CHAPTER IX

AMBER SEES THE MAP

Cynthia Sutton was twenty-three, and, by all standards, beautiful. Her hair was a rich chestnut, her eyes were big, and of that shade which is either blue or grey, according to the light in which they were seen. Her nose was straight, her upper lip short; her lips full and red, her skin soft and unblemished. “She has the figure of a woman, and the eyes of a child,” said Amber, describing her, “and she asked me to come to tea.”

“And you didn’t go,” said Peter, nodding his head approvingly. “You realized that your presence might compromise this innercent flower. ‘No,’ you sez to yourself, ‘no, I will go away, carrying a fragrant memory, an’----’”

“To be exact, my Peter,” said Amber, “I forgot all about the appointment in the hurry and bustle of keeping out of Lambaire’s way.”

They were sitting in the little room under the roof of 19, Redcow Court, and the sweet song of the caged birds filled the apartment with liquid melody.

“No,” continued Amber thoughtfully, “I must confess to you, my Peter, that I had none of those interestin’ conversations with myself that your romantic soul suggests.”

He looked at his watch. It was ten o’clock in the forenoon, and he stared through the open window, his mind intent upon a problem.

“I ought to see her,” he said, half to himself; he was groping for excuses. “This business of young Sutton’s ... compass and chart ... hidden treasures and all that sort of thing, eh, my Peter?”

Peter’s eyes were gleaming from behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, and his hand shook with excitement, as he rose and made his way to the cretonne-curtained shelves.

“I’ve got a yarn here,” he said, fumbling eagerly amongst his literary treasures, “that will give you some ideas: money and pieces of eight--what is a piece of eight?” He turned abruptly with the question.

“A sovereign,” said Amber promptly, “eight half-crowns.” He was in the mood when he said just the first thing that came into his head.

“Um!” Peter resumed his search, and Amber watched him with the gentle amusement that one reserves for the enthusiasm of children at play.

“Here it is,” said Peter.

He drew forth from a pile of books one, gaudy of colour and reckless of design. “This is the thing,”--he dusted the paper cover tenderly--“_Black Eyed Nick, or, The Desperado’s Dream of Ducats_; how’s that?”

Amber took the book from the old man and inspected it, letting the pages run through his fingers rapidly.

“Fine,” he said, with conviction. “Put it with my pyjamas, I’ll read myself to sleep with it”--he spoke a little absently, for his mind was elsewhere.

It was a relief to him when Peter left him to “shop.” Shopping was the one joy of Peter’s life, and usually entailed a very careful rehearsal.

“A penn’oth of canary seed, a quarter of tea, two of sugar, four bundles of wood, a pint of paraffin, tell the greengrocer to send me half a hundred of coal, eggs, bit of bacon--you didn’t like the bacon this morning, did you, Amber?--some kippers, a chop--how will a chop suit you?--and a pound of new potatoes; I think that’s all.”

Leaning out of the window, Amber saw him disappearing up the court, his big rush bag gripped tightly in his hand, his aged top-hat tilted to the back of his head.

Amber waited until he was out of sight, then made his way to his bedroom and commenced to change his clothes.

A quarter of an hour later he was on his way to Warwick Gardens.

The maid who answered his knock told him that her mistress was engaged, but showed him into a little study.

“Take her a note,” said Amber, and scribbled a message in his pocket-book, tearing out the leaf.

When the twisted slip of paper came to her, Cynthia was engaged in a fruitless, and, so far as Lambaire was concerned, a profitless discussion on her brother’s projected expedition. She opened the note and coloured. “Yes,” she said with a nod to the maid, and crumpled the note in her hand.

“I hardly think it is worth while continuing this discussion,” she said; “it is not a question of my approval or disapproval: if my brother elects to take the risk, he will go, whatever my opinions are on the subject.”

“But, my dear young lady,” said Lambaire eagerly, “you are wrong; it isn’t only the chart which you have placed at our disposal----”

“At my brother’s,” she corrected.

“It isn’t only that,” he went on, “it’s the knowledge that you are in sympathy with our great project: it means a lot to us, ye know, Miss Cynthia----”

“Miss Sutton,” she corrected again.

