14.

 

The struggle apparently attracted no attention from the neighbours, and Nick, reassuring himself Chagrin was recovered, hurried her away from the squalor of Half Moon Alley. A short distance down Half Moon Street they got into a passing hackney. As they drove off he observed: ‘We seem destined briefly to meet, drive together, then bid one another adieu.’

She did not answer his bleak smile and he saw she was white faced and trembling. Gently he slipped an arm round her slim shoulders, experiencing that same leap of the blood reminiscent of the night of their first encounter.

‘What will happen about him? I mean the — the body?’

Did he detect an undercurrent, not so much of horror in her question, but as if something she had recalled was arousing her fear? Fear of what? He speculated while he answered her: ‘He may lie there till someone finds him or he rots. What is it to you or me?’

The shadow in her eyes faded, he thought, though answering him she gave a shiver. ‘Rien, rien. It was only the thought of him lying there.’

‘He will not catch his death of cold,’ he answered her grimly.

She met his sardonic expression squarely enough and covered his hand with hers. ‘And he could have done the same to you, he would,’ she said.

‘It is a point of view towards which the vagaries of my profession incline me,’ was his response as he adjusted the set of his overcoat.

As they turned into Piccadilly, Nick was considering the results of his visit to the house in Half Moon Alley. He had gone there with the object of confirming Ted Shadow’s news Chagrin was keeping a rendezvous with Morande. Beyond this his purpose had been half formed: as he could not be sure what her meeting with the individual, who was the Du Barry’s spy, implied. That she was acting as a courier between Paris and London appeared evident enough, though the possibility remained she might be an innocent dupe. Yet it seemed to him even if the Du Barry herself had not let fall some hint of the nature of the mission upon which Chagrin was being sent, her first glimpse of Morande, the circumstances in which he lived, would have awakened her suspicion that her errand was concerned with some business not altogether innocent.

It was unfortunate that in order to save her from Morande’s attentions he had been forced to reveal himself. It behoved him to endeavour to give her a convincing explanation for his presence upon the scene if he was to have any hope of success in discovering exactly the truth about her visit to London. He congratulated himself she had not penetrated his Captain Lash disguise. Under the circumstances his appearance in Half Moon Alley might now strike her as a suspicious coincidence, and then she turned to him, her manner somewhat more animated.

‘No doubt you are pondering,’ she said lightly, ‘why, when I could be more comfortable with my friends, I choose to stay at an hotel.’

‘Sir Guy and Lady Somersham?’ She nodded and he went on. ‘It was from their house I took you to Lady Harrington’s,’ and while her eyes widened, he explained: ‘You see I discovered quite a little about you.’

An enigmatic expression flickered across her face. ‘I can well believe you to be quite expert in such matters. How else could you have learned so quickly I was staying at Beaumont’s?’

It occurred to him that, intuitively realizing she had come under his suspicions, she was boldly taking the initiative, to satisfy his speculations. ‘How come you to be aware I acquired that information?’

‘Else,’ she replied, ‘how came you to have sent me your message?’ He frowned at her questioningly. ‘That you required to meet me,’ she told him, ‘at the house we have but lately left?’ He raised a craggy eyebrow at her. ‘Your messenger very discreetly omitted to mention who had sent him, but after last night...’

‘And you elaborate upon what chanced last night,’ he said, ‘that concerned either you or I. My mind is a trifle hazy.’

‘Doubtless you are suffering from the effects of the drenching you received, together with your disappointment at the absence from the coach of the Paris jeweller.’

He met her mocking smile with the realization she was no longer the young girl beside whom he had sat in such enchantment five years before. He found himself wondering what had accounted for this strengthening of her personality. ‘I compliment you,’ he said softly, ‘on having pierced my disguise.’ Her look took in that sardonic lift at the corners of his dark jutting brows, the glint in his long black eyes, now veiled by sleepily drooping lids. ‘I set one of my cronies at once to discover where you were residing,’ he explained to her.

‘I would have known your hands anywhere,’ glancing down at the strong, broad palm with the tapering fingers. She did not add how, discovering it was none other than he, had filled her with tumultuous excitement, mingled with dismay at finding him pursuing still his criminal career. Since that night five years ago when, as she had ever since reproached herself, she had failed to help him in his hour of need, she had striven vainly to banish him from her faintest remembrance. The memory of him had returned to her again and again. ‘That you knew me,’ she said to him, ‘your expression made plain.’

‘At what hour did he call at Beaumont’s — the fellow who brought you my message?’

‘Ten o’clock this morning, or thereabouts.’

Ted Shadow had been emphatic no one else but Lord Tregarth had asked for her at the hotel. When it came to keeping watch upon the unsuspecting object of his attention his lynx-like eye could not be questioned, and his having no reason to be other than honest in his report, Nick knew Chagrin was lying.

‘What did he look like? A desperate-seeming rogue stumping upon a wooden leg?’ His casual tone gave her no indication of the trap he was baiting for her. It was obvious she was seizing upon her recognition of him last night to explain away her visit to Morande. Did not this anxiety to forearm herself against any doubt he might hold regarding her rendezvous at Half Moon Alley imply her sense of guilt? None the less, she was too shrewd to be caught by his question.

