Chapter D: Appleton and Company (6)

As soon as she knew that she was no longer pinned by the jaws of the monster, the action of a strong mind was needed to ward off a threat of hysteria. But she controlled herself sufficiently to help William restore the Hoodoo to the perpendicular; and then she said in a whisper of extreme urgency which was barely able to mask the sob of nerves overstrung: “Not one word now. But go straight into the kitchen--just as if you hadn’t seen me. And remember whatever happens”--the whisper grew fiercer, the sob more imminent--“if Uncle Si asks the question you _haven’t_ seen me. I’m supposed to be looking for a job. You understand?”

To say that William did understand would have been to pay him a most fulsome compliment; yet the stout fellow behaved as if the whole of this amazing matter was as clear as daylight. Such was June’s fixity of will, the sheer force of her personality, that he left the shop at once like a man hypnotised. Excited questions trembled upon his lips, but in the face of this imperiousness he did not venture to give them play.

He made one attempt--one half-hearted attempt.

“But Miss June----!”

The only answer of Miss June was to cram one hand over his mouth, and with the other to propel him towards the door which led to the back premises.

XXX

AS soon as William had passed out of the shop, June stood a moment to gather nerve and energy for the task before her. Feeling considerably tossed, above all she was devoured by a horrible form of excitement whose effect was like nothing so much as a bad dream. But this was not a time for dreams. The situation was full of peril; not a moment must be lost.

The picture was her immediate concern. She set herself at once to the business of moving the oak chest aside. This presented no difficulty, for there was nothing in it; but the loose board beneath it did. Fingers unhelped could not prise it up; they must have a chisel. She knew that such an implement was to be found in one of the drawers of the desk, but she had stealthily to open three or four before she came upon the right one.

While all this was going on, she could hear the voices of William and Uncle Si in the room next door. It seemed that no matter what her caution or her haste, she would almost certainly be interrupted before she was through with her task. But luck was with her. She was able to lift the board, take forth the picture, replace the chest and return the chisel to its drawer without the voices coming any nearer.

Picture in hand, she tiptoed out of the shop as far as the stairs. Through the open door of the inner room the back of Uncle Si was visible as she crept by. It was taking a grave risk to attempt the stairs at such a moment, but she was wrought up to a point when to go back and wait was impossible. She must continue to chance her luck.

Up the stairs she crept, expecting at every second one to hear a harsh voice recall her. To her unspeakable relief, however, she was able to gain sanctuary in her own room without hindrance. She bolted the door against the enemy, although so far as she was aware, he was still in the room below in total ignorance of what had happened.

Shivering as if in the throes of fever, she sat on the edge of her narrow bed. The treasure was hers still. She held it to her bosom as a mother holds a child; yet the simple act gave rise at once to the problem of problems: What must be done with the thing now? There could be no security for it under that roof. And not to the picture alone did this apply, but also to herself. Anything might happen as soon as the old man found out that the Van Roon was not, after all, to be his. Meanwhile, the future hardly bore thinking about; it was like a precipice beyond whose edge she dare not look.

One act, however, did not admit of a moment’s delay: there and then the treasure must be smuggled out of the house and put in a place of safety. Rowelled by this thought, June rose from the bed, took a piece of brown paper and some string from her box, and proceeded to transform the picture into a neat parcel. She then slipped off her dress, which was considerably the worse for contact with the dusty interior of the Hoodoo, performed a hasty toilette, put on her walking-out coat and skirt and changed her shoes. Finally, she put on the better of the only two hats she possessed, slipped her mother’s battered old leather purse into her coat pocket, and then, umbrella in one hand, parcel in the other, she turned to the hazard of stealing downstairs and making good her escape.

In the middle of the twisty stairs, just before their sharpest bend would bring her into the view of persons below, she stopped to listen. The voices had ceased; she could not hear a sound. Two ways lay before her of reaching the street: one via the parlour to the kitchen and out along the side entry, the other through the front door of the shop. Either route might be commanded at the moment by the enemy. With nothing to guide her, June felt that the only safe course just then was to stay where she was. In the strategic position she had taken up on the stairs she could not be seen from below, yet a quick ear might hope to gain a clue to what was going on.

She had not to wait long. From the inner room, whose door opposite the foot of the stairs was still half open, although its occupant was no more seen, there suddenly came the strident tones of Uncle Si. They were directed unmistakably kitchenward. “Boy, you’d better get the tea ready. Seemin’ly that gell ain’t home.”

“Very good, sir,” came a prompt and cheerful response from the back premises.

June decided at once that the signs were favourable. Now was her chance; the way through the front shop was evidently clear. Deftly as a cat she came down the remaining stairs and stole past the half-open door of what was known as “the lumber room,” where, however, old chairs were sometimes fitted with new legs and old chests with new panels.

Uncle Si was undoubtedly there. June could hear him moving about as she passed the door; indeed she was hardly clear of it when she received a most unwelcome reminder of this fact. Either he chanced to turn round as she crept by, or he caught a glimpse of her passing in one of the numerous mirrors that surrounded him. For just as she reached the shop threshold she heard his irascible bark: “That you, niece?”

