The Man Who Knew Part 30

"Which is--what?" she challenged

"Which is controversial," said Frank diplomatically.

She came down to the station to see him off. As he looked out of the window, waving his farewells, he thought he had never seen a more lovely being or one more desirable.

It was in the afternoon of that day which saw Frank Merrill speeding toward the Swiss frontier and Paris that Mr. Rex Holland strode into the Palace Hotel at Montreux and seated himself at a table in the restaurant. The hour was late and the room was almost deserted.

Giovanni, the head waiter, recognized him and came hurriedly across the room.

"Ah, m'sieur," he said, "you are back from England. I didn't expect you till the winter sports had started. Is Paris very dull?"

"I didn't come through Paris," said the other shortly; "there are many roads leading to Switzerland."

"But few pleasant roads, m'sieur. I have come to Montreux by all manner of ways--from Paris, through Pontarlier, through Ostend, Brussels, through the Hook of Holland and Amsterdam, but Paris is the only way for the man who is flying to this beautiful land."

The man at the table said nothing, scanning the menu carefully. He looked tired as one who had taken a very long journey.

"It may interest you to know," he said, after he had given his order and as Giovanni was turning away, "that I came by the longest route. Tell me, Giovanni, have you a man called Merrill staying at the hotel?"

"No, m'sieur," said the other. "Is he a friend of yours?"

Mr. Rex Holland smiled.

"In a sense he is a friend, in a sense he is not," he said flippantly, and offered no further enlightenment, although Giovanni waited with a deferential c.o.c.k of his head.

Later, when he had finished his modest dinner, he strolled into the one long street of the town, returning to the writing room of the hotel with a number of papers which included the visitors' list, a publication printed in English, and which, as it related the comings and goings of visitors, not only to Lausanne, Montreux, and Teritet, but also to Evian and Geneva, enjoyed a fair circulation. He sat at the table, and, drawing a sheet of paper from the rack, wrote, addressed an envelope to Frank Merrill, esquire, Hotel de France, Geneva, slipped it into the hotel pillar box, and went to bed.

"There's a letter here for Frank," said the girl. "I wonder if it is from his agent."

She examined the envelope, which bore the Montreux postmark.

"I should imagine it is," said Saul Arthur Mann.

"Well, I am going to open it, anyway," said the girl. "Poor Frank! He will be in a state of suspense."

She tore open the envelope, and took out a letter. Mr. Mann saw her face go white, and the letter trembled in her hand. Without a word she pa.s.sed it to him, and he read:

"Dear Frank Merrill," said the letter. "Give me another month's grace and then you may tell the whole story. Yours, Rex Holland."

Saul Arthur Mann stared at the letter with open mouth.

"What does it mean?" asked the girl in a whisper.

"It means that Merrill is s.h.i.+elding somebody," said the other. "It means--"

Suddenly his face lit up with excitement.

"The writing!" he gasped.

Her eyes followed his, and for a moment she did not understand; then, with a lightning sweep of her arm, she s.n.a.t.c.hed the letter from his hand and crumpled it in a ball.

"The writing!" said Mr. Mann again. "I've seen it before. It is--Jasper Cole's!"

She looked at him steadily, though her face was white, and the hand which grasped the crumpled paper was shaking.

"I think you are mistaken, Mr. Mann," she said quietly.

CHAPTER XIV

THE MAN WHO LOOKED LIKE FRANK

Saul Arthur Mann came back to England full of his news, and found Frank at the little Jermyn Street hotel where he had installed himself, and Frank listened without interruption to the story of the letter.

"Of course," the little fellow went on, "I went straight over to Montreux. The note heading was not on the paper, but I had no difficulty, by comparing the qualities of papers used at the various hotels, in discovering that it was written from the Palace. The head waiter knew this Rex Holland, who had been a frequent visitor, had always tipped very liberally, and lived in something like style. He could not describe his patron, except that he was a young man with a very languid manner who had arrived the previous morning from Holland and had immediately inquired for Frank Merrill."

"From Holland! Are you sure it was the morning? I have a particular reason for asking," asked Frank quickly.

"No, it was not in the morning, now you mention it. It was in the evening. He left again the following morning by the northern train."

"How did he find my address?" asked Frank.

"Obviously from the visitors' list. The waiter on duty in the writing room remembered having seen him consulting the newspaper. Now, my boy, you have to be perfectly candid with me. What do you know about Rex Holland?"

Frank opened his case, took out a cigarette, and lit it before he replied.

"I know what everybody knows about him," he said, with a hint of bitterness in his voice, "and something which n.o.body knows but me."

"But, my dear fellow," said Saul Arthur Mann, laying his hand on the other's shoulder, "surely you realize how important it is for you that you should tell me all you know."

Frank shook his head.

"The time is not come," he said, and he would make no further statement.

But on another matter he was emphatic.

"By heaven, Mann, I am not going to stand by and see May ruin her life.

There's something sinister in this influence which Jasper is exercising over her. You have seen it for yourself."

Saul Arthur nodded.

"I can't understand what it is," he confessed. "Of course Jasper is not a bad-looking fellow. He has perfect manners and is a charming companion. You don't think--"

"That he is winning on his merits?" Frank shook his head. "No, indeed, I do not. It is difficult for me to discuss my private affairs, and you know how reluctant I am to do so, but you are also aware of what I think of May. I was hoping that we should go back to the place where we left off, and, although she is kindness itself, this girl who is more to me than anything or anybody in the world, and who was prepared to marry me, and would have married me but for Jasper's machinations, was almost cold."