She fixed me, as she spoke, with a commanding eye. She was a woman, I gathered in that instant, born to command. There seemed, at any rate, no doubt in her mind that she could command me. If I had been a black beetle she could not have looked at me with a more scornful superiority. Her eyes were very large and of a rich, fiery brown colour, and it was these that gave me my first suspicion of her identity. As to the meaning of her words, however, I had no clue.
“Bear that in mind,” she went on. “I’ll double it if it’s a million dollars.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” I said, finding speech.
She clicked her tongue impatiently.
“There’s no need to be so cautious and mysterious. This lady is a friend of mine. She knows all about it. I asked her to come. I’m Mrs. Elmer Ford. I came here directly I got your letter. I think you’re the lowest sort of scoundrel that ever managed to keep out of gaol, but that needn’t make any difference just now. We’re here to talk business, Mr. Fisher, so we may as well begin.”
I was getting tired of being taken for Smooth Sam.
“I am not Smooth Sam Fisher.”
I turned to the automobile. “Will you identify me, Mrs. Drassilis?”
She was regarding me with wide-open eyes.
“What on earth are you doing down here? I have been trying everywhere to find you, but nobody—”
Mrs. Ford interrupted her. She gave me the impression of being a woman who wanted a good deal of the conversation, and who did not care how she got it. In a conversational sense she thugged Mrs. Drassilis at this point, or rather she swept over her like some tidal wave, blotting her out.
“Oh,” she said fixing her brown eyes, less scornful now but still imperious, on mine. “I must apologize. I have made a mistake. I took you for a low villain of the name of Sam Fisher. I hope you will forgive me. I was to have met him at this exact spot just about this time, by appointment, so, seeing you here, I mistook you for him.”
“If I might have a word with you alone?” I said.
Mrs. Ford had a short way with people. In matters concerning her own wishes, she took their acquiescence for granted.
“Drive on up to the house, Jarvis,” she said, and Mrs. Drassilis was whirled away round the curve of the drive before she knew what had happened to her.
“Well?”
“My name is Burns,” I said.
“Now I understand,” she said. “I know who you are now.” She paused, and I was expecting her to fawn upon me for my gallant service in her cause, when she resumed in quite a different strain.
“I can’t think what you can have been about, Mr. Burns, not to have been able to do what Cynthia asked you. Surely in all these weeks and months. … And then, after all, to have let this Fisher scoundrel steal him away from under your nose … !”
She gave me a fleeting glance of unfathomable scorn. And when I thought of all the sufferings I had gone through that term owing to her repulsive son and, indirectly, for her sake, I felt that the time had come to speak out.
“May I describe the way in which I allowed your son to be stolen away from under my nose?” I said. And in well-chosen words, I sketched the outline of what had happened. I did not omit to lay stress on the fact that the Nugget’s departure with the enemy was entirely voluntary.
She heard me out in silence.
“That was too bad of Oggie,” she said tolerantly, when I had ceased dramatically on the climax of my tale.
As a comment it seemed to me inadequate.
“Oggie was always high-spirited,” she went on. “No doubt you have noticed that?”
“A little.”
“He could be led, but never driven. With the best intentions, no doubt, you refused to allow him to leave the stables that night and return to the house, and he resented the check and took the matter into his own hands.” She broke off and looked at her watch. “Have you a watch? What time is it? Only that? I thought it must be later. I arrived too soon. I got a letter from this man Fisher, naming this spot and this hour for a meeting, when we could discuss terms. He said that he had written to Mr. Ford, appointing the same time.” She frowned. “I have no doubt he will come,” she said coldly.
“Perhaps this is his car,” I said.
A second automobile was whirring up the drive. There was a shout as it came within sight of us, and the chauffeur put on the brake. A man sprang from the tonneau. He jerked a word to the chauffeur, and the car went on up the drive.
He was a massively built man of middle age, with powerful shoulders, and a face—when he had removed his motor-goggles very like any one of half a dozen of those Roman emperors whose features have come down to us on coins and statues, square-jawed, clean-shaven, and aggressive. Like his late wife (who was now standing, drawn up to her full height, staring haughtily at him) he had the air of one born to command. I should imagine that the married life of these two must have been something more of a battle even than most married lives. The clashing of those wills must have smacked of a collision between the immovable mass and the irresistible force.
He met Mrs. Ford’s stare with one equally militant, then turned to me.
“I’ll give you double what she has offered you,” he said. He paused, and eyed me with loathing. “You damned scoundrel,” he added.
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