The road clear ahead, June did not pause to weigh consequences. She simply bolted. Even if the old man was not likely to guess what her neat parcel contained, it would surely be the height of folly to give him the chance.

Never in her life had she been quite so thankful as when she found herself in the street with the treasure safely under her arm.

XXXI

JUNE went swiftly down New Cross Street to the Strand. Until she reached that garish sea of traffic she dare not look back lest hot on her heels should be Uncle Si. Such a discovery was not at all likely she well knew; the feeling was therefore illogical, yet she could not rid herself of it until she was merged in the ever-flowing tide.

Taking refuge at last in a jeweller’s doorway from the maelstrom of passers by, June had now another problem to face. The Van Roon must find a home. But the question of questions was--where?

Apart from William and Uncle Si, and her chance acquaintance, Mr. Keller, she did not know a soul in London. Mr. Keller, however, sprang at once to her mind. Yet more than one reservation promptly arose in regard to him. She knew really nothing about him beyond the fact that he was a man of obviously good address, belonging to a class superior to her own. He was a man of the world, of a certain breeding and education, but whether it would be wise to trust a comparative stranger in such a matter seemed exceedingly doubtful to a girl of June’s horse sense. Still there was no one else to whom she could turn. And recalling the circumstances of their first meeting, if one could ignore the means by which it had come about, there was something oddly compelling, something oddly attractive, about this Mr. Keller.

In the total absence of other alternatives, June found her mind drawn so far in the direction of this man of mystery that at last she took from her purse a slip of paper on which he had written his name and address: “Adolph Keller, No. 4, Haliburton Studios, Manning Square, Soho.”

Could she trust him with the care of a Van Roon? Now that she had been a witness of its terrible effect on Uncle Si, she was forced to ask whether it would be right to trust any man with such a talisman. Luckily, the world was not peopled exclusively with Uncle Sis. She would have to trust somebody with her treasure, that was certain; and, after all, there was no reason to suspect that Mr. Keller was not an honest man.

She was still in the jeweller’s doorway, wrestling with the pros and cons of the tough matter, when a passing bus displaying the name Victoria Station caught her eye. In a flash came the solution of the problem.

Again she entered the sea of traffic, to be borne slowly along by the slow tide as far as Charing Cross. Here she waited for another bus to Victoria. The solving of the riddle was absurdly simple after all. What place for her treasure could be safer, more accessible than a railway station cloak room?

She boarded Bus 23. But hardly had it turned the corner into Whitehall when a thin flicker of elation was dashed by the salutary thought that her brain was giving out. The cloak room at Charing Cross, from the precincts of whose station she had just driven away, was equally adapted to her need. Along the entire length of Whitehall and Victoria Street she was haunted by the idea that she was losing her wits. A prolonged scrutiny of her pale but now collected self in a confectioner’s window on the threshold of the London and Brighton terminus was called for to reassure her. And even then, for a girl so shrewd and so practical, there remained the scar of a distressing mental lapse.

It did not take long to deposit the parcel in the cloak room on the main line down platform. But in the act of doing so, occurred a slight incident which was destined to have a bearing on certain events to follow. When a ticket was handed to her, she could only meet the charge of three pence with a ten shilling note.

“Nothing smaller, Miss?” asked the clerk.

“I’m afraid I haven’t,” said June, searching her purse, and then carefully placing the ticket in its middle compartment.

“You’ll have to wait while I get change then.”

“Sorry to trouble you,” June murmured, as the clerk went out through a door into an inner office. Ever observant and alert, she noticed that the clerk was a tallish young man, whose freely curling fair hair put her in mind of William, and that he wore a new suit of green corduroy.

The likeness to William gave _bouquet_ to her politeness, when the young man returned with the change. “Sorry to give you so much trouble,” she said again.

“No trouble, miss.” And Green Corduroy handed the change across the cloak room counter with a frank smile that was not unworthy of William himself.

XXXII

THE treasure in a safe place, June had to consider what to do next. One fact stood out clear in her mind. She must leave at once the sheltering roof of S. Gedge Antiques. There was no saying what would happen when the Old Crocodile discovered that the Van Roon was missing.

The sooner she collected her box and her gear, and found another lodging the better. Her best plan would be to go back to New Cross Street and get them now. Uncle Si was hardly likely as yet to have made the discovery. It would be wise, therefore, to take advantage of this lull, for at the most it was only a matter of a few hours before the truth was known. And when known it was, Number Forty-six New Cross Street was the very last place in London in which she would choose to be.

There was a chance, of course, that “the murder” was out already. But she would have to take the risk of that. All that she had in the world beyond the six paper pounds, nine shillings and ninepence in her purse, was in the box in the garret. Her entire resources were about seventeen pounds in money, a scanty wardrobe, and a few odds and ends of jewellery of little value, but if she could get hold of these they might suffice to tide her over a sorely anxious time.

