CHAPTER III

THE QUESTION

When he got home that evening with a whole sheaf of information on the subject of figurines which he had culled from the courteous authorities of the Museum, he found that the post had brought him the cover design for the _Paternoster Magazine_.

Martia Hare had not forgotten her end of the business, and her thoughtfulness contrasted with his own carelessness made him sit down to work with a determination to succeed. He lit a pipe, went over his notes, closed his eyes and waited for inspiration to come. Nothing came but Behrens asking him the question: "Would you, on the chance of making anything from five to twenty thousand pounds, take a risk, pack a bag, and go where I tell you?"

The question would not let him work, and as he sat, the tobacco livening his imagination, the whole proposition took on a new form, new colours and a reality which gave him pause.

Behrens had been in earnest. What did he mean by a risk? Was he proposing a shady deal? No, Behrens did not seem that sort of person. He was a respectable man in a large way of business, and even if he had been a crook, would any crook in the world propose such a thing to an absolute stranger after only ten minutes' conversation.

Then what was the meaning of it all?

He went to bed asking himself the question. The business had seized upon his imagination.

It pursued him in dreamland and next day, when he sat down to work, it stood at the gates of his mind, chasing all other ideas away.

At three o'clock, after a blank day and feeling as though the art of story-writing had forever gone from him, he left his rooms, took a bus and got off in Fleet Street. A few minutes later he was in White Lion Court.

Yes, Miss Hare would see him. He was shown into her room.

"I've come to bother you again," said Bobby, taking the chair she pointed out to him. "You must think me an awful worry, but it's not business I've come about--at least, not the story business--it's old Behrens."

"Yes?"

"I called on him and we had a long talk; it seems he knew my father in a business way and he got quite chummy, asked what I was doing, and when I told him, he said I ought to chuck the story-writing for a while and go about the world and get experience."

The girl, seated sideways at the desk-table, took off her reading glasses and, placing them on the papers at her elbow, turned more fully towards Lestrange; she was tired after a long day's work, and still with work to be completed before leaving the office, yet she showed no sign of impatience.

"I told him," went on Bobby, "that I hadn't money enough to travel. I've only two hundred a year of my own, you know, and he told me to go and travel and make it. However, what I've come about is just this: after we'd been talking a while, he sprung a proposition on me that was pretty staggering, and I've come to ask your opinion on what I should do. Sure I'm not taking up your time with all this?"

"No, no. Go on."

"Well, he asked me would I be willing to go into a venture that might bring me in a lot of money? He hinted that it might be risky and he asked me to call to-night at nine o'clock and talk the matter over."

"And you said----?"

"I said I'd call, but the whole thing is so extraordinary I had to come and tell you about it and ask your advice."

"Why my advice?"

"Because you are cleverer than I am," said Bobby, "and you know him. I'm perfectly sure he is straight, but still I just thought I'd come and ask you what you thought."

"As a matter of fact," said the girl, "I had a telephone message this morning from him asking about you."

Bobby laughed.

"Asking what I knew about you and saying that he had some business he might be able to put in your way. He wanted to know if I thought you were to be trusted and I said certainly you were."

He laughed again.

"But how do you know that I am to be trusted?"

"I don't know it," replied she, "I feel it."

She looked straight in his eyes and it seemed to Bobby in that moment as though a link had been welded binding him to the girl in a friendship that would never be broken.

"You came," she went on, "to ask me was _he_ to be trusted, and I can answer you: yes, certainly. Also I believe I know the business he is thinking of asking you to engage in. There is nothing wrong in it, but it is extraordinarily--fascinating. I can't say more. It's his secret, but I can say this----"

"Yes?"

"I believe I know why he thought of you in connection with the matter. He had a son of about your age who was killed just at the end of the war, and who would have carried this project through for him had he lived. I may be wrong, but I fancy--well, no matter."

She turned. One of the typewriting girls had come in, carrying a little tray with two cups of tea.

Bobby accepted a cup and a cigarette.

"Well, that's settled," said he, when they were alone again. "I'll call on him this evening. There seems to me a lot in this business, and who knows what may come of it. But the thing that's on my mind now is that Tanagra statuette story. I feel that I will never be able to do it. That worries me."

"Don't worry about that," said Martia. "If the thing does not appeal to you, turn it down. I will try it with someone else."

"It's not the story that worries me," said he, "but the fact that you took such trouble over it, and that I have wasted your time--and there's more than that, you took an interest in my doing it--and I'd do anything on earth to do anything you wanted me to do. I'm bad at explaining things--but there are so few people in this world that really care a button for one--I mean for one's work--that--well, there it is."

He was frightfully tied up all at once. His tongue had got away with him and he felt that somehow he had made a fool of himself.

But the girl understood.

"You will come and tell me all about it," said she, as he rose to take his departure. "I shall be more than interested to know what happens between you two."

"Yes, I'll come," said Bobby.

Out in the street he walked, not knowing or caring whither he went. He wanted exercise, and to walk off the new flood of energy that had suddenly filled his being. He wanted also to think. He felt like a canoeman who has floated from a big stream into a broad and swiftly flowing river; the river of Adventure, whose very breath is life. He felt no longer alone; it was as though with him in the canoe was seated the girl who had brought him into this business, the girl with the auburn hair and green-grey eyes, expressive eyes, that darkened and lightened to the sun or shadow of her thoughts.

And yesterday morning he did not even know of her existence--only of her name.