“It means more than you can imagine; I’ve made a clean breast of my position. On the strength of your father’s statement about this mine, I floated a company; I spent a lot of money on the expedition. I sent him out to Africa with one of the best caravans that have been got together--and now the shareholders are bothering me. ‘Where’s that mine of yours?’ they say. Why”--his voice sank to an impressive whisper--“they talk of prosecuting me, don’t they, Whitey?”

“They do indeed,” said his responsive companion truthfully.

“So it was a case of fair means or foul,” he went on. “I had to get the plan, and you wouldn’t give it me. I couldn’t burgle your house for it, could I?”

He smiled pleasantly at the absurdity of taking such a course, and she looked at him curiously.

“It is strange that you should say that,” she replied slowly, “for remarkably enough this house was burgled twice after my refusal to part with the little map.”

“Remarkable!” said Lambaire.

“Astoundin’!” said Whitey, no less surprised.

She rose from her chair.

“Since the matter has been settled--so far as I have anything to do with it,” she said, “you will excuse my presence.”

She left the room, and Amber, sitting in the little study, heard the swish of her skirts and rose to meet her.

There was a touch of pink in her cheeks, but she was very grave and self-possessed, as she favoured him with the slightest of bows and motioned him to a seat.

“Good of you to see me, Miss Sutton,” said Amber.

She noted, with a little pang, that he was quite at ease. There could be little hope for a man who was so lost to shame that he gloried in his misspent career rather than showed some indication of embarrassment in the presence of a woman who knew him for what he was.

“I felt I owed you this interview at least,” she replied steadily. “I wish----” She stopped.

“Yes?” Amber perked his head on one side inquiringly. “You were going to say that you wished----?”

“It does not matter,” she said. She felt herself blushing.

“You wish you could do something for me,” he said with a half-smile, “but, my lady, half the good people in the world are trying to do something for me. I am hopeless, I am incorrigible; regard me as that.”

Nevertheless, lightly as he discussed the question of his regeneration, he eyed her keenly to see how she would take the rejection of help. To his relief, and somewhat to his annoyance also, be it admitted, he observed she accepted his valuation of himself very readily.

“I have come to see you to-day,” he went on, “in relation to a matter which is of supreme importance to you. Do you mind answering a few questions I put to you?”

“I have no objection,” she said.

“Your father was an explorer, was he not?”

“Yes.”

“He knew Central Africa very well?”

“Yes--very well.”

“He discovered a mine--a diamond mine, or something of the sort?”

She shook her head with a smile.

“That has yet to be proved,” she said. “He had heard, from the natives, of a wonderful river--the River of Stars they called it, because in its bed were stones, many of which had been polished by the action of the water until they glittered,--they were undoubtedly diamonds, for my father purchased a number from the people of the country.”

Amber nodded.

“And then I suppose he came home and got into touch with Lambaire?”

“That is so,” she said, wondering at the course the interview was taking.

Amber nodded thoughtfully.

“The rest of the story I know,” he said. “I was at pains to look up the circumstances attending your father’s death. You received from the Commissioner of the district a chart?”

She hesitated.

“I did--yes.”

He smiled.

“I have no designs upon the mine, but I am anxious to see the chart--and before you refuse me, Miss Sutton, let me tell you that I am not prompted by idle curiosity.”

“I believe that, Mr. Amber,” she said; “if you wait, I will get it for you.”

She was gone for ten minutes and returned with a long envelope. From this she extracted a soiled sheet of paper and handed it to the ex-convict.

He took it, and carried it to the window, examining it carefully.

“I see the route is marked from a point called Chengli--where is that?”

“In the Alebi forest,” she said; “the country is known as far as Chengli; from there on, my father mapped the country, inquiring his way from such natives as he met--this was the plan he had set himself.”

“I see.”

He looked again at the map, then from his pocket he took the compass he had found in Lambaire’s safe. He laid it on the table by the side of the map and produced a second compass, and placed the two instruments side by side.

“Do you observe any difference in these, Miss Sutton?” he asked, and the girl looked carefully.

“One is a needle compass, and on the other there is no needle,” she said.