In the present state of her nerves, courage was needed to return to New Cross Street. But it had to be. And it was now or never. If her box was to be got away, she must go boldly back at once and claim it. How this was to be done without arousing suspicion she did not quite know, but the most hopeful method was to announce that she had been able to find a job, and also good lodgings, and that she did not care to lay the burden of her presence upon Uncle Si one hour longer than was necessary.

She had been brought up with a strict regard for the truth, but fate was driving her so hard that she could not afford to have scruples. Hanging by a strap on the Underground to Charing Cross, which seemed the quickest route, and time was the essence of the matter, she rehearsed the part she had now to play. Certainly the playing itself would not lack gusto. Nothing life so far had given her would yield quite so much pleasure as saying good-bye to the Old Crocodile, and ironically thanking him for all his kindness. At the same time, the job and lodgings story must be pitched in just the right key, or his suspicions would be aroused, and then something horribly unpleasant might occur.

By the time June had turned out of the Strand into New Cross Street, a heavy autumnal dusk had fallen upon that bleak thoroughfare. Somehow the dark pall struck at her heart. In a sense it was symbolical of the business upon which she was engaged. She felt like a thief whose instinct welcomes darkness, and whose conscience fears it.

Never in her life had she needed such courage as to turn up that gloomy and dismal street and accost the forbidding threshold of S. Gedge Antiques. The shop was still open, for it was hardly more than six o’clock, and two gas jets lit the interior in a way that added to its dolour.

She stood a moment with the knob of the shop door in her hand. All the nerve she could muster was wanted to venture within. But she did go in, and she felt a keen relief when a hasty glance told her that Uncle Si was not there.

XXXIII

JUNE had a further moment of indecision while she thought out what her line must be. She resolved to go direct to her room and pack her box. Afterwards she must find William and enlist his help in bringing it downstairs, and then she would get a taxi and drive off with her things before Uncle Si discovered his loss. Otherwise...!

Her mind had not time to shape the grisly alternative, before the immediate course of events shaped it for her. Suddenly she was aware of a presence lurking in the dark shadows of the shop interior. It was couchant, vengeful, hostile. Almost before June could guess what was happening it had sprung upon her.

With astounding force her right wrist was grasped and twisted behind her back. She gave a little yelp of pain. A second yelp followed, as she struggled to free herself, only to find that she was locked in a vice, and that to fight against it would be agony.

“Now, where is it?” The low voice hissing in her ear was surely that of a maniac. “Where’s the picture?” The grip upon her had the strength of ten. “Where is it--eh?” As the question was put, her captor shook her fiercely. “Tell me.” He shook her again. “Oh, you won’t--won’t you?” And then she realized that there was something in his hand.

She called wildly for William, but there was no response.

“No use lifting up your voice. The boy’s out.”

She fought to get free, but with a wrist still locked, she was at his mercy. “Now then, where’s that picture? Won’t tell me--eh?” There was madness in that depth of rage.

Quite suddenly there came a sickening crash upon her shoulders. She let out with her heels and found the shin of the enemy, she fought and screamed, yet pinned like that, she felt her wrist must break and her arm be wrenched from its socket.

“Where is it--you thief?” The stick crashed again, this time in a series of horrible blows. So severe was the pain that it seemed to drive through her whole being. She began to fear that he meant to kill her; and as the stick continued to descend she felt sure that he would.

She was a strong, determined girl, but her captor had her at a hopeless disadvantage. His strength, besides, was that of one possessed. Her cries and struggles merely added to his savagery.

“Tell me where it is or I’ll knock the life out of you.”

Utterly desperate, she contrived at last to break away; and though with the force of a maniac he tried to prevent her escape, somehow she managed to get into the street. He followed her as far as the shop door, brandishing the stick, hurling imprecations upon her, and threatening what he would do if she didn’t bring the picture back at once.

Bruised and gasping, June reeled into the darkness. Feeling more dead than alive, she lingered nearby after the old man had gone in, trying to pull her battered self together. She badly wanted her box, yet the only hope of getting it now was by means of the police. As things were, however, it would not be wise to ask their help. The old wretch was so clever he might be able to make her out a thief; besides, for the time being she had had more than enough of this horrible affair.

Cruelly hurt she moved at last with slow pain towards the Strand. By now she had decided that her most imperative need was a night’s lodging. Before starting to look for one, however, the enticing doors of a teashop gave her a renewed sense of weakness. Gratefully she went in and sat down, ordering a pot of tea and a little bread and butter which she felt too ill to eat.

Nearly half an hour she sat in the company of her thoughts. Hard, unhappy thoughts they were. Without one friend to whom in this crisis she could turn, the world which confronted her now was an abyss. The feeling of loneliness was desolating, yet, after all, far less so than it would have been were she not fortified by the memory of a certain slip of paper in her purse.

A slow return of fighting power revived a spark of natural resolution within her. After all, a potent weapon was in her hands. She must think out a careful plan of turning it to full account. And at the worst she was now beyond the reach of Uncle Si. Even if he kept her box and all its contents, weighed in the scale of the picture’s fabulous worth, her modest possessions amounted to very little.

