Her breath came faster; she could only look into those dark eyes in fear and try as best she could to order her thoughts. Dark eyes, violet—not the burnt brown of Greta’s, but a violet that was almost black. A detective—this slip of a girl! She was well dressed, too; the femininity in Jane Raytham took stock unconsciously. The gloves were from Renauds—only Renaud cut that quaint, half-gauntlet wrist.
“Won’t you tell me? It might save you so much unhappiness. We try to do that at the Yard—save people unhappiness. You’d never dream that, would you? But the police are more like big brothers than ogres—won’t you?”
Jane Raytham shook her head; it was a mistake, the only one she made, to attempt speech.
“No, I won’t!” she said breathlessly. “There is nothing to tell—your interference is unwarrantable. I shall write—I shall write—”
She swayed, and instantly Leslie Maughan was by her side, and the strength of her grip was the second surprise that Jane Raytham had.
With an effort she wrenched her arm free.
“Now you can go, please. And if I do not report you, it is because I think you have acted in ignorance, over zeal.”
She nodded towards the door, and Leslie slowly gathered up her bag and her umbrella.
“If you ever want me, you will find my telephone number on my card.”
Lady Raytham still held the crumpled card in her hand. Now she looked at it, and very deliberately walked to the fire and dropped it into the flames.
“Or the telephone book,” said Leslie as she went out.
Druze was in the hall, dry-washing his hands with nervous rapidity. He hastened to the street door and opened it.
“Good night, miss,” he said huskily, and she looked at him and shivered. And why Leslie Maughan shivered she did not know, but she had at that moment a vivid and terrifying illusion.
It was as though she were looking into the blank eyes of one who was already dead.
III
Leslie Maughan came striding briskly along the Thames Embankment. It was a bitterly cold night, and the nutria coat was not proof against the icy northerner which was blowing. The man who walked by her side was head and shoulders taller than she. He had the gait of a soldier, and his umbrella twirled rhythmically to his pace.
“Suicide on the left,” he said pleasantly, as though he were a guide pointing out the sights.
The girl checked her pace and looked back.
“Really? You don’t mean that, Mr. Coldwell?”
Her eyes were fixed upon the dark figure sprawling across the parapet, his arms resting on the granite crown, his chin on his hands. He was a gaunt figure of a man, differing in no respect from the waifs who would gather here from midnight onward and strive to snatch a little sleep between the policeman’s visits.
“It is any odds,” said Mr. Coldwell carefully, “when you see one of these birds watching the river in that way, he is thinking up a new way of settling old accounts. Are you interested—sentimentally?”
She hesitated.
“Yes, a little. I don’t know whether it’s sentiment or just feminine curiosity.”
She left his side abruptly and walked back to the man, who may have been watching her out of the corner of his eyes, for he straightened himself up quickly.
“Down and out?” she asked, and heard his soft laugh.
“Down, but not out,” he replied, and it was the voice of an educated man, with just a trace of that drawl, the pleasant stigmata which the Universities give to their children. “Did I arouse your compassion? I’m sorry. If you offer me money I shall be rather embarrassed. You will find plenty of poor beggars on this sidewalk who are more worthy objects of—charity. I use the word in its purest sense.”
She looked at his face. A slight moustache and a ragged fringe of beard did not disguise his youth. Chief Inspector Coldwell, who had come closer, was watching him with professional interest.
“Would you like to know what I was really thinking about?” There was an odd quality of banter in his voice. “I was thinking about murder. There is a gentleman in this town who has made life rather difficult for me, and I had just decided to walk up to him at the earliest opportunity and pop three automatic bullets through his heart when you disturbed the homicidal current of my thoughts.”
Coldwell chuckled.
“I thought I recognized you; you’re Peter Dawlish,” he said, and the shabby figure lifted his hat with mock politeness.
“Such is fame!” he said sardonically. “And you are Coldwell; the recognition is mutual. And now that I have hopelessly committed myself, I presume you will call the nearest City policeman and put me out of the way of all temptation.”
“When did you come out?” asked Coldwell.
The girl listened, staggered. They had been discussing this man not a quarter of an hour before; she had spent the afternoon thinking of him, and now to meet him on that windswept pavement, he of all the millions of people in London, was something more than a coincidence. It was fatalistic.
“Mr. Dawlish, I wonder if you will believe me when I say that you’re the one man in London I was anxious to meet. I only knew today that you were—out. Could you call and see me tonight?”
The man smiled.
“Invitations follow thick and fast,” he murmured. “Only ten minutes ago I was asked into a Salvation Army shelter. Believe me, madam—”
“Mr. Dawlish”—her voice was very quiet, but very clear—“you are being awfully sorry for yourself, aren’t you?”
She did not see the flush that came to his face.
“I suppose I am,” he said, a little gruffly. “But a man is entitled—”
“A man is never entitled to be sorry for himself in any circumstances,” she said. “Here is my card.”
She had slipped back the cover of her bag, and he took the little pasteboard from her hand, and, bringing it close to his eyes, read, in the dim light that a distant standard afforded.
“Will you come