“That is so; the whole of the dial turns,” Amber nodded. “Nothing else?” he asked.

“I can see no other difference,” she said, shaking her head.

“Where is the north on the dial?”

She followed the direction of the letter N and pointed.

“Where is the north of the needle?”

Her brows knit in a puzzled frown, for the thin delicate needle of the smaller compass pointed ever so slightly in a more westerly direction than its fellow.

“What does that mean?” she asked, and their eyes met over the table.

* * * * *

Lambaire and his host had finished their business. Francis Sutton was in a jubilant mood, and came into the hall with his patron.

“You mustn’t worry about my sister,” he said; “she’ll come round to my way of thinking after a while--she’s a woman, you know,” he added vaguely.

“I understand, my boy,” said the expansive Lambaire. “We both understand, don’t we, Whitey?”

“Certainly,” said Whitey.

“Still, she’ll probably be annoyed if you go off without saying good-bye,--where is your mistress, Susan?” he asked of the maid who had come in answer to his bell.

“In the study, sir.”

“Come along.” He led the way to the study and opened the door.

“Cynthia----” he began.

They were leaning over the table; between them lay the map and the two compasses. What Sutton saw, the other two saw; and Lambaire, sweeping past the youth, snatched up his property.

“So that’s the game, is it?” he hissed: he was trembling with passion; “that’s your little game, Amber!”

He felt Whitey’s hand grip his arm and recovered a little of his self-possession.

“This man is not content with attempting to blackmail,” he said, “not content with committing a burglary at my office and stealing valuable drawings----”

“What does this mean, Cynthia?”

Sutton’s voice was stern, and his face was white with anger. For the second time Amber came to the rescue. “Allow me,” he said.

“I’ll allow you nothing,” stormed the boy; “get out of this house before I kick you out. I want no gaol birds here.”

“It is a matter of taste, my Francis,” said the imperturbable Amber; “if you stand Lambaire you’d stand anybody.”

“I’ll settle with you later,” said Lambaire darkly.

“Settle now,” said Amber in his most affable manner. “Mr. Sutton,” he said, “that man killed your father, and he will kill you.”

“I want none of your lies,” said Sutton; “there’s the door.”

“And a jolly nice door too,” said Amber; “but I didn’t come here to admire your fixtures: ask Lambaire to show you the compass, or one like it, that he provided for your father’s expedition. Send it to Greenwich and ask the astronomers to tell you how many points it is out of the true--they will work out to a mile or so how far wrong a man may go who made his way by it, and tried to find his way back from the bush by short cuts.”

“Francis, you hear this?” said the girl.

“Rubbish!” replied the youth contemptuously. “What object could Mr. Lambaire have had? He didn’t spend thousands of pounds to lose my father in the bush! The story isn’t even plausible, for, unless my father got back again to civilization with the plan, the expedition was a failure.”

“Exactly!” applauded Lambaire, and smiled triumphantly.

Amber answered smile for smile.

“It wasn’t the question of his getting back, as I understand the matter,” he said quietly; “it was a question whether, having located the mine, and having returned with the map, _and_ the compass, whether anybody else would be able to locate it, or find their way to it, without Lambaire’s Patent Compass.”

The tangled skein of the plot was unravelled before the girl’s eyes, and she looked from Amber to the stout Lambaire.

“I see, I see,” she whispered. “Francis,” she cried, “don’t you understand what it all means----”

“I understand that you’re a fool,” he said roughly; “if you’ve finished your lies, you can go, Amber.”

“I have only a word to add,”--Amber picked up his hat. “If you do not realize that Lambaire is the biggest wrong ’un outside prison--I might add for your information that he is a notorious member of the Big Five Gang; a forger of bank-notes and Continental securities; he has also a large interest in a Spanish coining establishment--didn’t think I knew it, eh, my Lambie?--where real silver half-crowns are manufactured at a profit, thanks to the fact that silver is a drug on the market. Beyond that I know nothing against him.”

“There’s the door,” said Sutton again.

“Your conversation is decidedly monotonous,” said Amber, and with a smile and a friendly nod to the girl, he left.