Stimulated by this conclusion, she began to forget her aches. When a waitress came June asked for her bill. It was sixpence. She put her hand in the pocket of her coat. Her purse was not there.

With a little thrill of fear, she felt in the pocket on the other side. The purse was not there either. She was stunned. This was a blow far worse than those she had just received. She grew so dazed that as she got up she swayed against the table, and had to hold on by it to save herself from falling.

The waitress who had written out the bill caught a glimpse of scared eyes set in a face of chalk.

“Aren’t you well?” she asked.

“I--I’ve lost my purse,” June stammered. “It’s fallen out of my pocket, I think.” As with frantic futility she plunged her hand in again, she was raked by the true meaning of such a fact in all its horror. Unless her purse had been stolen on the Underground, and it was not very likely, it had almost certainly fallen out of her pocket in the course of the struggle with Uncle Si.

It was lying now on the shop floor unless the old wretch had found it already. And if he had he would lose no time in examining its contents. He had only to do so for the cloak-room ticket to tell him where the Van Roon was deposited, and to provide him with a sure means of obtaining it.

“You may have had your pocket picked.”

June did not think so. Yet, being unable to take the girl into her confidence, she did not choose to disclose her doubts.

“Perhaps I have,” she gasped. And then face to face with the extreme peril of the case, her overdriven nerves broke out in mutiny. She burst into tears. “I don’t know what I’ll do,” she sobbed.

The waitress was full of sympathy. “Your bill is only sixpence. Come in and pay to-morrow.”

Through her tears June thanked her.

“’Tisn’t my bill, although it’s very kind of you. There was something very important in my purse.”

“Where did you have it last?”

“In the booking hall, when I took a ticket from Victoria to Charing Cross.”

“Your pocket’s been picked,” said the waitress with conviction. “There’s a warning in all the Tubes.”

The comfort was cold, yet comfort it was of a kind. June saw a wan ray of hope. After all, there was a bare possibility that inexorable Fate was not the thief.

“I’d go to Scotland Yard if I were you,” said the waitress. “The police often get back stolen property. Last year my sister’s house was burgled, and they recovered nearly everything for her.”

June began to pull herself together. It was not hope, however, that braced her faculties, but an effort of will. Hope there was none of recovering the purse, but she was now faced by the stern necessity of getting back the picture. In the light of this tragedy it was in most serious peril. Delay might be fatal, if indeed it had not already proved to be so. She must go at once and get possession of the treasure lest it be too late.

The waitress was a good Samaritan. Not only could the bill wait until the next day, but she went even further: “Is your home far from here?” she asked.

“My home--far?” said June, dazedly. For the moment she did not understand all that was implied by the question.

“If you live on the District, and you haven’t a season, I don’t mind lending you a shilling to get you home.”

June accepted a shilling with earnest thanks. In the circumstances, it might be worth untold gold: “You can give it me back any time you are passing,” said the waitress, as June thanked her again and made her way unsteadily out into the street.

The chill air of the Strand revived her a little. She had decided already that she must go at once to Victoria. Every minute would count, and it now occurred to her that if she took the Underground, several might be saved.

To the Underground in Trafalgar Square she went. It was the hour of the evening rush. Queues were lining up at all the booking office windows. And at the first window she came to, some three persons or so ahead of her, was a figure oddly familiar, which, however, in her present state of disintegration she did not recognize at once. It was clad in a sombre tail coat of prehistoric design, jemima boots, frayed shepherd’s plaid trousers braced high and a hard square felt hat which gave a crowning touch of oppressive respectability. Moreover, its progress was assisted by a heavy knotted walking stick, at the sight of which June gave an involuntary shiver.

An instant later the shiver had developed into a long and paralyzing shudder. Uncle Si was just ahead of her; in fact she was near enough to hear a harsh voice demand almost with menace a ticket to Victoria.

June’s worst fears were realized. The purse had fallen from her pocket to the shop floor in the struggle; the old wretch had found it, deciphered the precious ticket, put two and two together, and was now on his way to claim the parcel. All this was crystal clear to her swift mind. She felt a strong desire to faint, but she fought her weakness. She must go on. Everything was as good as lost--but she must go on.

She took her ticket. And then in the long subway to the platform she raced on ahead of Uncle Si. He was so near-sighted that even had he been less absorbed in his own affairs he would not have been likely to notice her.

June reached the platform well in front of the old man. But the train to Victoria was not in. It arrived two minutes later; by then, Uncle Si had appeared, and they boarded it together. She was careful, however, not to enter the same compartment as the enemy.

Short as the journey was, June had ample time to appreciate that the odds were heavily against her. The mere fact that the cloak-room receipt for the parcel was in the custody of Uncle Si would confer possession upon him; it had only to be presented for the Van Roon to be handed over without a question.

The one chance she had now was to get on well ahead of the old beast, and convince the clerk that in spite of the absence of the ticket the parcel was hers. She knew, however, only too well that the hope of being able to do this was frail indeed--at all events before the holder of the ticket arrived on the scene to claim it.

