CHAPTER IV.

EXPLAINS WHAT VERA LEARNED

Just, however, as Vera was starting to her feet to read the telegram for which she had dared so much, the door of the study was opened with great swiftness but stealth.

The handle, it appeared, had been turned quite noiselessly, but, instantly on the alert, the girl rose and pushed the envelope into the bodice of her dress, and turned to face the intruder who proved to be no other than a footman named Judson to whom she had only that morning given notice because he was under suspicion of theft, although nothing could be proved against him.

For a moment--but only for a moment--her heart seemed to stand quite still in horror. All that this man had disguised in his years of service with Russell Langford--his cunning, his cupidity, his unscrupulousness--now, under the stress of this success of his, stood out with painful clearness and distinctness. Inevitably their eyes met--and they understood. Then habit asserted itself, and the servant looked down, feigning a respect he would never feel for her again.

“I thought I heard you call, miss,” said the man, recognising the necessity of explaining his presence although he had listened to all the proceedings from the far side of the door. “Has the telegraph-boy fainted? He looked to me when he came to the door as though he had been running much too fast,” and he bent over the lad’s prostrate form and affected to feel his pulse.

“Yes, that is it; he fainted quite suddenly,” returned Vera, clutching wildly at this feeble excuse. “Do you mind running up to my sitting-room and fetching my smelling salts? Don’t trouble about a doctor or other servants. I don’t think his attack really serious. These post-office people pay their servants so badly. Perhaps he has had to run about all day on a little bread and milk.”

“No doubt,” assented Judson who was busy laying the boy out quite flat. “Smelling salts, I always find, are the best cure for cases like this.” And he rose and stepped nimbly out of the room; but never once did he dare to look Vera in the face for fear she should take alarm too soon.

This time, however, the girl took care that she was not observed. With a quick movement she turned and pretended to follow him. But, as she saw him disappear up the staircase, she hastened back to the study, thrust the now empty chloroform-bottle into a drawer, and then, with fingers trembling with excitement she attacked the envelope which contained the telegram.

As it happened, it was sealed just as carelessly as are most of these important messages, and, almost in an instant, the flap parted in her fingers and permitted her to withdraw the pink form on which she saw written the very message she had dreaded: from the actress Flora Kaufmann:--

“TO JULES PRENDERGAST, BELSIZE THEATRE, ST. MARTIN’S LANE, W.C.

“Supper Scott’s postponed till to-morrow night. Blake will come alright. Give him a hint about your prospective marriage--Langford girl. Think he will stand 1,000. Much love. FLORA.”

As these horrible and insulting words formed themselves before her eyes, Vera stood torn by the most insane passion. Rage, jealousy, hatred, swept over her in one wild desolating gust so that one second murder flamed to her hands, then came a terrible sense of loneliness, helplessness and nausea, followed the next instant by deadly deliberation and calm.

“Oh! She shall not. She shall not. She shall not,” she caught herself muttering as she pressed the telegram back into the envelope which she rapidly sealed and replaced in the boy’s sachet. “Never, never shall she take Jules Prendergast from me. I would sooner kill him,” and she drew herself up to her full height, pressing the palms of her hands together as, in imagination, she raced over the events of the past few hours, and sought where she could foil the actress who was now actually carrying the war amongst her own friends, to the very man she had resolved to bleed on Prendergast’s behalf--Ventris Blake.

“I will not wait. The first thing to-morrow I will go and see him,” she decided almost in a flash. “I will stop this supper party even if I have to go down on my knees to him. Never will I let this creature triumph.”

Yet, inwardly, she knew that the price she would have to pay for her victory over the actress would be dearer than an open act of abject humility, degrading in itself, no doubt, but, what was best, but a temporary expedient and quickly forgotten. Blake, she was aware, had no feeling for her except that of a master for a possibly useful servant. It was the pure, cold beauty of Winifred Pontifex that had led him captive; and only inasmuch as she assisted his schemes to win this girl for himself, could she hope to make the large sum of money which she required to finance Prendergast and the Belsize Theatre.

Just then, however, a low moan from the telegraph boy and a quick step on the stairs, warned her of the dangers of her present situation, and with a long deep sigh she thrust all these painful bewildering thoughts out of her mind, and threw open the door to meet Judson. Once again she was a cold, calm, collected woman. Without a word, she took the smelling salts from the man’s hand, and throwing herself on her knees beside the lad, she laboured for some minutes to restore him to consciousness.

Finally he sat up, his eyes wild and defiant. “I cannot let you have the telegram,” he exclaimed incoherently throwing his arms about as though he would protect himself from some unseen assailant.

“What telegram?” she asked innocently but soothingly. “Mr. Prendergast’s? Of course you cannot. See! Here it is in your pouch! It has never left your possession!

“Come,” she went on slowly but sweetly. “You have over-excited yourself and fainted. Look! You gave me such a start you made me smash my neuralgia mixture! There, don’t dream any more nonsense. Just look after him, Judson, will you? Put him in a hansom and drive him back to the post-office. Explain to the chiefs there his mind must be a little touched and beg them to soothe him, not to blame him.”

And with a gentle pat on the boy’s cheeks she rose and swept out of the room, leaving even the magnificent Judson for a time dumb with astonishment and admiration for her audacity.

