CHAPTER XVII.

TO PAY THE PRICE

Two hours later, in the gathering London twilight, Gordon Cunningham was sitting alone beside the fire in his Eastern room at Bruton Street, silent and thoughtful.

The haggard look upon his pale countenance was sufficient index to his mind.

The doctor and one of his friends had brought him home in a taxi, and, now he had recovered, they had left him to rest. The fainting fit had, the medical man declared, been due to overwork, and complete rest was the only remedy.

Suddenly Newton opened the door noiselessly and brought in the evening paper which his master had ordered. Gordon glanced eagerly at it, and read the description of the scene and the expressions of regret at his unfortunate seizure.

“I was a fool--a cursed fool!” he cried fiercely, when his man had left the silent room, with its dark decorations and embroidered hangings. “I ought not to have trusted myself. And yet,” he added breathlessly, “I wonder--I wonder----”

He thrust his hands into his pockets, and in doing so felt a piece of paper. The contact caused him to start. He had not recollected it before!

He drew forth the dirty half-sheet of note-paper, and held it between his trembling fingers.

“I--I quite forgot it!” he gasped. “I ought to have destroyed it, but there wasn’t time. I don’t know what came over me--I seemed to be stricken down as though someone had dealt me a blow. And no wonder!”

He opened the paper, and his eyes again fell upon those ill-written lines, evidently in the round, bold hand of a child, by whom the original, written by a foreigner, had been copied.

They read:

“Sir,--Why do you dare ask a question upon a matter about which you yourself know sufficient? Instantly withdraw your impudent reflections upon the police, or you will receive a sudden surprise. Only you prevent your own exposure by withdrawing. If the question is asked, then the consequences will be swift and just, and the disgraceful truth will be known by the world.”

It was undated and unsigned--the mysterious message which had been handed along to him as he lolled upon the leather-covered bench, and had apparently come from nowhere.

Who had sent it?

Again he held his breath as he re-read those ominous lines, his thin, white lips pressed tightly together. What could it mean?

Surely it was not a trick on the part of the Government to evade an awkward inquiry?

No. Somebody knew! But who that somebody could be was a complete enigma. Was this Tulloch’s revenge?

What if one or other of his political friends had noticed him read that note and crush it into his pocket before his seizure! What if the curiosity of anybody had been aroused, and it had been taken out and read during his unconsciousness! What then?

From the report of that afternoon’s sitting of Parliament it appeared that the business of the House had been at once resumed after his removal, the Home Secretary refraining from replying to the question in the absence of the questioner.

The House had regarded the incident as somewhat curious, but not really more curious than many incidents which sometimes occur during its deliberations. Besides, it was known by everyone that young Cunningham was leading a terribly strenuous life, and a breakdown was not at all unexpected.

As he sat there, staring at the mysterious missive, the telephone bell rang sharply, and he rose and answered.

It was Maidee. She had just seen the report in the paper, and inquired anxiously whether he were now all right.

“Oh! I’m quite myself again, dearie,” he replied cheerfully over the ’phone. “The House seemed unusually close this afternoon, and I suppose I fainted--that’s all. It was at a most unfortunate moment. I’m very sick that I haven’t been able to get answers to my questions.”

“Never mind,” she exclaimed. “As long as you are right again, what matters, Gordon? You’ll be able to tackle the Home Secretary to-morrow. Are you coming round this evening? Do, if you feel well enough--won’t you, dear?”

“If I feel all right I will, of course. I shan’t go back to the House to-day.”

“That’s right,” was the reply. “You must really have a change. I insist upon it. I warned you the other day that you looked as if you wanted one. And now I do hope you’ll take my advice before you get really ill.”

“Well,” he laughed, “I’ll see. We’ll talk it over when I come round after dinner. Au revoir, dearest.”

And then he rang off.

“Ah! Maidee! Maidee!” he cried, wringing his hands as he paced the dim room in his feverish agony. “What can I do? How can I act? Gradually, by slow degrees, my enemies are now closing upon me. Soon--very soon--they will rise and crush me. I took one false step, and from it I have never been able to draw back. The evil powers of the one behind me pushed me forward irresistibly, until now I stand upon the very brink of the abyss. Ah! if you only knew the truth, Maidee----” he cried, covering his hard, drawn face with his hands. “If you only knew the truth you would pity me!”

Suddenly he halted, as though recollecting that he still held the strange warning.

“Who could have sent this?” he again asked himself. “What new enemy has now arisen against me? But, whoever it is, he knows something--the mysterious, unknown person who sent this holds me in the palm of his hand!”

The fact that it had been copied by a child was sufficient to show that the one who sent the warning intended to remain hidden.

“I must see Tulloch!” he gasped after a long silence. “He knows all secrets. I must seek his advice. But--but where is he? He left me no address. And yet if he sees to-day’s incident in the paper he most surely will return. Yes--I must once again seek the advice of the man who is my _bête noire_, the man in whose power I am so utterly and completely. Vainly I believed that his evil influence had passed out of my life for ever--that I was free at last. But alas!” he whispered hoarsely, “that cannot be now--now that I----”

Newton entered with letters, but Gordon tossed them aside unopened. The man had switched on the light, and was lowering the blinds when his master said:

“Mr. Tulloch may call--that elderly gentleman who waited for me. If he comes again I particularly want to see him, Newton. Tell him to wait.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the man gravely as he withdrew.

Under the dim, shaded lights in the Moorish arches of the room Gordon Cunningham looked very ill, and terribly worn. His eyes were sunken, his cheeks blanched, and his whole expression was as of one haunted by some terrible dread.

He crossed the room, examined himself in a long mirror, and his eyebrows contracted.