At Victoria, June dashed out of the train even before it stopped. Running past the ticket collector at the barrier and along the subway she reached the escalator yards in front of Uncle Si, and, in spite of being unused to this trap for the unwary, for Blackhampton’s more primitive civilization knew escalators not, she ascended to the street at a pace far beyond the powers of the Old Crocodile. By this means, indeed, she counted on gaining an advantage of several minutes, since it was hardly likely that Uncle Si would trust himself to such a contrivance, and in ignorance of the fact that she was just ahead, would choose the dignified safety of the lift.

So far as it went the thought was reassuring. Alas, it did not go far. As June ran through the long station to the cloak-room at its farthest end, she had but a very slender hope of being able to recover the parcel. She had no intention, however, of submitting tamely to fate. In this predicament, whatever the cost, she must make one last and final effort to get back her treasure.

At the cloak-room counter she took her courage in both hands. A man sour and elderly had replaced the wearer of the green corduroy, who was nowhere to be seen. This was a piece of bad luck, for she had hoped that the nice-looking young man might remember her. Happily, no other passengers besieged the counter at the moment, so that without loss of time June was able to describe the parcel and to announce the fact that the ticket she had received for it was missing.

Exactly as she had foreseen the clerk raised an objection. Without a ticket she couldn’t have the parcel. “But I simply must have it,” said June. And spurred by the knowledge that there was not one moment to lose in arguing the case, she boldly lifted the flap of the counter and entered the cloak-room itself.

“No use coming in here,” said the Clerk, crustily. “You can’t take nothing away without a ticket.”

“But my purse has been stolen, I tell you,” said June.

“Then I should advise you to go and see the station-master.”

“I can’t wait to do that.” And with the defiance of despair, expecting each moment to hear the voice of Uncle Si at her back, June ignored the Clerk, and proceeded to gaze up and down the numerous and heavily burdened luggage racks for her property.

XXXIV

“NOT a bit o’ use, don’t I tell you.” The Clerk was growing angry.

June pretended not to hear. Her heart beating fast she went on with her search for the parcel; yet in the midst of it she grew aware that somebody was approaching the counter. She dare not pause to look who it was, for she knew only too well that it was almost bound to be Uncle Si.

The Clerk uttered another snarl of protest as he turned away to attend to the new comer. As he did so, June breathed a prayer that her eye might fall on the parcel in that instant, for her only hope now was to seize it and fly. That, however, was not to be. She had omitted to notice the place in which it had been put, and do as she would she could not find it now.

At this crucial moment, there emerged from the inner office her friend of the green corduroy. She simply leapt at what was now her one remaining chance.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come,” cried June, in a voice that was a little frantic: “You remember my bringing a brown paper parcel here, don’t you--about two hours ago?”

The tone, tinged as it was with hysteria, caused Green Corduroy to look at June with mild astonishment. “I’ve lost the ticket you gave me for it, but I’m sure you remember my bringing it.” Her brain seemed on fire. “Don’t you remember my giving you a ten shilling note? And you had to go and get the change.”

Green Corduroy was a slow-brained youth, but a knitting of the brow seemed to induce a hazy recollection of the incident. But while the process was going on, June gave a glance over her shoulder, and behold there was Uncle Si the other side of the counter. A second glance told her, moreover, that Crusty Sides already had the fatal ticket in his hand.

What must she do? It was not a moment for half measures. While she was stirring the memory of Green Corduroy, the treasure would be gone. She did not hesitate. Observing Crusty Sides wheel, paper in hand, with the slow austerity of one of the Company’s oldest and most respected servants towards a luggage rack near by, June seized the clue. Of a sudden her eyes lit on the parcel at the top of the pile. Already the responsible fingers of Crusty Sides were straying upwards, yet before they could enclose the Van Roon, June made a dash for it, and managed to whisk it away from under his nose.

Her brain was like quicksilver now. She had a mad impulse to rush off with the treasure without further explanation; all the same she was able to resist it, for she realized that such a course would be too full of peril.

“Yes--this is it,” she said in an urgent whisper to Green Corduroy. And as she spoke, with a presence of mind, which in the circumstances was a little uncanny, she slipped behind a large pile of boxes out of view of Uncle Si.

“Surely you remember my bringing it?”

Green Corduroy seemed to think that he did remember. At this point Crusty Sides, with an air of outrage, sternly interposed. “But a pawty claims it. And here’s his ticket.”

“The ticket’s mine,” said June, in a fierce whisper. “It’s been taken from my purse.”

“Nothin’ to do with us, that ain’t,” said Crusty Sides.

“But you _do_ remember my bringing it, don’t you?” Beseechingly June turned to Green Corduroy. And he, that nice-looking young man, with a frown of ever-deepening perplexity, slowly affirmed that he thought he did remember.

“The ticket’s what we’ve got to go by,” said Crusty Sides, sternly. “Nothin’ else matters to us.”

