CHAPTER I.

WHICH RECORDS AN ODD TRANSACTION

“That strange-looking gentleman has called again, sir. He will not be put off with any excuse. What had I better say to him?”

Arthur Hudson, who had been busily writing at his desk in his solidly-furnished office in Cheapside, looked up, a slight expression of annoyance on his handsome clear-cut features. The clerk who had thus addressed him, a slight, middle-aged man of fifty, with a bald head, and grey moustache, and a nervous, furtive manner, coughed, and began to move his feet uneasily, for he knew he had exceeded his instructions.

“This isn’t business, Perkins,” his employer answered impatiently, laying down his pen and rising from his chair. “Don’t you see it only wants a few minutes to post-time, and I’ve not finished my letter?”

“Yes, sir,” said Perkins submissively, “but he would not take any refusal. He is so persistent; he kind of compelled me to come to you, and to ask you whether you would not see him.”

Hudson looked at the weak vapid chin and watery blue eyes of his inquiry clerk, and unconsciously sighed. He could well understand any man of strong resolute pulse making Perkins, even against his feeble flabby nature, do something which he had been distinctly ordered by his superior to refuse.

None the less, he, too, had a curious instinctive aversion from meeting and talking to this mysterious millionaire who for the past three weeks had been the torment of all the principal house and office agents in the City and the West End of London. He could not, however, just then analyse the reason of his reluctance; hence his own illogical position made him the more readily annoyed.

“But didn’t you tell him,” he proceeded as he picked up the poker and, in the last sad refuge of the average man, began to poke vigorously at the fire, “that we have searched our books, and have sent round one of our inspectors, and that we have nothing whatever to suit him?”

“Certainly. I even assured him that we had lost, at least, five pounds in trouble over our enquiries, but the only thing he did was to hand me a £5 note and say he knew how to repay trouble. Then it was he declared he must see you.”

“Well, all right,” said Hudson desperately, realising that it might save more time to see this man than to nerve Perkins to dismiss him. “If he must see me, he must, I suppose. Shew him in!” And he threw down the poker and drew forward a chair for this unwelcome client who, truth to tell, he had hitherto always done his best to avoid.

A moment later a brisk step was heard in the passage, and there entered a man about thirty-eight years of age, clad in the ordinary frock coat and light trousers of City life, and carrying a black silk hat and umbrella. At first sight one would have regarded him as a sharp, shrewd, successful, but not unkind broker. Then, as his features came to be examined in detail it would have been seen that there was some good reason why he wore those long black but obviously dyed whiskers of his--they concealed a cruel-looking jaw and mouth. His habit of frowning, too, was not unstudied. It served to take away that certain resolute look in his eyes that somehow made men and women against whom it was directed feel that they would rather brave any unseen terror than fail him in what he had commanded them to do. In the way also he took the chair which Hudson had placed for him he shewed that, in spite of all his apparent courtesy, there was deadly deliberation behind him--a deliberation that any day would have worn down better opposition than Perkins, and now made even Hudson shrink, for it seemed to suggest to him that this was a man who would not stick at any crime to extricate himself from a difficult or a dangerous position.

“Let me see,” began the house agent slowly, pretending to search his papers for a certain description of premises which he had long since learned by heart, “you are Mr. Ventris Blake, the American financier, of Park Lane, I believe.”

The stranger nodded, and waited. At times his supreme gift was silence.

“You are anxious, I understand to get a small room, twenty feet wide by twenty-five, with a sloping roof, a single casement window, with a north aspect, and certain traverse beams which you have set out in your specifications. Well, we have gone over all the property in our care, and although of course you offer an absolutely ridiculously high rent, we are sorry to say we can find nothing suitable for you. We have many vacant offices, it is true, but none that fulfils exactly your demands.”

“That is a pity,” the newcomer observed vaguely. “Luckily, the search has not been so fruitless as you think!”

For an instant there was an awkward pause--and then, as the stranger intended, Hudson himself was compelled to go on. “Ah then,” said he with an uneasy little laugh. “I must congratulate you. Of course, I heard you had been to all the principal house agents in London; for, with the help of the telephone, there is considerable freemasonry amongst us. Your requirements are so odd--so fantastic it is thought. Still, what is the good of being a millionaire if you can’t get even a room to suit you?” And he smiled again and rose, but Ventris Blake did not stir.

“Quite so,” observed the financier, now looking steadily at Hudson. “Happily I have found exactly the kind of place that I want--in Queen Victoria Street, No. 375, right at the top of the premises. I have spoken to the care-taker who now occupies the room, and he has agreed to give up its possession to me, if you will permit him, at the rent I have offered everywhere else--£250 a year.”

Again there was a pause.

Curiously enough, although the amount was preposterous, Arthur Hudson’s first impulse was to refuse the offer, although he could not exactly define the reason. Somehow the idea had slowly formed itself in his mind that trouble would come to him from this transaction. Yet all the while Ventris Blake’s eyes were fixed on his with that strong compelling look which so few could resist; and Hudson found himself, almost magnetised, muttering formal words of promise to send on the agreement, of hope that the place would answer all his client’s purposes, although he had really intended only to temporize, to gain time.

