The False Faces Part 53

"Howson is resting easily, Dr. Apthorp reports," Blensop added, going back to the safe. "Has Stone turned up anything of interest, sir?"

"Footprints," Stanistreet replied with a snort of moderate impatience.

"He's quite upset since I've informed him the man who made them is--"

"_Good G.o.d_!"

The interruption was Blensop's in a voice strangely out of tune.

Stanistreet wheeled sharply upon him.

"What the deuce--!" he snapped.

By every indication the secretary had suffered the most severe shock of his experience. His face was ghastly, his eyes vacant; his knees shook beneath him; one hand pressed convulsively the bosom of his waistcoat. His endeavours to reply evoked only a husky, rattling sound.

"What the devil has come over you?" Stanistreet insisted.

The rattle became articulate: "I've lost it! It's gone!"

"What have you lost?"

"N-nothing, sir. That is--I mean to say--my fountain pen."

"The way you take it, I should say you'd lost your head," Stanistreet commented. "You must have dropped the thing somewhere. Look about, see if you can't find it."

Thus admonished, the secretary began to search the floor with frantic glances, and as the footman ushered in Cecelia Brooke, Lanyard saw the young man dart forward and retrieve the pen with a start of relief wellnigh as unmanning as the shock of loss had seemed.

With that Lanyard's interest in the fellow waned; he was too poor a thing to consider seriously; while here was one who compelled anew, as ever when they met, the homage of sincere and marvelling admiration.

Yet another of those miracles of feminine adaptability and makes.h.i.+ft had brought the girl to this meeting in the guise of one who had never known a broken night or an hour's care, with a look of such fresh tranquility that it seemed hardly possible she could be one and the same with that wilted little woman whom Lanyard had left in the gray dawn at the entrance to the Hotel Knickerbocker. A tailored suit, necessarily borrowed plumage, became her so completely that it was difficult to believe it not her own. Her eyes were calm and sweet with candour; her colour was a clear and artless glow; the hand she offered the Briton was tremorless.

"Colonel Stanistreet?"

"I am he, Miss Brooke. It is kind of you to call so early to relieve my mind about your brother. I have known Lionel so long...."

"He is resting easily," said the girl. "His complete recovery is merely a matter of time and nursing."

"That is good news," said Stanistreet. "Monsieur d.u.c.h.emin I believe you know."

"I have been fortunate in that at least."

Gravely Lanyard saluted the hand extended to him in turn. "Mademoiselle is most gracious," he said humbly.

"Then--I understand--Monsieur d.u.c.h.emin must have told you--?" The girl addressed Stanistreet.

"Permit me to leave you--" Lanyard interposed.

"No," she begged--"please not! I've nothing to say that you may not hear.

You have been too much involved--"

"If mademoiselle insists," Lanyard demurred. "I feel it is not right I should stay. And yet--if you will indulge me--I should like very much to demonstrate the truth of an old saw...."

Two confused looks were his response.

"I fear I, for one, do not follow," Stanistreet admitted.

"I will explain quite briefly," Lanyard promised. "The adage I have in mind is as old as human wit: Set a thief to catch a thief. And the last time it was quoted in my hearing, it was not to my advantage. I recall, indeed, resenting it enormously."

He paused with purpose, looking down at the desk. A pad of blank paper caught his eye. He took it up and examined it with an abstracted manner.

"Well, monsieur: the application of your adage?"

"Colonel Stanistreet, what would you think if I were to tell you the combination of your safe?"

"I should be inclined to suspect that you were the devil," Stanistreet chuckled.

"By all accounts a gentleman of intelligence: one is flattered.... Very well: I proceed to demonstrate black art with the aid of this white paper pad. The combination, monsieur, is as follows: nine, twenty-seven, eighteen, thirty-six."

A low cry of bewilderment greeted this announcement. Blensop had drawn near and was eyeing Lanyard as if under the influence of hypnotism.

"How--how do you know that?" he asked in a broken voice.

"Clairvoyance, Mr. Blensop. I seem to see, as I hold this pad, somebody writing upon it the combination for the information of another who had no right to have it--somebody using a pencil with a hard lead, Mr. Blensop; which was very foolish of him, since it made a distinct impression on the under sheet. So you see my magic is rather colourless, after all.... Now, a wiser man, Mr. Blensop, would have used a pen, a fountain pen by preference, with a soft gold nib, well broken. That would leave no impression. If you will lend me the beautiful pen I observe in your pocket, I will give a further demonstration."

The eyes of the secretary s.h.i.+fted wildly. He hesitated, moistening dry lips with the tip of a nervous tongue.

"And don't try to get out of it, Mr. Blensop, because I am armed and don't mean to let you escape. Besides, that good Mr. Stone patrols the garden."

Lanyard's tone changed to one of command. "That pen, monsieur!"

Blensop's hand faltered to his waistcoat pocket, hesitated, withdrew, and feebly extended the pen.

"I think you _are_ the devil," he stammered in an under-tone--"the devil himself!"

Deftly uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the pen-point, Lanyard inverted the barrel above the desk.

The cylinder of paper dropped out.

"And now, Colonel Stanistreet, if you will call Mr. Stone and have this traitor removed...."

XXIII

AMNESTY

When Stanistreet had gone out in company with Stone, and the broken, weeping Blensop, ending a scene indescribably painful, a lull almost as uncomfortable to Lanyard ensued.

Then--"How did you guess?" Cecelia Brooke asked in wonder.