“If you’ll look at it,” said June to Green Corduroy, “you’ll see that it’s made out in your writing.”

Green Corduroy looked and saw that it was. As far as he was concerned, that seemed to clinch the argument. And even Crusty Sides, a born bureaucrat, was rather impressed by it. “You say this here ticket’s been taken off on you?” he asked.

“Yes,” said June in an excited whisper. “By my wicked thief of an uncle.”

Instantly she regretted the imprudence of her words.

“Uncle a thief, eh?” proclaimed Crusty Sides, in a voice of such carrying power that to June it seemed that the Old Crocodile could hardly fail to hear him.

“Anyhow, this gentleman knows that it was I who brought the parcel,” she said, determinedly to Green Corduroy.

That young man looked her straight in the eye, and then declared that he did know. Further, like many minds “slow in the uptake,” when once in motion they are prone to deep conclusions. “Seems to me, Nobby,” he weightily affirmed, under the stimulus no doubt of being addressed as a gentleman, in the Company’s time, by such a good-looking girl, “that as this lady has got the parcel, and we have got the ticket for it, she and Uncle had better fight it out between ’em.”

“I don’t know about that,” growled Nobby.

Green Corduroy, however, stimulated by the fiery anguish of June’s glance, and no doubt still in thrall to the fact that she considered him a gentleman, was not to be moved from the statesmanlike attitude he had taken up. “You let ’em fight it out, Nobby. This lady was the one as brought it here.”

“I gave you a ten shilling note, didn’t I?” The voice of June was as honeyed as the state of her feelings would permit.

“Yes, and I fetched the change for you, didn’t I?”

Crusty Sides shook a head of confirmed misogyny. “Very irregular, that’s all I’ve got to say about it.”

“Maybe it is, Nobby. But it’s nothing to do with you and me.”

Green Corduroy, with almost the air of a knight errant, took the all-important slip of paper from his colleague. Flaunting it in gallant fingers, he moved up slowly to the counter.

S. Gedge Antiques, buying spectacles on nose, knotted cudgel in hand, was impatiently waiting. “The parcel is claimed by the lady who brought it,” June heard Green Corduroy announce.

She waited for no more. Following close behind Crusty Sides, who also moved up to the counter, she slipped quietly through an adjacent door to the main line platform before Uncle Si grew fully alive to the situation.

Clasping the parcel to her bosom, she glided swiftly down the platform, and out by the booking hall, travelling as fast as her legs would take her, without breaking into a run, which would have looked like guilt, and might have attracted public notice. She did not dare to glance back, for she was possessed by a fear that the old man and his stick were at her heels.

Once clear of the station itself, she yielded to the need of putting as much distance between Uncle Si and herself as a start so short would permit. There was now hope of throwing him off the track. Thus, as soon as she reached the Victoria Street corner, she scrambled on to a bus that was in the act of moving away.

One seat only was vacant and, as in a state of imminent collapse she sank down upon it, she ventured for the first time to look behind her. She quite expected to find Uncle Si at her elbow already, but with a gasp of relief she learned that the old man was nowhere in sight.

XXXV

JUNE did not know in which direction the bus was going. And when the conductor came for her fare, which he did as soon as the vehicle began to move, she was quite at a loss for a destination. There was nothing for it but to draw a bow at a venture. She asked for Oxford Circus, the only nodal point of the metropolis, besides Charing Cross, with which she was familiar. By a rare piece of luck, Oxford Circus was included in its route, and what remained of the shilling the girl at the teashop had given her was sufficient to get her there, and leave four pence in hand.

Alighting at Oxford Circus, she stood under a lamp to consider what she should do now. There was nowhere she could go, there was not one friend to whom she could turn. Battered and spent in body and spirit by all that had happened to her during the last few hours she was now in a flux of terror to which she dare not yield.

At first she thought of seeking advice of a policeman, but it would have been extremely difficult just then to tell her strange story. Its complications were many and fantastic; besides, and she trembled at the idea, it was by no means clear that she would be able to establish her claim to the Van Roon in the eye of the law.

Still, something would have to be done. She must find a home of some kind not only for her treasure, but for herself. Feeling desperately in need of help, she decided as a preliminary measure to spend three of her four remaining pence on a cup of tea. She had a vague hope that in that magic beverage inspiration might lurk.

The hope, as it chanced, was not vain. Near by was an A.B.C. shop; and she had hardly sat down at one of its marble-topped tables when, by an association of ideas, her mysterious acquaintance, Mr. Adolph Keller, sprang again into her mind. He had given her his address. Alas, the slip of paper on which it was written was in her purse, but she had a particularly good memory, and by raking it fiercely she was able to recall the fact that his place of domicile was Haliburton Studios, Manning Square.

She did not like trusting any man on an acquaintance so slight, especially as it had come about in so odd a fashion, but Mr. Keller had shown himself very friendly, and there was no one else to whom she could turn. Sipping her cup of tea, in slow and grateful weariness, she began to develop this idea. Horse sense, Mr. Boultby had always said, was her long suit; therefore she well understood the peril of taking a comparative stranger into her confidence. But very cogently she put to herself the question: What else could she do?

