion. Why? And why, instead, had she given me a drug that had paralyzed certain cells of my brain?

“Is there any reason why Mr. Owen should have disappeared?” I asked, with feigned ignorance.

“Not in the least, as far as I know,” she replied, unaware that I knew of her visit to Liverpool, and how she had tricked me by sending the young manicurist to Kensington Gardens. “Of course, he may have gone to Turin, expecting to find me there.”

“He knew you were in Turin?” I asked.

“Yes. I let him know that. He had begged to see me,” she replied, with her slight foreign accent.

Then, in order to change the subject, and to allow her to reveal the true reason of her visit to me, I asked:

“And how are all our mutual friends in Rome? How did you leave them?”

She shifted uneasily. Did she suspect that I had recognized her? I hoped not, for I strove to pretend ignorance; to pretend to know her only as the Contessina Angela Ugostini.

“Oh! Most of them have left Rome--all who can. It is getting hot there. But the staffs of the Embassies have to remain. Some of them have gone to the Tuscan mountains, the French Ambassador and his wife are at Vallombrosa, and the Spanish is at Montecatini for the cure, while the Ruspolis are at the sea at Livorno, and my aunt is at Santa Margherita.”

“And the political situation?” I asked, handing her a cigarette and lighting it. I felt that she was hesitating to reveal the true object of coming to me. Perhaps by putting her at her ease, I might yet disarm her.

Through the rising tobacco smoke, she regarded me strangely, with half-closed eyes. And, after a brief pause, she spoke:

“You know, Signor Hipwell, quite as much as I do of the seriousness of the situation--much more, no doubt.”

Her manner had strangely changed, and it surprised me.

“It is growing worse, eh?” I asked.

“You have not been again to Italy since the morning we met in the church?” she asked.

“No, Contessina,” I replied. “Had I been, I should surely have endeavored to find you.”

She smiled contentedly, for my polite words made it appear that I still believed her to be the aristocratic character she had assumed, and that, even now, my mind remained sufficiently disordered not to associate her with the virago in Camberwell.

“I should have been very delighted indeed to have met you again, Signor Hipwell,” she said, looking at me lazily through the smoke of her cigarette. “After Rome I went to the Lake of Garda, then back to Florence and Venice. Then to Milan, and here.”

“And the Contessina is as well known and popular in all those places as in Rome,” I added smiling.

“On the contrary,” she declared. “Only in Florence I went out once or twice into society. But I found it not nearly such a nice, cosmopolitan, and friendly circle as in the capital. I have an uncle living up at Fiesole.”

“A delightful quarter,” I remarked. “I had a relative living there a few years ago.”

“Ah, yes!” she sighed, as though in regret. “Italy is very beautiful and full of charm. It is only one’s bitter memories that sometimes rise to mar its recollections.”

“That can be said of all countries, Contessina,” I remarked.

“Yes. I suppose you, on your constant travels, meet with many amorous adventures which cause you to ponder on your return, and sometimes regret, eh?” she laughed.

“I don’t plead guilty to amorous adventures,” I said, fencing with her, and wondering still if the object of her call was to satisfy herself that my memory was not yet restored. “My whole life was wrapped up in political aspirations until I got dumped into my present official position.”

“A very responsible one--one of the most responsible surely,” said the neat little lady who, in her Paris gown, looked so _chic_ and unlike the skirted and bloused City typist, as I had first known her.

Two and a half years had wrought a marvelous change in her. The chrysalis of a working-class world had evolved into a gay butterfly of fashion. When I recalled our humble breakfasts together, and her rush to the office, I could scarcely believe it possible that she was one and the same.

Yet, as you may well imagine, it exercised all my tact and will power still to make pretense of ignorance of the past.

The girl was my enemy--my bitterest enemy. Why then should she come there to my rooms and pose as my friend? Why should she whine to me over the disappearance of her lover of the euphonious name of Roddy Owen--the name of a great and popular sportsman of the ’nineties?

I handed her another cigarette; for, she had settled herself comfortably in my big bachelor chair. Her neat, silk-encased legs, and smart, well-fitting shoes which so perfectly matched her stockings, were stretched out in perfect relaxation.

I managed to keep my head, in the strained circumstances of knowing full well that my pretty visitor was only posing as my friend.

It was nearly four o’clock; so, finding that I could discover nothing further, I suggested that we should stroll round to the Carlton lounge for tea. Together we went along Piccadilly, down the Haymarket, into the palm court where we sat at one of the little well-known tables. And she poured out tea for me.

The Carlton teas differ not at all from the teas served in other _hôtels-de-luxe_ in any part of the world with their orchestras--the _bêtes noires_ of every constant world-traveler.

At last, with trepidation, I ventured to say:

“Haven’t we had enough of this, Angela?”

“I agree. I hate these tea-dancings.” Then, after a few moments’ pause, in which she looked straight into my eyes--the first time she had ever been straightforward to me--she added:

“Will you take me back to your rooms, Signor Hipwell? I--I--well, I want to speak very confidentially and openly to you.”