“Well,” he muttered at length as he raised the boy in his powerful arms. “I have seen some clever ones in my time, but, hang it, she can beat the lot of them! Lucky for me though I saw all that she did to this poor little chap! It was a prison job that was, and at the right moment I will tell her so. It will be odd to me then if I ever have to do another stroke of work in my ‘natural.’ But then I never did like work!” And as he passed into the street and beckoned a hansom he caught himself chuckling like a man who had done a good, honest night’s work, and was to be congratulated on the result.

Meanwhile, however, Vera had gone to her room, the door of which she carefully locked and bolted after curtly dismissing her maid. For once she did not attempt to disrobe, but, drawing a chair up to the fire she sat crouched over the grate, turning over in her mind the day’s bitter disillusions and trials, and deciding she must go through with the course she had decided on in such dread and haste.

Finally, worn out, she stretched herself on the bed, and snatched a few hours’ troubled sleep--only to wake again when the hour of eight struck, and to perform a hurried toilet, after which she set out boldly for Park Lane, where she knew she would find Ventris Blake alone.

None the less, in spite of her naturally strong nerve the contents and bills of the morning papers gave her an ugly shock. Whereas one would discreetly announce “Tragedy at Scarborough,” another would throw all reserve to the winds, and in letters several inches deep would narrate: “A Millionaire’s Wife Murdered. Gay Seaside Resort in Panic. Park Lane in Mourning. A Railway Hue and Cry.”

It was easy enough, of course, for her to tell herself that this was no affair of hers. Somehow her conscience was not quite dead, and that morning it seemed to stir uneasily; and to warn her that the money she was after was in one sense blood money, and to ask who was she to sacrifice a good strong love like Arthur Hudson’s to Winifred Pontifex so that she might win the man of her choice, and defeat a creature of the stamp of Flora Kaufmann.

“It will do you no good,” the voice seemed to whisper to her, and the passing cabs and carts appeared to take up the refrain, and every jolt of the wheels ground out the words “no good! no good! no good!” until, with a great gulp of relief, she hastened up the steps of the millionaire’s residence and gave a long sonorous peal on the bell.

Every blind in the windows of Ventris Blake’s house was tightly drawn. In some miraculous fashion an air of almost sepulchral gloom had been imparted to its exterior, and this was rather heightened than lessened by the fact that two or three police constables were apparently hanging about, somehow lending a suggestion of a pictured scene of a crime.

Early as it was, Ventris Blake consented to see her and received her in his study, the shutters of which were bolted, hiding the flood of electric light that poured over the interior, and also the fact that he was busily engaged with his Hebrew secretary, Israel Sawdry, transacting his ordinary business.

Thus, seated face to face alone with the man on whose word so much of her happiness depended, even Vera’s courage failed, and she found herself taking refuge in the most obvious commonplaces. There was indeed something almost snakelike in the way he fixed his eyes on hers, waiting for her to begin a story that, rich man that he was, he must have known by heart. Eventually, she plucked up her courage, and began slowly and timidly.

“Do you remember your goodness to me, Mr. Blake, when you enabled me to make over £3,000 on the Stock Exchange? Well,” now more hurried, “I am in instant need of money again. I--I can’t even wait to make it. I must have £5,000,” and then she stopped and bit her lips. After all, what power was it in this sphinx-like creature who said nothing but only looked, and yet made her talk like an anxious, over-driven school girl?

“I remember perfectly,” he said, but his tones were cold and even. It was impossible to tell what he felt.

Again she reddened as she realised Ventris Blake was bent on compelling her to ask him bolt outright for what she sought.

“I thought,” she went on lamely, “that you might be disposed to advance that sum to me!”

“On what security?” he queried softly, knowing there was none.

“On--on my request,” struck in Vera plucking up courage. “I want to finance Mr. Prendergast further. I have not the means.”

“And do you propose to make me any return for my assistance?” proceeded Blake.

“Yes--anything I can,” said Vera eagerly.

“Well let us see where we stand--whether our minds run in unison. There is your cousin, for instance, Winifred Pontifex,” he suggested. “Don’t you agree with me it is absurd for her to think of marrying Arthur Hudson?”

“Yes,” replied Vera lamely, feeling she was now caught in a trap, and would be taken wherever the millionaire wished.

“That being so you will, of course, now do all you can to break the match off.”

“Of course!” But the tone was weak and Blake’s eyes flashed.

“There must be no hesitation, no half lights about this,” he snapped. “Arthur Hudson must be broken. Your cousin Winifred must be mine. On those conditions I am willing to spend any amount of money--but on those conditions alone.”

Vera bowed, not trusting herself to speak, and he went on: “I am, as a matter of fact, glad that you came. I have given a good deal of thought to this same subject this morning, and I have come to the conclusion that there is only one way in which you and I can bring this most desirable result about. First of all you must quarrel with your cousin. You must make your home at Emperor’s Gate impossible to her. You must drive her to earn a livelihood for herself!”

“That is impossible,” interjected Vera. “She will marry Hudson.”

“Not at all,” said the millionaire calmly. “Leave Arthur Hudson to me. I can ruin him. It’s Miss Pontifex I can’t manage, and I look to you when I have advanced you this £5,000, to make her feel it is essential for her to stay in Emperor’s Gate no longer, but that she must seek some situation where she can be free. That situation I have already secured for her. You do your part, and drive her to it, and, in the end, we shall win easily enough.”

“But what kind of situation is it?” stammered Vera feeling herself cornered hopelessly. “Really I don’t think I ought to do this.”

None the less she was over-persuaded, and departed £5,000 the richer it is true, but pledged to carry out Ventris Blake’s scheme.