Of sundry policemen, who were very obliging, June asked the way to Manning Square. It was in Soho, not so very far from Oxford Circus, as she remembered Mr. Keller saying, and, in spite of a local fog which had come on in the last twenty minutes, the police were so helpful that she had no great difficulty in getting there. During the short journey her mind was much engaged in settling just what she would and would not say to Mr. Keller. She decided that as far as might be practicable she would leave the picture out of the case. It might not be possible to exclude it, but at any rate she would begin by offering to sit to him as a model, in accordance with his suggestion; and with that the pretext of her visit she would see if she could get him to lend her a little money to tide over immediate needs.

By the time she had come to Manning Square it was a few minutes past seven. Two complete circuits had to be made of this dingy, ill-smelling gap in the heart of Soho, before she came upon Haliburton Studios, which were not in the Square itself, but in a dismal by-street debouching from it. The tall block of buildings which comprised the studios was equally dismal, and as June entered a vestibule that shewed no light, she felt a sudden chill strike at her heart.

This, however, was not a moment to quail. It was a case, if ever there was one, of any port in a storm. The hazard of her errand fell upon her like a pall, but the knowledge that she had only a penny left with which to obtain a night’s lodging was a veritable barb in the flesh.

Try as she would she could not recall the number of Mr. Keller’s studio; nor was the information to be found upon the walls of the vestibule which she was not able to see. But while she stood at the foot of a winding flight of stone steps, striving to meet the difficulty which faced her now, she heard someone coming down. At the sound she went back to the door by which she had entered, where a lamp contending feebly against the fog, would enable her to see anyone who passed out of the flats.

The person who did so proved to be one of June’s own sex, a youngish woman whose fur coat seemed to accentuate a note of tawdry and flamboyant finery. Even in the semi-darkness June could see that her face was rouged.

She had no illusion as to the kind of person she addressed:

“You want Mr. Keller’s studio?” The woman peered into June’s face in a manner which she felt to be decidedly objectionable. “It’s the second door on the first landing.” The tone, offhand, and more than a little contemptuous, was like a blow in the face.

XXXVI

IT was not until the woman had passed out of the vestibule into the street that June could find courage to mount the stone stairs.

The knocker on the second door was so crazy that it threatened to break off in her hand. Tact and skill were called for to draw sound from it at all; bell there was none; but a faint light percolated through the fanlight and it was a glimpse of this which heartened June to persevere. By dint of application she was able to coax a few sounds out of the knocker, a feat which at last brought reward. The beam beyond the fanlight expanded; there was a shuffle of approaching slippers; and then the door came open.

Mr. Keller, wearing a dressing gown in lieu of a coat, stood before her.

“Hulloa!” he said.

Before June could find words of her own she had been recognized: “Why--it’s you!” The gentlemanly voice sounded most agreeable. “Walk right in. You’re welcome as the flowers in May.”

Tossed by the tempest as Mr. Keller’s visitor still was, she could not help contrasting such a welcome with the air and manner of Uncle Si.

XXXVII

THE geniality of Adolph Keller had a tonic effect upon June’s depression. She crossed his threshold with a sense of extreme relief, as one who finds a refuge from the storm. He closed the door of the flat, and then led the way into a spacious room with a high ceiling which was fixed up as a studio.

It was not without an air of comfort. The main part had been screened off; within a small but seductive inner space a bright fire mingled pleasant gleams with the radiance of the electric lamp. Two low wicker chairs were set invitingly near the hearth, and a table piled with books and magazines was between them. Amid these, however, space had been found for a tobacco jar, a siphon, a glass and a bottle of whisky. On the floor was a French novel, which he had laid down open to let her in.

Mr. Keller, evidently, was making himself comfortable for the night. The contrast between this snug and cheerful room and the rising fog, from which June had just escaped, struck her at once as delightful. With a little sigh of gratitude, she sank at the cordial invitation of her host into the first of the easy chairs.

He remembered her quite well, of course, yet for the moment he had forgotten her name, and what to June was the more surprising, the appointment she had made with him for that very afternoon seemed to have passed right out of his mind. Yet she was quick to see, for her wits were now working at high pressure, that this strange forgetfulness was in her favour. At any rate, it was going to help her in the task of keeping, as far as possible, the Van Roon out of the case.

“Lyons’, wasn’t it, we met at? One day last week? Your name’s----?”

“I’m Miss Gedge.” June’s tone was a shade “stand off,” for that appeared to be correct in the circumstances.

“Miss Gedge--yes--of course. Stupid of me to forget.” He fixed the eye of a man with a sense of humour upon this odd visitor. “I’ve a shocking memory for names. Very glad to see you, anyhow, Miss Gedge.” He took the low chair opposite with the calm and easy air of a model host. “And very nice of you to come on a damp and foggy night.”

