(1929) The Three Just Men (6 page)

She had time for thought, for Joan Newton chattered away all the time, and if she asked a question, she either did not wait for approval, or the question was answered to her o satisfaction before it was put.

Chester Square, that dignified patch of Belgravia, is an imposing quarter. The big house into which the girl was admitted by a footman had that air of luxurious comfort which would have appealed to a character less responsive to refinement than Mirabelle Leicester’s. She was ushered into a big drawing-room which ran from the front to the back of the house, and did not terminate even there, for a large, cool conservatory, bright with flowers, extended a considerable distance.

“Monty isn’t back from the City yet,” Joan rattled on. “My dear! He’s awfully busy just now, what with stocks and shares and things like that.”

She spoke as though “stocks and shares and things like that” were phenomena which had come into existence the day before yesterday for the occupation of Monty Newton.

“Is there a boom?” asked Mirabelle with a smile, and the term seemed to puzzle the girl.

“Ye-es, I suppose there is. You know what the Stock Exchange is, my dear? Everybody connected with it is wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. The money they make is simply wicked! And they can give a girl an awfully good time—theatres, parties, dresses, pearls—why, Monty would think nothing of giving a string of pearls to a girl if he took a liking to her!”

In truth Joan was walking on very uncertain ground. Her instructions had been simple and to the point. “Get her to Chester Gardens, make friends with her, and don’t mention the fact that I know Oberzohn.” What was the object of bringing Mirabelle Leicester to the house, what was behind this move of Monty’s, she did not know. She was merely playing for safety, baiting the ground, as it were, with her talk of good times and vast riches, in case that was required of her. For she, no less than many of her friends, entertained a wholesome dread of Monty Newton’s disapproval, which usually took a definite unpleasant shape.

Mirabelle was laughing softly.

“I didn’t know that stockbrokers were so rich,” she said dryly, “and I can assure you that some of them aren’t!”

She passed tactfully over the gaucherie of the pearls that Monty would give to any girl who took his fancy. By this time she had placed Joan: knew something of her upbringing, guessed pretty well the extent of her intelligence, and marvelled a little that a man of the unknown Mr. Newton’s position should have allowed his sister to come through the world without the benefit of a reasonably good education.

“Come up to your room, my dear,” said Joan. “We’ve got a perfectly topping little suite for you, and I’m sure you’ll be comfortable. It’s at the front of the house, and if you can get used to the milkmen yowling about the streets before they’re aired, you’ll have a perfectly topping time.”

When Mirabelle inspected the apartment she was enchanted. It fulfilled Joan’s vague description. Here was luxury beyond her wildest dreams. She admired the silver bed and the thick blue carpet, the silken panelled walls, the exquisite fittings, and stood in rapture before the entrance of a little bathroom, with its silver and glass, its shaded lights and marble walls.

“I’ll have a cup of tea sent up to you, my dear. You’ll want to rest after your horrible day at that perfectly terrible factory, and I wonder you can stand Oberzohn, though they tell me he’s quite a nice man…”

She seemed anxious to go, and Mirabelle was no less desirous of being alone.

“Come down when you feel like it,” said Joan at parting, and ran down the stairs, reaching the hall in time to meet Mr. Newton, who was handing his hat and gloves to his valet.

“Well, is she here?”

“She’s here all right,” said Joan, who was not at all embarrassed by the presence of the footman. “Monty, isn’t she a bit of a fool? She couldn’t say boo to a goose. What is the general scheme?”

He was brushing his hair delicately in the mirror above the hall-stand.

“What’s what scheme?” he asked, after the servant had gone, as he strolled into the drawing-room before her.

“Bringing her here—is she sitting into a game?”

“Don’t be stupid,” said Monty without heat, as he dropped wearily to a low divan and drew a silken cushion-behind him. “Nor inquisitive,” he added. “You haven’t scared her, have you?”

“I like that!” she said indignantly.

