Her throat was parched and she was ravenously hungry. She sipped at the coffee he had made, and all the time her eyes did not leave his.
“I’ll make a clean breast of it,” he said suddenly. “The fact is, I have got into very serious trouble and it is necessary that I should get away.”
“From Grosvenor Square?” She opened her eyes wide in astonishment. “Aren’t you going back to Grosvenor Square?”
He smiled.
“It is hardly likely,” he said sarcastically; “your friend Steele—”
“Is he there?” she cried eagerly, clasping her hands. “Oh, tell me, please.”
“If you expect me to sing your lover’s praises you’re going to get a jar!” said Digby, without heat. “Now eat some food and shut up.” His tone was quiet but menacing, and she thought it best not to irritate him.
She was only beginning to understand her own position. Digby had run away and taken her with him. Why did she go? she wondered. He must have drugged her! And yet—she remembered the hypodermic syringe and instinctively rubbed her arm.
Digby saw the gesture and could almost read her thoughts. How lovely she was, he mused. No other woman in the world, after her experience of yesterday, could face the cold morning clear-eyed and flawless as she did. The early light was always kind to her, he remembered. The brightness of her soft eyes was undiminished, untarnished was the clarity of her complexion. She was a thing of delight, a joy to the eye, even of this connoisseur of beauty, who was not easily moved by mere loveliness.
“Eunice,” he said, “I am going to marry you.”
“Marry me,” she said, startled. “Of course, you will do nothing of the kind, Mr. Groat. I don’t want to marry you.”
“That is quite unimportant,” said Digby, and leaning forward over the table, he lowered his voice. “Eunice, do you realize what I am offering you and the alternative?”
“I will not marry you,” she answered steadily, “and no threat you make will change my mind.”
His eyes did not leave hers.
“Do you realize that I can make you glad to marry me,” he said, choosing his words deliberately, “and that I will stop at nothing—nothing?”
She made no reply, but he saw her colour change.
“Now understand me, my dear, once and for all. It is absolutely necessary that I should marry you, and you can either agree to a ceremony or you can take the consequence, and you know what that consequence will be.”
She had risen to her feet and was looking down at him, and in her eyes was a contempt which would have wilted any other man than he.
“I am in your power,” she said quietly, “and you must do what you will, but consciously I will never marry you. You were able to drug me yesterday, so that I cannot remember what happened between my leaving your house and my arrival in this wretched place, and possibly you can produce a similar condition, but sooner or later, Digby Groat, you will pay for all the wrong that you have done to the world. If I am amongst the injured people who will be avenged, that is God’s will.”
She turned to leave the room, but he was at the door before her and pulled her arm violently towards him.
“If you scream,” he said, “I will choke the life out of you.”
She looked at him with contempt.
“I shall not scream.”
Nor did she even wince when the bright needle passed under the skin of her forearm.
“If anything happens to me,” she said in a voice scarcely above a whisper, “I will kill myself in your presence, and with some weapon of yours.” Her voice faded away and he watched her.
For the first time, he was afraid. She had touched him on a sensitive point—his own personal safety. She knew. What had put that idea into her head, he wondered, as he watched the colour come and go under the influence of the drug? And she would do it! He sweated at the thought. She might have done it here, and he could never have explained his innocence of her murder.
“Phew!” said Digby Groat, and wiped his forehead.
Presently he let her hand drop and guided her to a chair.
Again her hand touched her arm tenderly, and then:
“Get up,” said Digby, and she obeyed. “Now go to your room and stay there until I tell you I want you.”
XXXVI
That afternoon he had a visitor. He was, apparently, a gentleman who was anxious to rent a garage, and he made one or two inquiries in the mews before he called at Digby Groat’s temporary home. Those people who troubled to observe him, noticed that he stayed a considerable time within this garage, and when he came out he seemed satisfied with his negotiations. He was in truth Villa, who had come in answer to an urgent wire.
“Well,” said Digby, “is everything ready?”
“Everything is ready, dear friend,” said Villa amiably. “I have the three men you want. Bronson is one, Fuentes and Silva are the others; they are known to you?”
Digby nodded. Bronson was an army aviator who had left the service under a cloud. Digby had employed him once before, to carry him to Paris—Bronson ran a passenger carrying service which Digby had financed. The other two he knew as associates of Villa—Villa had queer friends.
“Bronson will be in a field just outside Rugby. I told him to pretend he had made a false landing.”
“Good,” said Digby. “Now you understand that I shall be travelling north in the disguise of an old woman. A car must be waiting a mile short of the station and Fuentes must reach the line with a red hand-lamp and signal the train to stop. When it stops he can clear and by that time I shall be well away. I know Rugby well and this sketch-map will tell you everything.” He