The tone, rather than the words, put it up to June to explain her coming. She did so rather awkwardly, with a touch of “nerves.” Yet before committing herself to any positive statement as to why she was there, she was careful to dispose the parcel she carried as far beyond the range of his eyes as was possible at the side of the wicker chair in which she sat.

“You told me the other day”--She found it impossible to control the queer little tremble in her voice--“that you wanted an artist’s model, and that my hair was just the colour you were looking for.”

“By Jove, yes,” he laughed. “Your hair’s topping.” The laugh deepened to enthusiasm. “It’s the colour I want, to a hayseed.” An eye of veiled appraisement passed slowly over her. “And what’s almost as important there’s stooks of it.”

“Yes, there is,” said June, doing her best to pick up his light tone of intimacy. “It is important, I suppose, for an artist’s model to have hair long and thick.”

“Ra-ther!” As he looked at her sideways, out of the corner of one eye, his tone seemed to change a little; and then he got up alertly from his chair, the mantle of the model host again upon him. “I’m afraid there’s not much to offer you in the way of refreshment. There’s only whisky. If you’ll excuse me a minute, I’ll fetch another glass.”

“Oh, no, please, not for me,” said June quickly. She was very tired and horribly depressed, but she had been strictly brought up.

The host seemed a little amused by her vehemence. He looked at her keenly with a pair of curious, small, near-set eyes, which June liked even less now than when she had noticed them first. “Well, have a cigarette, anyhow. These are like mother’s milk.” And he offered a box of Virginia.

June also declined a cigarette, in the same odd, rather fluttered tone which caused him to smile in a way that added to her nervousness.

“No? Well, make yourself comfy, anyhow. Draw your chair up to the fire.”

She thanked him in a voice which, in spite of itself was a little prim, and which assured him that she was quite warm enough where she was. The attempted lightness and ease had gone; a subtle sense of fear, bred of hidden danger yet without any root in fact or logic, was rising in her. The position itself was embarrassing, yet so far Mr. Keller had shown no wish to presume upon it. Up till now he had been easy and charming; but June, in spite of worldly inexperience, had the intuitions of her sex to guide her; and she felt instinctively that there might be a great deal behind these graces. She was grateful all the same; they were much needed balm for many bruises.

When Mr. Keller sat down again in the wicker chair, about two yards away from her, a sense of languor crept upon June. The warmth of the fire, the glow of the lamp, the notes of a singularly quiet voice were like a subtle drug. Alive to danger as she was, its caress was hard to resist. Such a position was one of acute peril, for she was literally throwing herself upon the mercy of a person who was very much an unknown quantity, yet what alternative was there?

“Don’t mind a pipe, I hope?” The polite voice from the chair opposite was not really ironical; it was merely kind and friendly, yet feminine intuition shivering upon the dark threshold of a mighty adventure knew well enough how easily a tone of that kind could turn to something else.

“Oh no, I don’t mind at all.” She tried again to get the right key, but a laugh she could not control, high-pitched and irrelevant, was horribly betraying.

“That’s all right then.”

For about a minute, Mr. Keller puffed away in a sort of whimsical silence. Then he said with a soft fall, whose mere sweetness had the power to alarm, “Your hair’s jolly. Very jolly indeed!”

June nervously muttered that she was very glad he liked it.

“So much of it, don’t you know. Awfully useful to me just now. Quantity’s almost as valuable as the colour. Does it reach your waist when you let it down?”

June, not without a little pride, said that her hair when let down reached below her waist.

“Capital!” said Mr. Keller, with a laugh. “The very thing I’m looking for just now. You’ll make a stunning Andromeda.”

June had not heard of Andromeda. She had read some Dickens, and a little George Eliot, and she could remember bits of Shakespeare learned at school, but her tastes were not literary. She pretended to know all about Andromeda, yet the next words of Mr. Keller were a proof that he was not deceived. June did not know, however, that he had pierced clean through her ignorance.

“She’s the altogether. A classical subject.”

“I like classical subjects myself.” Abruptly June’s mind went back to Miss Preece, the revered head mistress of the Blackhampton High School where it had been her privilege to spend one term. Her voice rose a whole octave, in its involuntary desire to approximate as closely as possible to that of a real lady.

“So do I.” Mr. Keller’s humorous purr was that of a man well pleased. “That’s capital.”

“You can’t beat classical subjects, can you?” said June, making a wild attempt to achieve the conversational.

Again Mr. Keller looked across at her out of those near-set eyes of which by now she was rather afraid. “No, you can’t,” he said. “So large and so simple, and yet they strike so deep. They are life itself. A sort of summing up, don’t you know, of all that has been, all that can be, all that will be.”

June responded with more composure than she had yet shewn that she supposed it was so. It was nice to listen to talk of this kind from a man of Mr. Keller’s polish. The chair was most comfortable, and how good it was to be in front of the bright fire! Her nerves were being lulled more and more as if by a drug; the sense of her peril amid this sea of danger into which she had plunged began to grow less.

“I expect,” said Mr. Keller, in a tone so friendly and so casual that it fed the new sense of peace which was now upon June, “I expect you are pretty well used to the altogether?”