“Ah!” he sighed. “If I could only find Tulloch! I must see him.”

Then he took up the telephone, and after some delay made inquiry of three different men whom he knew to be friends of the man he had believed to be dead.

All these expressed surprise that they should be asked such a question. They each apparently regarded Gordon as a little eccentric, in view of the fact that Tulloch was known to have died in Italy.

The man was evidently avoiding his friends. He had always some ulterior motive, which was usually a sinister one.

Presently Gordon burned the strange note that had been put into his hand, together with its envelope, and then, passing into his bedroom, he leisurely dressed for dinner.

A dozen times the telephone bell rang, and Newton was kept busy answering anxious inquirers who had seen the accounts of his master’s illness in the evening papers.

Suddenly the man opened the door of Gordon’s room, and said:

“There’s Mr. Tulloch on the telephone, sir. He wishes to speak to you.”

“Tulloch!” echoed his master excitedly. Rushing to the instrument eagerly, he found that his enemy was at an office in the City.

“Come over at once and see me,” he urged. “I must speak with you without delay. Something serious has occurred.”

“All right,” replied Tulloch’s voice; “I’ll come immediately. I hope it’s nothing bad, Gordon--eh?”

“Come--and I’ll tell you all about it,” the young man said, and then returned to complete dressing.

He was all impatience until, twenty minutes later, Tulloch stood in the dimly-lit apartment and grasped the young man’s hand.

“What does all this mean--eh?” he asked. “I read it in the paper. What an infernal contretemps this afternoon!”

“Yes,” replied the other in a low voice as he sank upon one of the soft lounges. “But mine was not an illness, Tulloch. I fainted from--well, from fear.”

“From fear!” cried his friend in surprise. “Fear of what?”

Gordon explained in detail all that had occurred, adding: “I wish I had kept the note, but I very foolishly burned it only a few minutes before you rang up. I ought to have kept it for you to see.”

“It being in a child’s hand would not convey any clue as to who actually wrote it,” Tulloch remarked with a dark, thoughtful look as he slowly rubbed his chin. “The wording was evidently that of a foreigner.”

Well and smartly dressed, with a monocle dangling from a silk cord, and still wearing his overcoat, Tulloch presented the appearance of a prosperous City man as he lay back in the big saddle-bag chair, his legs stretched out towards the fire.

“Well,” Gordon exclaimed, “I want your opinion. How shall I act?”

The man before him did not reply. How much did he really know? Gordon wondered. From him no secret, however closely guarded, was ever safe; therefore he was hoping that by his aid he would be able to identify the person who had sent that mysterious warning coupled with threats.

“Somebody knows. That’s very evident,” Tulloch remarked at last.

“Do you think so?” gasped the unhappy young fellow. “Is my secret really out?” Or, flashed into Gordon’s mind, had Tulloch sent it himself?

“Well, I’m very much afraid that it seems so,” replied the elder man. “Have you no enemy whom you suspect?”

“I’ve been racking my brains to think, but cannot fix upon anyone.”

Tulloch looked across the dimly lit apartment at the young man’s agitated face.

“No rival for Maidee’s affections, for instance?”

“Many fellows are jealous of me, I expect,” replied Gordon. “Maidee is much admired and very popular, as you know. But I can think of no one likely to have discovered the truth--the truth as known to you and me,” he whispered.

“An enemy is not likely to show his hand--at least at present,” remarked Tulloch grimly. “It is certainly curious that your mysterious opponent should wish to hush up the affair. One would have thought that if he had ideas of secret vengeance he would have waited until the question had been answered, and then----”

“Yes, and then have spoken the truth,” Gordon said slowly. “He might have had a complete and terrible revenge if he had so wished. But you see I am fighting in the dark. I do not, unfortunately, know the identity of my enemy.”

A strange look crossed his visitor’s features, an expression which, in the dimness of that apartment, Gordon could not distinguish.

“Yes,” he agreed; “it is unfortunate--most unfortunate, my dear Cunningham. We fondly believed that our secret was quite safe, didn’t we?”

“I only dared to ask the question because you compelled me, Tulloch,” declared the unhappy man in despair. “And in acting boldly I have, alas! brought destruction upon myself.”

“Not destruction,” the other asserted. “The situation is certainly a trifle critical for you. But we must discover the identity of the person who thus utters threats. And having done that, we must form some counter-plot--to silence him. He must be silenced--at all hazards.”

“Can you really do that?” cried the young man eagerly. “I know your marvellous power of getting to know men’s secrets, Tulloch. Discover who this enemy of mine really is--and--and save me,” he implored.

“It might be done--if Maidee did not suspect,” the elder man said reflectively.

“But she doesn’t suspect now. I took your advice, and in acting boldly I have removed her suspicions.”

Again an evil shadow fell across Tulloch’s countenance.

“Very well,” he said. “I will see what I can do on your behalf. And yet--yet when last I was here you said some rather hard things of me, didn’t you?”

“No, no!” cried Gordon in quick eagerness. “Forget it all. Name your own price, Tulloch--but save me!”

The man’s face relaxed into a sinister grin of triumph, while his dark eyes shot a keen, inquisitive look at the unhappy man seated huddled before him. Gordon, driven to despair, was now ready--nay, anxious--to resume friendship with his visitor--the man who held him in his toils so utterly and so completely. The day of reckoning was near.

Little did he dream the actual truth. Indeed, if Tulloch had at that moment revealed the real, astounding facts to him he would have flatly refused to believe.

“Well,” said his visitor, “I will help you--but remember,” he added in a slow, meaning voice, “I am not a philanthropist.”

Gordon knew that he wanted money--as always. If he required his aid, then he must pay the price.

Ah! And what a price!