She was one of those ladies who speak more volubly and with the most assurance when there is a mirror in view, and she had her eyes fixed upon herself all the time she was talking, patting a strand of hair here and there, twisting her head this way and that to get a better effect, and never once looking at the man until he drew attention to himself.

“Scared! I’ll bet she’s never been to such a beautiful house in her life! What is she, Monty? A typist or something? I don’t understand her.”

“She’s a lady,” said Monty offensively. “That’s the type that’ll always seem like a foreign language to you.”

She lifted one shoulder delicately.

“I don’t pretend to be a lady, and what I am, you’ve made me,” she said, and the reproach was mechanical. He had heard it before, not only from her, but from others similarly placed. “I don’t think it’s very kind to throw my education up in my face, considering the money I’ve made for you.”

“And for yourself.” He yawned. “Get me some tea.”

“You might say ‘please’ now and again,” she said resentfully, and he smiled as he took up the evening paper, paying her no more attention, until she had rung the bell with a vicious jerk and the silver tray came in and was deposited on a table near him.

“Where are you going to-night?”

His interest in her movements was unusual, and she was flattered.

“You know very well, Monty, where I’m going to-night,” she said reproachfully. “You promised to take me, too. I think you’d look wonderful as a Crusader—one of them—those old knights in armour.”

He nodded, but not to her comment.

“I remember, of course—the Arts Ball.”

His surprise was so well simulated that she was deceived.

“Fancy your forgetting! I’m going as Cinderella, and Minnie Gray is going as a pierrette—”

“Minnie Gray isn’t going as anything,” said Monty, sipping his tea. “I’ve already telephoned to her to say that the engagement is off. Miss Leicester is going with you.”

“But, Monty—” protested the girl.

“Don’t ‘but Monty’ me,” he ordered. “I’m telling you! Go up and see this girl, and put it to her that you’ve got a ticket for the dance.”

“But her costume, Monty! The girl hasn’t got a fancy dress. And Minnie—”

“Forget Minnie, will you? Mirabelle Leicester is going to the Arts Ball to-night.” He tapped the tray before him to emphasize every word. “You have a ticket to spare, and you simply can’t go alone because I have a very important business engagement and your friend has failed you. Her dress will be here in a few minutes: it is a bright green domino with a bright red hood.”

“How perfectly hideous!” She forgot for the moment her disappointment in this outrage. “Bright green! Nobody has a complexion to stand that!”

Yet he ignored her.

“You will explain to Miss Leicester that the dress came from a friend who, through illness or any cause you like to invent, is unable to go to the dance—she’ll jump at the chance. It is one of the events of the year and tickets are selling at a premium.”

She asked him what that meant, and he explained patiently.

“Maybe she’ll want to spend a quiet evening—have one of those headaches,” he went on. “If that is so, you can tell her that I’ve got a party coming to the house to-night, and they will be a little noisy. Did she want to know anything about me?”

“No, she didn’t,” snapped Joan promptly. “She didn’t want to know about anything. I couldn’t get her to talk. She’s like a dumb oyster.”

Mirabelle was sitting by the window, looking down into the square, when there was a gentle tap at the door and Joan came in.

“I’ve got wonderful news for you,” she said.

“For me?” said Mirabelle in surprise.

Joan ran across the room, giving what she deemed to be a surprisingly life-like representation of a young thing full of innocent joy.

“I’ve got an extra ticket for the Arts Ball to-night. They’re selling at a—they’re very expensive. Aren’t you a lucky girl!”

“I?” said Mirabelle in surprise. “Why am I the lucky one?”

Joan rose from the bed and drew back from her reproachfully.

“You surely will come with me? If you don’t, I shan’t able to go at all. Lady Mary and I were going together…now she’s sick!”

Mirabelle opened her eyes wider.

“But I can’t go, surely. It is a fancy dress ball, isn’t it? I read something about it in the papers. And I’m awfully tired to-night.”

