There was a sudden lightning movement, a heave and a quick jerk. The impersonator of Potts was dimly conscious of flying through the air, and of hitting the floor some yards from the door. He then became acutely conscious that the floor was hard, and that being winded is a most painful experience. Doubled up and groaning, he watched Hugh pick up his hat and stick, and make for the door. He made a frantic effort to rise, but the pain was too great, and he rolled over cursing, while the soldier, his hand on the doorknob, laughed gently.
“I’ll keep the toothpick,” he remarked, “as a memento.”
The next moment he was striding along the corridor towards the lift. As a fight it had been a poor one, but his brain was busy with the information he had heard. True, it had been scrappy in the extreme, and, in part, had only confirmed what he had suspected all along. The wretched Granger had been foully done to death, for no other reason than that he was the millionaire’s secretary. Hugh’s jaw tightened; it revolted his sense of sport. It wasn’t as if the poor blighter had done anything; merely because he existed and might ask inconvenient questions he had been removed. And as the lift shot downwards, and the remembrance of the grim struggle he had had in the darkness of The Elms the night before came back to his mind, he wondered once again if he had done wisely in not breaking Peterson’s neck while he had had the chance.
He was still debating the question in his mind as he crossed the tea-lounge. And almost unconsciously he glanced towards the table where three days before he had had tea with Phyllis Benton, and had been more than half inclined to believe that the whole thing was an elaborate leg-pull. …
“Why, Captain Drummond, you look pensive.” A well-known voice from a table at his side made him look down, and he bowed a little grimly. Irma Peterson was regarding him with a mocking smile.
He glanced at her companion, a young man whose face seemed vaguely familiar to him, and then his eyes rested once more on the girl. Even his masculine intelligence could appreciate the perfection—in a slightly foreign style—of her clothes; and, as to her beauty, he had never been under any delusions. Nor, apparently, was her escort, whose expression was not one of unalloyed pleasure at the interruption to his tête-à-tête.
“The Carlton seems rather a favourite resort of yours,” she continued, watching him through half-closed eyes. “I think you’re very wise to make the most of it while you can.”
“While I can?” said Hugh. “That sounds rather depressing.”
“I’ve done my best,” continued the girl, “but matters have passed out of my hands, I’m afraid.”
Again Hugh glanced at her companion, but he had risen and was talking to some people who had just come in.
“Is he one of the firm?” he remarked. “His face seems familiar.”
“Oh, no!” said the girl. “He is—just a friend. What have you been doing this afternoon?”
“That, at any rate, is straight and to the point,” laughed Hugh. “If you want to know, I’ve just had a most depressing interview.”
“You’re a very busy person, aren’t you, my ugly one?” she murmured.
“The poor fellow, when I left him, was quite prostrated with grief, and—er—pain,” he went on mildly.
“Would it be indiscreet to ask who the poor fellow is?” she asked.
“A friend of your father’s, I think,” said Hugh, with a profound sigh. “So sad. I hope Mr. Peterson’s neck is less stiff by now?”
The girl began to laugh softly.
“Not very much, I’m afraid. And it’s made him a little irritable. Won’t you wait and see him?”
“Is he here now?” said Hugh quickly.
“Yes,” answered the girl. “With his friend whom you’ve just left. You’re quick, mon ami—quite quick.” She leaned forward suddenly. “Now, why don’t you join us instead of so foolishly trying to fight us? Believe me, Monsieur Hugh, it is the only thing that can possibly save you. You know too much.”
“Is the invitation to amalgamate official, or from your own charming brain?” murmured Hugh.
“Made on the spur of the moment,” she said lightly. “But it may be regarded as official.”
“I’m afraid it must be declined on the spur of the moment,” he answered in the same tone. “And equally to be regarded as official. Well, au revoir. Please tell Mr. Peterson how sorry I am to have missed him.”
“I will most certainly,” answered the girl. “But then, mon ami, you will be seeing him again soon, without doubt. …”
She waved a charming hand in farewell, and turned to her companion, who was beginning to manifest symptoms of impatience. But Drummond, though he went into the hall outside, did not immediately leave the hotel. Instead, he buttonholed an exquisite being arrayed in gorgeous apparel, and led him to a point of vantage.
“You see that girl,” he remarked, “having tea with a man at the third table from the big palm? Now, can you tell me who the man is? I seem to know his face, but I can’t put a name to it.”
“That, sir,” murmured the exquisite being, with the faintest perceptible scorn of such ignorance, “is the Marquis of Laidley. His lordship is frequently here.”
“Laidley!” cried Hugh, in sudden excitement. “Laidley! The Duke of Lampshire’s son! You priceless old stuffed tomato—the plot thickens.”
Completely regardless of the scandalised horror on the exquisite being’s face, he smote him heavily in the stomach and stepped into Pall Mall. For clear before his memory had come three lines on the scrap of paper he had torn from the table at
