Part 21 (2/2)

Fifty-three. Number fifty-three.

Allerd.y.k.e, who could not exist without fresh air and exercise, went for a stroll before breakfast when he was in London--he usually chose the Embankment, as being the nearest convenient open s.p.a.ce, and thither he now repaired, thinking things over. There were many new features of this affair to think about, but the one of the previous night now occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of the others. What was this woman doing, coming--with evident secrecy--out of one set of rooms, and entering another at that late hour? He wanted to know--he must find out--and he would find out with ease,--and indirectly, from Fullaway.

Fullaway always took his breakfast at a certain table in a certain corner of the coffee-room at the hotel; there Allerd.y.k.e had sometimes joined him. He found the American there, steadily eating, when he returned from his walk, and he dropped into a chair at his side with a casual remark about the fine morning.

”Didn't set eyes on you last night at all,” he went on, as he picked up his napkin. ”Off somewhere, eh?”

”Spent the evening out,” answered Fullaway. ”Not often I do, but I did--for once in a way. Van Koon and I (you don't know Van Koon, do you?--he's a fellow countryman of mine, stopping here for the summer, and a very clever man) we dined at the Carlton, and then went to the Haymarket Theatre. I was going to ask you to join us, Allerd.y.k.e, but you were out and hadn't come in by the time we had to go.”

”Thank you--no, I didn't get in until seven o'clock or so,” answered Allerd.y.k.e. ”So I'd a quiet evening.”

”No news, I suppose?” asked Fullaway, going vigorously forward with his breakfast. ”Heard nothing from the police authorities?”

”Nothing,” replied Allerd.y.k.e. ”I suppose they're doing things in their own way, as usual.”

”Just so,” a.s.sented Fullaway. ”Well, it's an odd thing to me that n.o.body comes forward to make some sort of a shot at that reward! Most extraordinary that the man of the Eastbourne Terrace affair should have been able to get clean away without anybody in London having seen him--or at any rate that the people who must have seen him are unable to connect him with the murder of that woman. Extraordinary!”

”It's all extraordinary,” said Allerd.y.k.e. He took up a newspaper which Fullaway had thrown down and began to talk of some subject that caught his eye, until Fullaway rose, pleaded business, and went off to his rooms upstairs. When he had gone Allerd.y.k.e reconsidered matters. So Fullaway had been out the night before, had he--dining out, and at a theatre?

Then, of course, it would be quite midnight before he got in. Therefore, presumably, he did not know that his secretary was about his rooms--and entering and leaving another suite close by. No--Fullaway knew nothing--that seemed certain.

The remembrance of what he had seen sent Allerd.y.k.e, as soon as he had breakfasted, to the hall of the hotel, and to the register of guests.

There was no one at the register at that moment, and he turned the pages at his leisure until he came to what he wanted. And there it was--in plain black and white--

NUMBER 53. MR. JOHN VAN KOON. NEW YORK CITY, U.S.A.

CHAPTER XXI

THE YOUNG MAN WHO LED PUGS

Allerd.y.k.e, with a gesture peculiar to him, thrust his hands in the pockets of his trousers, strolled away from the desk on which the register lay open, and going over to the hall door stood there a while, staring out on the tide of life that rolled by, and listening to the subdued rattle of the traffic in its ceaseless traverse of the Strand.

And as he stood in this apparently idle and purposeless lounging att.i.tude, he thought--thought of a certain birthday of his, a good thirty years before, whereon a kind, elderly aunt had made him a present of a box of puzzles. There were all sorts of puzzles in that box--things that you had to put together, things that had to be arranged, things that had to be adjusted. But there was one in particular which had taken his youthful fancy, and had at the same time tried his youthful temper--a shallow tray wherein were a vast quant.i.ty of all sorts and sizes of bits of wood, gaily coloured. There were quite a hundred of those bits, and you had to fit them one into the other. When, after much trying of temper, much exercise of patience, you had accomplished the task, there was a beautiful bit of mosaic work, a picture, a harmonious whole, lovely to look upon, something worthy of the admiring approbation of uncles and aunts, grandmothers and grandfathers. But--the doing of it!

”Naught, however, to this confounded thing!” mused Allerd.y.k.e, gazing at and not seeing the folk on the broad sidewalk. ”When all the bits of this puzzle have been fitted into place I daresay one'll be able to look down on it as a whole and say it looks simple enough when finished, but, egad, they're of so many sorts and shapes and queer angles that they're more than a bit difficult to fit at present. Now who the deuce is this Van Koon, and what was that Mrs. Marlow, alias Miss Slade, doing in his rooms last night when he was out?”

He was exercising his brains over a possible solution of this problem when Fullaway suddenly appeared in the hall behind him, accompanied by a man whom Allerd.y.k.e at once took to be the very individual about whom he was speculating. He was a man of apparently forty years of age, of average height and build, of a full countenance, sallow in complexion, clean-shaven, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles over a pair of sapphire blue eyes--a shrewd, able-looking man, clad in the loose fitting, square-cut garments just then affected by his fellow-countrymen, and having a low-crowned, soft straw hat pulled down over his forehead. His hands were thrust into the pockets of his jacket; a long, thin, black cigar stuck out of a corner of his humorous-looking lips; he c.o.c.ked an intelligent eye at Allerd.y.k.e as he and Fullaway advanced to the door.

”Hullo, Allerd.y.k.e!” said Fullaway in his usual vivacious fas.h.i.+on.

”Viewing the prospect o'er, eh? Allow me to introduce Mr. Van Koon, whom I don't think you've met, though he's under the same roof. Van Koon, this is the Mr. Allerd.y.k.e I've mentioned to you.”

The two men shook hands and stared at each other. Whoever and whatever this man may be, thought Allerd.y.k.e, he gives you a straight look and a good grip--two characteristics which in his opinion went far to establish any unknown individual's honesty.

”No,” remarked Van Koon. ”I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Mr.

Allerd.y.k.e before. But I'm out a great deal--I don't spend much time indoors this fine weather. You gentlemen know your London well--I don't, and I'm putting in all the time I can to cultivate her acquaintance.”

”Been in town long?” asked Allerd.y.k.e, wanting to say something and impelled to this apparently trite question by the New Yorker's own observations.

<script>