Joan pouted prettily.

“My dear, if you lay down for an hour you’d be fit. Besides, you couldn’t sleep here early to-night: Monty’s having one of his men parties, and they’re a noisy lot of people—though thoroughly respectable,” she added hastily.

Poor Joan had a mission outside her usual range.

“I’d love to go,”—Mirabelle was anxious not to be a kill-joy—“if I could get a dress.”

“I’ve got one,” said the girl promptly, and ran out of the room.

She returned very quickly, and threw the domino on the bed.

“It’s not pretty to look at, but it’s got this advantage, that you can wear almost anything underneath.”

“What time does the ball start?” Mirabelle, examining her mind, found that she was not averse to going; she was very human, and a fancy dress ball would be a new experience.

“Ten o’clock,” said Joan. “We can have dinner before Monty’s friends arrive. You’d like to see Monty, wouldn’t you? He’s downstairs—such a gentleman, my dear!”

The girl could have laughed.

A little later she was introduced to the redoubtable Monty, and found his suave and easy manner a relief after the jerky efforts of the girl to be entertaining. Monty had seen most parts of the world and could talk entertainingly about them all. Mirabelle rather liked him, though she thought he was something of a fop, yet was not sorry when she learned that, so far from having friends to dinner, he did not expect them to arrive until after she and Joan had left.

The meal put her more at her ease. He was a polished man of the world, courteous to the point of pomposity; he neither said nor suggested one thing that could offend her; they were half-way through dinner when the cry of a newsboy was heard in the street. Through the dining-room window she saw the footman go down the steps and buy a newspaper. He glanced at the stop-press space and came back slowly up the stairs reading. A little later he came into the room, and must have signalled to her host, for Monty went out immediately and she heard their voices in the passage. Joan was uneasy.

“I wonder what’s the matter?” she asked, a little irritably. “It’s very bad manners to leave ladies in the middle of dinner—”

At that moment Monty came back. Was it imagination on her part, or had he gone suddenly pale? Joan saw it, and her brows met, but she was too wise to make a comment upon his appearance.

Mr. Newton seated himself in his place with a word of apology and poured out a glass of champagne. Only for a second did his hand tremble, and then, with a smile, he was his old self.

“What is wrong, Monty?”

“Wrong? Nothing,” he said curtly, and took up the topic of conversation where he had laid it down before leaving the room.

“It isn’t that old snake, is it?” asked Joan with a shiver. “Lord! that unnerves me! I never go to bed at night without looking under, or turning the clothes right down to the foot! They ought to have found it months ago if the police—”

At this point she caught Monty Newton’s eye, cold, menacing, malevolent, and the rest of her speech died on her lips.

Mirabelle went upstairs to dress, and Joan would have followed but the man beckoned her.

“You’re a little too talkative, Joan,” he said, more mildly than she had expected. “The snake is not a subject we wish to discuss at dinner. And listen!” He walked into the passage and looked round, then came back and closed the door. “Keep that girl near you.”

“Who is going to dance with me?” she asked petulantly. “I like having a hell of a lively night!”

“Benton will be there to look after you, and one of the ‘Old Guard’—”

He saw the frightened look in her face and chuckled. “What’s the matter, you fool?” he asked good-humouredly. “He’ll dance with the girl.”

“I wish those fellows weren’t going to be there,” she said uneasily, but he went on, without noticing her:

“I shall arrive at half-past eleven. You had better meet me near the entrance to the American bar. My party didn’t turn up, you understand. You’ll get back here at midnight.”

“So soon?” she said in dismay. “Why, it doesn’t end till—”

“You’ll be back here at midnight,” he said evenly. “Go into her room, clear up everything she may have left behind. You understand? Nothing is to be left.”

“But when she comes back she’ll—”

“She’ll not come back,” said Monty Newton, and the girl’s blood ran cold.