Part 10 (2/2)
”I will tell you exactly what is in my mind,” he said, deliberately.
”The young lady was terrified when she saw you that night accidentally in the chemist's shop. She almost dragged me away, and although she was almost fainting when we reached the taxicab, her greatest and chief anxiety was that we should get away before you could follow us. I cannot forget this. Until I have received her permission, therefore, to disclose her whereabouts, we will, if you please, speak of something else.”
He rose to his feet and glancing around was just in time to see the change in the face of his companion. That eloquently pleading smile had died away from her lips, her teeth were clenched. She looked like a woman struggling hard to control some overwhelming pa.s.sion. Without the smile her lips seemed hard, even cruel. There were evil things s.h.i.+ning out of her eyes. Tavernake felt chilled, almost afraid.
”We will see the rest of the house,” she declared coldly.
They went on from room to room. Tavernake, recovering himself rapidly, master of his subject, was fluent and practical. The woman listened, with only a terse remark here and there. Once more they stood in the hall.
”Is there anything else you would like to see?” he asked.
”Nothing,” she replied, ”but there is one thing more I have to say.”
He waited in stolid silence.
”Only a week ago,” she went on, looking him in the face, ”I told a man who is what you call, I think, an inquiry agent, that I would give a hundred pounds if he could discover that young woman for me within twenty-four hours.”
Tavernake started, and the smile came back to the lips of Mrs. Wenham Gardner. After all, perhaps she had found the way!
”A hundred pounds is a great deal of money,” he said thoughtfully.
She shrugged her shoulders.
”Not so very much,” she replied. ”About a fortnight's rent of this house, Mr. Tavernake.”
”Is the offer still open?” he asked.
She looked into his eyes, and her face had once more the beautiful ingenuousness of a child.
”Mr. Tavernake,” she said, ”the offer is still open. Get into the car with me and drive back to my rooms at the Milan Court, and I will give you a cheque for a hundred pounds at once. It will be very easily earned and you may just as well take it, for now I know where you are employed, I could have you followed day by day until I discover for myself what you are so foolishly concealing. Be reasonable, Mr. Tavernake.”
Tavernake stood quite still. His arms were folded, he was looking out of the hall window at the smoky vista of roofs and chimneys. From the soles of his ready-made boots to his ill-brushed hair, he was a commonplace young man. A hundred pounds was to him a vast sum of money. It represented a year's strenuous savings, perhaps more. The woman who watched him imagined that he was hesitating. Tavernake, however, had no such thought in his mind. He stood there instead, wondering what strange thing had come to him that the mention of a hundred pounds, delightful sum though it was, never tempted him for a single second. What this woman had said might be true. She would probably be able to discover the address easily enough without his help. Yet no such reflection seemed to make the least difference. From the days of his earliest boyhood, from the time when he had flung himself into the struggle, money had always meant much to him, money not for its own sake but as the key to those things which he coveted in life. Yet at that moment something stronger seemed to have a.s.serted itself.
”You will come?” she whispered, pa.s.sing her arm through his. ”We will be there in less than five minutes, and I will write you the cheque before you tell me anything.”
He moved towards the door indeed, but he drew a little away from her.
”Madam,” he said, ”I am sorry to seem so obstinate, but I thought I had made you understand some time ago. I do not feel at liberty to tell you anything without that young lady's permission.”
”You refuse?” she cried, incredulously. ”You refuse a hundred pounds?”
He opened the door of the car. He seemed scarcely to have heard her.
”At about eleven o'clock to-morrow morning,” he announced, ”I shall have the pleasure of calling upon you. I trust that you will have decided to take the house.”
CHAPTER VI. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
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