‘Just an ordinary man,’ she answered, adding she had been so puzzled at the time to receive the message she could not remember rightly how he looked.

Nick must be careful not to let her suspect he was aware she was lying. ‘All this is most interesting,’ he said, ‘since I sent you no message.’

She looked at him in excellently simulated surprise. ‘Then who did? Who else could have known you and I were already acquainted?’

‘The messenger omitted to mention my name,’ he reminded her. ‘You merely assumed he came from me.’

She gave him a perplexed frown. ‘But no one except my friends knew I was in London.’

‘One person there is who does not occur to you,’ he answered, experiencing a curious sensation as if he were a cat playing with a mouse. Her look was innocently blank. ‘Morande, receiving intelligence from France of your journey, planned to entangle you in some nefarious scheme he had in mind. He would have his own means of learning where you were to be found in London.’ ‘And I believing it was you had sent me the message,’ she said, as if in acceptance of his theory. His hopes gave a sudden leap at the slender chance that what he had been saying for her benefit might, in fact, have a basis of truth. He tried to pretend Ted Shadow had either by some mischance failed to discover there had been another caller for her that morning at Beaumont’s, or had forgotten to mention it to him. She shuddered. ‘Thank le bon Dieu you arrived when you did.’ Then she queried: ‘How did you know I should be there?’

‘My livelihood depends no less upon my obtaining information regarding persons in whom I am interested,’ he replied glibly.

Appearing satisfied with his explanation, she said lightly: ‘I had no notion my visit would be the object of so much concern. Since you know so much about me, it seems superfluous I should have to confess my motive for journeying to London.’ At the pressure of her fingers in his, the hard lines of his face softened, a tenderness flickered at the corners of his mouth. Was he about to come by so easily the truth behind her meeting with Morande? ‘You do not appear over-curious.’

‘You mistake me,’ he replied. ‘I am speechless with curiosity.’

‘Though I have tried not to admit it to myself,’ she began slowly, as if uncertain how he would take what she had to say, ‘I would not come to London again for fear of meeting someone whom these past five years I sought to banish from my heart.’ He was remembering her as he saw her when he had stood accused beside Casanova. As if reading his thoughts, she said: ‘Forgive me for that night, when I might have shown my faith in you.’

She was buoying him up with the promise of the fulfilment of his innermost longing, the realization of a dream he scarcely dared to dream. And yet, with her so near to him, with the allure of her voice in his ears and the haunting fragrance of her intoxicating his senses, he wanted only to believe every syllable she was uttering. The hackney was slowing down, for they were approaching Beaumont’s and he felt a sinking of the heart.

‘May I hope,’ she was pleading softly, ‘for your continued interest in me during the remainder of my visit?’

‘You do forget,’ he smiled at her thinly, ‘the nature of my profession. It may be you will see me again at Bow Street. Or’ — nonchalantly flicking a speck of dust from an immaculate knee of his black velvet breeches — ‘perchance you may witness me perform my little jig at Tyburn.’ Her face paled and her finger-tips dug into his hand. ‘At least let me thank you for saving me from that dreadful creature.’ She passed a hand across her face in the manner of one collecting her thoughts. ‘I shall be at the Pantheon tonight.’

‘I had a mind to attend there myself,’ he interrupted her. She hesitated and he continued reassuringly. ‘Do you not concern yourself Lord Tregarth will recognize me as Captain Lash.’

The carriage-door was opened. ‘Tonight then,’ she nodded, and crossed to the hotel entrance, there to glance over her shoulder at him, glimpsing the white streak in his hair as he raised his hat.

Presently he stood again outside the house in Half Moon Alley. The curtains across the window at which he had seen the woman and the monkey were still closed, no sign of anyone watching. No sound as he made his way along the gloomy passage to the room. The door was open as he had left it, hurrying Chagrin away; the draught through the smashed window bellied one tattered curtain into the room — the other had been dragged down with Morande. He took a cursory look through the window, saw the inert form still lying, the head twisted. Satisfied no one was approaching, he crossed to the fire and kicked an ember into a flickering flame. From it he lit a taper and found the candle which had been precipitated to the floor. By its light he searched among the scattered books and papers on the floor.

He found what he was looking for in a pocket of Morande’s discarded dressing-gown, a folded piece of paper, which, as he held it up to the light, exuded that faint elusive perfume he had come to know so well. Written in French, it bore no address, only the embossed myrtle and roses and dated four days before. The few sentences were addressed to Monsieur Morande and appeared, so far as he could decipher them, to introduce the Comtesse Chagrin de l’Isle. No signature, just a seal inscribed ‘D.B.’

He caught the faint but distinct echo of footsteps in the alley. Returning the paper to the dressing-gown pocket, he snuffed the candle, and slipped like a shadow out of the room. Making out a short flight of stairs ahead of him, he ascended them as the front door opened. He waited there in the darkness, glimpsed a glow of candle-flame, then sounds of someone moving round the room he had just left as if searching. There was a sudden silence. The candle went out, footsteps receded slightly along the passage, the front door opened and closed once more.

The echo of the footsteps in the alley died away and he returned to the room where that intriguing perfume lingered and looked for the folded paper in the dressing-gown pocket. It was no longer there.