The Crime Doctor Part 29

"Of course I didn't like him well enough for that, though he _had_ put me against _you_!"

"How?" said Dollar grimly. She was still peering into the fire; but he flattered himself there was more than firelight in the flush that almost rivaled the Venetian red still nearer to the bars.

"He knows what I did two years ago."

"Croucher, of course?"

"He said it was you--that you gave me away to him in Switzerland!"

"And you believed him?"

"He made it just credible. He said you told him in confidence; he showed me a letter in which you reminded him not to let it go any further."

"A forgery!"

"I see that now; but it was a very good one, written on your club paper."

"The man's an expert forger. Anybody can go into a club to write a note and steal some stationery. If only you had tackled me about it!"

"I promised I wouldn't. I could hardly believe it of you, all the same--not that you were the first to tell him. But--but it did put me off--in spite of everything--and that was only in July."

"Just when I was trying to see you, to put you on your guard!"

She gave him her eyes at last, and they were wet but beaming. "I doubted it still more from one or two things he said when we had our little scene in the country; but I _knew_ there wasn't a word of truth in it before _you_ said a dozen words to me the other Sunday! It was all a plot to keep us apart--to get me under his thumb."

"Did he threaten you when you--had your little scene?"

"Not in so many words."

"He will. That's where I shall come in."

"His position was that I and my secret would only be safe with him."

"As it never was with me?"

"That was it; but now he knows that I don't believe him. I told him so when he called last week."

"So you have had another little scene?"

"I cut it short at that."

"And there the matter ended?"

"Between him and me."

"Don't make too sure. You don't know your Mostyn Scarth as well as I do.

I wonder what his next move will be!"

The wonder lit the doctor's face with eager interest, but brighter still was the answering light under the toque with the a.s.s's ears of watered silk.

"I don't know about his next, but I can tell you what his latest move is," said Lady Vera. "He has taken to d.o.g.g.i.ng me all over the place, to see if I don't commit another crime! He was one of the alleged detectives at Pax Monktons Chase!"

"Never!" cried Dollar, taken fairly by surprise. He had forgot almost every feature of the affair in question, except how magnificently Vera Moyle had come out of it. The episode remained in his mind only as the one great dream of his that had come true as yet; the details had disappeared like those of any other dream.

"I happen to know it," said Lady Vera, with some little embarra.s.sment.

"I had it from--the other detective."

"Not--" and Dollar stopped to frown--"not Croucher himself?"

"Yes."

"He has dared to speak to you!"

"For the very first time since that night in the train; now do listen, and be fair to the poor fellow. He never was as bad as you thought him; you say yourself that he's a saint compared with Mr. Scarth." Dollar was too savage to smile at this free version of what he had said. "Well, they have fallen out, and Croucher's in a bad way altogether; and he has turned to me for a helping hand--not for money or anything of that kind."

"Not the least little hint of blackmail?"

"Not a word or a sign of anything of the sort, except that he asked me to forgive him for the other time, and of course I did."

"Of course you would, though he actually robbed you under arms!" cried Dollar, as sardonically as he felt he must.

But he was let off with the caution of a frown that would have escaped attention on a face less consistently serene than Lady Vera Moyle's.

"You forget what he had been through first," said she, gently. "Within forty-eight hours of execution, for something he had never done!

Thinking what he thought, and I neither denied nor admitted, then or at any time, the wonder is not that he behaved as badly as he did that night, but as well as he has ever since. However much you frightened him at the time, he might have gone on blackmailing me without your knowledge, and that's the last thing he's trying to do now. But I want to do something for him! You say yourself that he has fallen into the worst of hands--well, I want to get him out of them. You once told me that, when you had him here before, you found yourself trying to make a decent being of him, and beginning to feel that you might almost succeed. Doctor, I want you to try again, for my sake! He is frightfully sorry for what he did before, and he has been very badly used by Mostyn Scarth. He looks ill. I want you to save his life, and more than his life! He has told me with tears in his eyes that he was never so happy as when you had him here before. Dear man, do take him in again, and give him one more chance, to please me!"

Her voice had broken, and for once her eyes had played her false as well, and Dollar had waited grimly while she recovered her voice or dried her eyes. But he could not answer grimly when in her turn she waited for him to speak. In her frivolous little blazing skirt, in the toque that he liked even less; over-dressy as he dared to think her in his simple heart of hearts, she appealed to him the more profoundly for those very vanities, so far from vanity were the letter and the spirit of her intercession.

"So you really came to see me about Alfred Croucher?" said Dollar, but very gently, without the faintest accent of reproach.

"It was about both of them, but chiefly about him," she admitted. "Of course I wanted to check his account of Mr. Scarth. If you had given him a good character, that would have been the end; but you gave him a much worse one than I expected. Croucher seems almost immaculate by comparison; honestly, I shouldn't wonder if he were less lost to decency through his very a.s.sociation with a man so much worse than himself."

"Did he tell you so?"

"He said it had brought him up with a round turn."

"It's possible," said Dollar, not more dryly than he could help. "The psychology is all right." He was smiling and nodding now. "And where is Mr. Croucher at the moment?"

"Walking up and down outside."

"Until we call him in?"

"If only you will let me!"

She was on her feet, to take him at his word as soon as spoken; but he said that was Barton's job, and, wondering aloud how Barton would like it, went out presumably to see. He was not gone long, and in another minute Alfred Croucher was cringing before them like a beaten cur.

But few curs whine as this one did that morning, while the crime doctor listened and their little lady winced. She was right about one thing. He did look ill; his cough was not altogether put on. He had been "tret somefink crool," he declared, but without entering into particulars, for which Dollar did not press; but on the character of Mostyn Scarth there were no such reservations. Croucher denounced that monster with the white hatred of a holy warrior, casting up his eyes with all manner of pa.s.sionate and pious invocations.