Ventris Blake now rose in his slow powerful way, and buttoned his gloves. “Thanks,” he replied. “I am certain that the room will suit me, Mr. Palamountain, and I have made a note that the matter is settled. Good-day;” and he held out his hand.

“Good-day,” repeated Hudson, somehow pleased that the interview was at length over. “Only I am not Mr. Palamountain, who died last year as a matter of fact. My name is Hudson--Arthur Hudson--”

The millionaire gave a slight start. “Hudson?” he returned reflectively as though he were seeking some forgotten mental note. “Arthur Hudson! Surely not the Arthur Hudson who goes to the flat of my old friend Russell Langford at Emperor’s Gate, and is betrothed to Miss Winifred Pontifex?”

“The same,” answered Arthur, with a boyish blush now looking down, with the result that he did not see the sudden but cruel set of the millionaire’s mouth.

“Ah! then we are destined to see a lot of each other, and I am glad to make your acquaintance!” And Ventris Blake gripped his fingers in a grasp like iron, but there was no friendliness in his touch, no cordiality in his tone, no sympathy in his glance, and the young lover saw him stride out of the office with a feeling of relief, which, try as he would, he could not account for.

“Bah! he assumes a good deal if he thinks I am going out of my way to meet him,” muttered Hudson, with an impatient shrug of the shoulders, as he now resumed his place at his desk, and once again took up his letters. “I don’t like the fellow, and I am sure Winifred won’t like him, for there is something almost satanic about those cold eyes of his--they seem to go to the bottom of all your nature, to read all your thoughts, all hopes, all secrets, all emotions, and yet to betray no kind of soul in return.

“Odd though,” he mused, “I never heard Russell Langford mention him! I thought I knew all the friends of the family at 99a Emperor’s Gate, yet, here is one who speaks as though he has the entrée of the place every day of his life. Oh! confound it, I am making another mystery about this wretched business already. It will turn me quite stupid if I go on and--and I must work.”

And setting his lips firmly, he bent over his desk and for the next quarter of an hour contrived to be so busy with his correspondence that he did not bestow another thought on this strange and irritating client.

As a matter of fact, Palamountain, Limited, was the finest estate agency in the city of London, and as the man on whom the entire burden of the business had fallen through the unexpected death of his uncle, Allen Palamountain, Hudson’s work was difficult and arduous. Eventually, however, the last letter for the night mail was finished, and then, following his usual custom, he hastened to a private dressing-room upstairs where he put on evening clothes and took the next hansom to Emperor’s Gate, to dine with Russell Langford and his daughter Vera and niece, Winifred, who lived in the same flat with them, and to whom, as Blake had remarked, he was engaged.

Half way through Fleet Street, however, Arthur suddenly recollected that he had promised to bring a friend of his to dine with them, and he turned the cab in a new direction. As a matter of fact, the man in question, Paul Renishaw, was his most intimate companion. They had gone from the same public school--Oundle--to Oxford; and they had both started life together in London, almost the same week--the one in the old and respected business of Palamountain, Limited, the other in the stormy waters of cheap chambers in the Temple and a precarious livelihood extracted from unattached journalism.

After a longer period of storm and stress than falls to the lot of most poor but ambitious ’Varsity men, Hudson had secured a firm footing in his career by a partnership in his uncle’s firm, while Renishaw had finally climbed into one of the sub-editorial chairs in a new London evening paper known as _The Moon_, famous for the excellent salaries it paid to its staff. None the less, different though their careers were, they still retained their old and deep comradeship which even Hudson’s engagement to Winifred Pontifex had been powerless to determine; and the result was that Renishaw now was almost as popular a guest with Russell Langford and his daughter as their future relative, hence the invitation.

Hudson, too, was well known to the sturdy old soldier who guarded the editorial precincts of _The Moon_, and no sooner had he sprung out of the hansom, than, with a bright nod, he slipped up past the inquiry box at the foot of the stairs, and bounded to the top, heedless of the printers in aprons and shirt sleeves and troops of messenger and telegraph boys who were clattering noisily up and down.

Outside a door marked “Sub-Editors,” however, he paused and knocked. A cheery call to “come in” followed, and, pushing open this entrance, he found himself in a large, bare, white-washed apartment. In the middle stood a table laden with letters, manuscripts, newspapers, and telegrams, which two men were sitting busily revising under green shaded lights from a gas pendant in the centre. One of them was Paul Renishaw--and he looked up and smiled.

“Just let me put the finishing touch to this murder yarn,” he said. “It’s got to appear in full in our last edition, and has only just come through by wire from Scarborough. Everywhere they could possibly spell the name of the victim differently they have done, as is their custom. Thus I’ve got Black--Block--Bleak--Blink--everything they could think of except the proper name with which they started.”

“And what’s that?” queried Hudson with a pleasant nod to Paul’s table companion, who was also trying to make sense out of some “liner’s” verbose nonsense, and, irritated by the task, cordially wished Hudson at Jericho, or further.

