21 Greatest Spy Thrillers in One Premium Edition (Mystery & Espionage Series). E. Phillips Oppenheim
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coldly. “I think that if I leave you with the contents of your safe, it will be wise for you to hand me that document.”
“I am inclined to do so,” Laverick admitted. “The very fact that you knew of its existence would seem to give you a sort of claim to it. But, Mademoiselle Idiale, will you answer me a few questions?”
“I think,” she said, “that it would be better if you asked me none.”
“But listen,” he begged. “You are the only person with whom I have come into touch who seems to know anything about this affair. I should rather like to tell you exactly how I stumbled in upon it. Why can we not exchange confidence for confidence? I want neither the twenty thousand pounds nor the document. I want, to be frank with you, nothing but to escape from the position I am now in of being half a thief and half a criminal. Show me some claim to that document and you shall have it. Tell me to whom that money belongs, and it shall be restored.”
“You are incomprehensible,” she declared. “Are you, by any chance, playing a part with me? Do you think that it is worth while?”
“Mademoiselle Idiale,” Laverick protested earnestly, “nothing in the world is further from my thoughts. There is very little of the conspirator about me. I am a plain man of business who stumbled in upon this affair at a critical moment and dared to make temporary use of his discovery. You can put it, if you like, that I am afraid. I want to get out. Nothing would give me greater pleasure, if such a thing were possible, than to send this pocket-book and its contents anonymously to Scotland Yard, and never hear about them again.”
She listened to him with unchanged face. Yet for some moments after he had finished speaking she was thoughtful.
“You may be speaking the truth,” she said. “If so, I have been deceived. You are not quite the sort of man I did believe you were. What you tell me is amazing, but it may be true.”
“It is the truth,” Laverick repeated calmly.
“Listen,” she said, after a brief pause. “You were at school, were you not, with Mr. David Bellamy? You know well who he is?”
“Perfectly well,” Laverick admitted.
“You would consider him a person to be trusted?”
“Absolutely.”
“Very well, then,” she declared. “You shall come to my fiat at five o’clock this afternoon and bring that document. If it is possible, David Bellamy shall be there himself. We will try then and prove to you that you do no harm in parting with that document to us.”
“I will come,” Laverick promised, “at five o’clock; but you must tell me where.”
“You will put it down, please,” she said. “There must not be any mistake. You must come, and you must come to-day. I am staying at number 15, Dover Street. I will leave orders that you are shown in at once.”
She rose to her feet and he walked to the door with her. On the way she hesitated.
“Take care of yourself to-day, Mr. Laverick,” she begged. “There are others beside myself who are interested in that packet you carry with you. You represent to them things beside which life and death are trivial happenings.”
Laverick laughed shortly. He was a matter-of-fact man, and there seemed something a little absurd in such a warning.
“I do not think,” he declared, “that you need have any fear. London is, as you doubtless find it, a dull old city, but it is a remarkably safe one to live in.”
“Nevertheless, Mr. Laverick,” she repeated earnestly, “be on your guard to-day, for all our sakes.”
He bowed and changed the subject.
“Your investments,” he remarked, “you will be content, perhaps, to leave as they are. It is, no doubt, of some interest to you to know that they are showing already a profit of considerably over a thousand pounds.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“It was an excuse—that investment,” she declared. “Yet money is always good. Keep it for me, Mr. Laverick, and do what you will. I will trust your judgment. Buy or sell as you please. You will let nothing prevent your coming this afternoon?”
“Nothing,” he promised her.
From the window of her beautifully appointed little electric brougham she held out her hand in farewell.
“You think me foolish, I know, that I persist,” she said, “but I do beg that you will remember what I say. Do not be alone to-day more than you can help. Suspect every one who comes near to you. There may be a trap before your feet at any moment. Be wary always and do not forget—at five o’clock I expect you.”
Laverick smiled as he bowed his adieux.
“It is a promise, Mademoiselle,” he assured her.
XXVII. PENETRATING A MYSTERY
About an hour after Mademoiselle Idiale’s departure a note marked “Urgent” was brought in and handed to Laverick. He tore it open. It was dated from the address of a firm of stockbrokers, with two of the partners of which he was on friendly terms. It ran thus:
MY DEAR LAVERICK,—I want a chat with you, if you can spare five minutes at lunch time. Come to Lyons’ a little earlier than usual, if you don’t mind,—say at a quarter to one.
J. HENSHAW.
Laverick read the typewritten note carelessly enough at first. He had even laid it down and glanced at the clock, with the intention of starting out, when a thought struck him. He took it up and read it though again. Then he turned to the telephone.
“Put me on to the office of Henshaw & Allen. I want to speak to Mr. Henshaw particularly.”
Two minutes passed. Laverick, meanwhile, had been washing his hands ready to go out. Then the telephone bell rang. He took up the receiver.
“Hullo! Is that Henshaw?”
“I’m Henshaw,” was the answer. “That’s Laverick, isn’t it? How are you, old fellow?”
“I’m all right,” Laverick replied. “What is it that you want to see me about?”
“Nothing particular that I know of. Who told you that I wanted to?”
Laverick, who had been standing with the instrument in his hand, sat down in his chair.
“Look here,” he said, “Didn’t you send me a note a few minutes ago, asking me to come out to lunch at a quarter to one and meet you at Lyons’?”
Henshaw’s laugh was sufficient response.
“Delighted to lunch with you there or anywhere, old chap,—you know that,” was the answer, “but some one’s been putting up a practical joke on you.”
“You did not send me a note round this morning, then?” Laverick insisted.
“I’ll swear I didn’t,” came the reply. “Do you seriously mean that you’ve had one purporting to come from me?”
Laverick pulled himself together.
“Well, the signature’s such a scrawl,” he said, “that no one could tell what the name really was. I guessed at you but I seem to have guessed wrong. Good-bye!”
He set down the receiver and rang off to escape further questioning. Now indeed the plot was commencing to thicken. This was a deliberate effort on the part of some one to secure his absence from his offices at a quarter to one.
With the document in his pocket and the safe securely locked, Laverick felt at ease as to the result