“Once there, I shall be difficult to move,” he said. “The granting of concessions to the Powers will identify them with my reign…”
Spedwell listened and wondered at the calm confidence of this merchant’s son who planned to buy a place on the throne which the Mings and the Manchus had won by their valour. And all the time he was speaking the world grew lighter and the grim outlines of the Conqueror’s Tower, wherein so much ambition had died, rose into shape with the broadening of the day.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Mr Stephen Narth had been detained in town all night, and for once his daughter did an unselfish thing.
“There is no sense in worrying father,” she told her hysterical sister. “And Mr Joseph says that no harm was intended me—these wretched people mistook me for Joan.”
“‘Joseph’—is he Jewish?” asked Letty, curiosity overcoming alarm.
“He doesn’t look it,” was the non-committal reply.
It happened that Clifford did not see the girl either on her rescue or during the following morning. Only too well he knew that Mabel had been mistaken for her distant cousin, and he grew more and more uneasy. His first call on his arrival in town was at Scotland Yard, and here he received the gratifying intelligence that a number of officers had been detailed to watch Sunni Lodge.
“You’ll be wanting somebody to look after you!” said the officer with a smile when Clifford told him of the ammonia attack. “That ammonia spray in the hat is an old trick, by the way.”
Clifford nodded.
“I’m not proud of myself,” he said.
“As far as Miss Bray is concerned,” said the superintendent, “I have already sent a man to Sunningdale with orders to follow her wherever she goes. He has just ‘phoned me to say that the Narths’ car is out of order and he will have no difficulty in keeping her under observation.”
“Thank the Lord for that!” said Cliff fervently, and went back to his house to arrange the details of the search he was making that night.
At five o’clock that afternoon he telephoned through to the Slaters’ Cottage. Joe Bray’s voice answered him.
“I’ve just been having a talk on the ‘phone with Joan,” said Joe. “Mark this, that girl’s got brains! I asked her how old she thought I was, and what do you think she said–-“
“Don’t tell me,” begged Clifford. “I’d hate to think she was insincere. Now listen: you’re to be here at eleven o’clock. You’ll have a visit from two or three men round about nine. They are Scotland Yard detectives and their job is to keep an eye on Sunni Lodge. As soon as they arrive, you skip—you understand?”
“She said to me,” continued Joe, a tremor of sentiment in his voice, “‘Mabel seems to like you’—those were her very words—‘she seems to like you.’”
“She’ll have no rival,” said Clifford unpleasantly. “Did you hear what I said, you crazy old hen?”
“I heard you,” said Joe quite unruffled. “Listen, Cliff: she said—Joan, I mean—‘I’ve never known Mabel to be so interested in anybody–-’”
“At eleven o’clock,” persisted Clifford.
“At all times—that’s what Joan said–-“
“And don’t call up Joan Bray any more. One of the servants, or Narth, or, worse still, one of the daughters may discover who you are,” said Clifford, “and then it will be a case of ‘Goodbye, Mabel.’”
“I’m not likely to call her up: she’s gone to town. And listen, Cliff, she said–-“
“Gone to town?”
The news startled the younger man, but before he could question his partner, Bray went on:
“She’s gone up to buy some dresses. That Narth ain’t so bad, Cliff. Told her she could spend up to the limit. He’s not a bad scout, old Stephen.”
Clifford hung up the receiver thoughtfully. Generosity and Stephen Narth were such complete strangers that his suspicions were aroused.
When Joan Bray was ushered into her relative’s private office she also was a little doubtful as to what condition might be attached to Stephen’s largess. It was natural in her that she should wish to go to this strange husband that had been chosen for her with some material equipment. Even the beggar maid would not come empty-handed to Cophetua, but would spend her days gathering a poor and decent wardrobe to replace her rags. And Joan was singularly deficient in the matter of clothing. Mr Narth was not an extravagant man, and she had subsisted for three years on two evening frocks. A fine character should be superior to the mundane considerations of clothing, but when a fine mind has as its host a shapely body, it may be excused the lapse of a desire for suitable covering.
Mr Stephen Narth was sitting at his desk with his head in his long hands, and he looked up with a start and stared at her as she entered the room. In a week an extraordinary change had come over him, she thought. He had grown haggard, nervous, ready to start at the slightest sound. He was a man who at the best of times was easily irritated, but now, as the click of the door announced her presence, she thought he had some difficulty in suppressing an exclamation of fear.
“Oh! You! It is you, is it, Joan?” he said breathlessly. “Sit down, won’t you?”
He unlocked a drawer of his desk after two attempts—his hand shook so that he could not fit the key—and took out a black cash-box.
“We’ve got to do this thing in style, Joan.” His voice was shrill; the man was on edge, she saw. “Must get you married in the way old Joe would like, eh? You didn’t tell the girls what I wanted you for?”
She shook her head.
“That’s right. They would have wanted to come up and buy things as well, and I can’t afford it.”
From the box he took a pad of notes and, without counting, laid them before her.
“Get everything you want, my dear—nothing but the best. There’s only one favour I would like to ask you.” He stared out of the window, not meeting her eyes. “You know, Joan, I have interests in—queer sorts of ventures. I finance this and that and the other in a little way, and I have more fingers in more pies than people imagine.” He passed his hand nervously across his chin, his eyes still on the window, and she wondered what was coming next. “I’ve put a whole lot of money into a dressmaking business—Madame Ferroni, 704, Fitzroy Square.” His voice had grown suddenly husky. “It’s not a very pretentious place; in fact, it’s a suite on the third floor; but I’d like you to buy some of your gowns from Madame.”
“Why, surely, Mr Narth,” she said, a little amused.
“Go there first,” said Stephen, still looking past her. “If she hasn’t got what you want you needn’t buy it. I’ve half promised I’d send you there, and it will be good for me too, though the business is a flourishing one.”
He wrote the address on a card and pushed it across the table to her.
“Don’t think because it’s a poor-looking place that she hasn’t got the dresses you want,” he continued. “And Joan, I’m rather fussy about little things. Don’t keep cabs waiting, my dear; they eat up money, and dressmakers keep you a long time. Always pay off the cabman when you go into a dressmaker’s, Joan; you can generally get another without any trouble. No, no, don’t count the money, it doesn’t matter. If you want more you must ask and I will let you have it. Goodbye.”
His face was as white as death, his eyes held an apprehension which almost terrified her. She took the cold, clammy hand and shook it, but he stopped her thanks brusquely.
“Go to Madame Ferroni’s first, won’t you? I promised her you would.”
The door closed on her and he gave her time to get out of the building, and then he walked to the door and locked it. As he did so, the second door which led to the boardroom opened slowly and Fing-Su came in. Stephen Narth turned, a glare of hate in his eyes.
“Well, I’ve done it,” he jerked. “If any harm comes to that girl, Fing-Su–-“
Fing-Su smiled broadly and flicked a speck of invisible dust from his well-fitting morning coat.
“No harm will come to her, my dear man,” he said in his soft, suave way. “It is merely a move in the great game. A tactical point gained, that the strategical plan may be brought to complete success.”
Narth was fingering the telephone.
“I’ve a good mind to stop her,” he said huskily. “I could call Lynne and he would get there first.”
Fing-Su smiled again, and his eye did not leave the telephone and the nervous hand that played with the