“Oh! Blake, of course,” retorted Renishaw, without looking up.

“Blake,” repeated Hudson, vaguely thinking of his recent visitor. “No relative--I mean--nobody of consequence.”

“Oh, isn’t it though,” said Renishaw, dashing off to a corner where stood a little box attached to a wire, into which receptacle he thrust his telegrams. Then he touched an electric-bell, and in an instant the box shot upward to the compositors. “Why, it’s no less a personage than the wife of Ventris Blake, the great American financier--”

“Never!” cried Hudson, falling back in amazement.

“Indeed it is, I can tell you. _The Moon_, never had such a ‘scoop’ as this. I’ll tell you how it occurred. One of our reporters happened to be on sick leave near the spot where the poor soul was found, three miles out of Scarborough; and, like a sensible man, he got up the facts, and rode off promptly to the post-office, and wired the exclusive information through to us. Then he went to the nearest local daily paper office, and, on consideration that they didn’t let the news go out of the office for two hours at least, he gave them the same yarn as he sent to us. As a consequence, we have now the start of all the other London evening journals and of the rival press agencies, and must sell this edition like wildfire, for next to the King and Pierpoint Morgan I doubt if any man is more in the public eye just now than Ventris Blake!”

“And yet,” said Hudson slowly, mechanically, almost unconsciously repeating his own secret thoughts; “only half-an-hour ago that man came to me--came to my office--and did business with me in the most ordinary fashion.”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Renishaw and the other sub-editor in unison.

“Why this is most important,” proceeded the former. “You must let me interview you. Do you mean to say that the police haven’t communicated with the husband yet? By George, another police scandal too.” And with the zeal and promptitude of the born journalist, he drew a chair towards the table and, seating himself therein, began to write rapidly:--

A TRAGEDY INDEED! WEALTH POWERLESS AGAINST DEATH! THE POOR HUSBAND KNOWS NOTHING AT PRESENT BUT WANDERS ABOUT THE CITY INTENT ONLY ON BUSINESS--AND GOLD.

By this time, however, Hudson had recovered his composure, and, advancing towards Renishaw, he said quickly: “No, no, you must not write that. In the first place, I may get dragged into it and accused of wanting to advertise myself and my business by methods which neither I nor indeed any public-spirited citizen could approve of. In the second--” he paused and reflected, and the importance of the mysterious information he possessed rose up like a phantom in front of him. Then he added lamely, “in the second you must not.”

“Well! What is the second?” demanded Paul, keenly. “I see your point and will just say Mr. Ventris Blake was in the City this afternoon, and we have private information to the effect that at 4.45 this evening he knew nothing about the shocking occurrence.”

“In the second,” said Hudson slowly after a moment’s consideration, “if you like to do a bit of private detective business with me I think I can put you on the track of something really astounding that will make _The Moon_ boom again like mad.”

“About Ventris Blake,” cried both sub-editors, most excited.

“About Blake of course,” affirmed Hudson, although why he said this so positively he could not for the life of him imagine.

“Good,” answered Renishaw, adding the few lines he had mentioned and again hurrying his message up the lift. “You see,” he went on excitedly, “this tragedy will be the talk of London for the next week at least. I’m good for any crime business you like. You and I, old chap, have worked up murder specials before, haven’t we?” And in a few rapid but graphic sentences he recalled how they had spent whole nights and troublous days ferreting out theories and facts about some of London’s most sensational crimes in those hard times when the extra guineas meant something more than comfort--they meant rent and food.

Luckily, by the time Renishaw had finished, a boy had arrived with his suit-case, and he had to leave to change while the other sub-editor went down to the machine-room and brought back one of the first papers printed so that Hudson could read for himself how Aimée Blake had been done to death on a lonely road between Filey and Scarborough.

The murderer, it seemed, from the report to hand, must have sprung at her as she passed and felled her with a great hedge stake that had been purchased close to the scene of the crime. How she got to the spot it was impossible to explain. All the porter of the chief hotel in Scarborough, where she had had a magnificent suite of rooms, could inform the reporter was that she received a telegram late the previous night, told him she must go out even at that hour to see a relative, and never came back, although her maid sat up all the night.

As usual, too, the police had “a clue” but as it led them in the direction of the railway, and a junction with easy access to Leeds and York and Hull and King’s Cross, _The Moon_ man evidently didn’t believe much in it, for he hinted at blackmail, secret tragedies in the lives of all considered fortune’s favourites, and other endless possibilities of intrigue and romance calculated to set the public imagination feverishly ablaze.

Unfortunately, Arthur had barely time to digest the facts in the story of the crime, which was written with a good deal of literary power and effect, before Renishaw returned ready to accompany him. Anxious not to be late, both men hurried to the hansom that was waiting for them, and were soon quickly bowling westward, in happy ignorance of the terrible surprise in store for them.

Indeed their one topic of conversation was Ventris Blake’s strange renting of the peculiarly-shaped room, but as their plan of attack on this mystery will be fully explained in subsequent chapters, we had perhaps better go on in advance of them to the flat at Emperor’s Gate where they were momentarily expected.