CHAPTER XIX.

MORE ABOUT JOHN AMBROSE

Just after seven o’clock that evening the man Tulloch reappeared unexpectedly at Bruton Street.

He had been down at Brighton for the past few days, he told Gordon, as he stood with him in that dim Oriental room. He had telephoned to him at the House, and the young man had rushed home in a taxi in order to meet him.

“Well?” he inquired, “have you discovered anything, Tulloch?”

“Not yet.”

Gordon sighed disappointedly. This man of secrets constantly appeared and disappeared, yet his story was ever the same. He could discover nothing concerning the strange threat--or its author.

“Every day increases my peril, Tulloch,” declared the young man, glancing to see if the door were closed. “Only last night Maidee was asking me why, now that I am well again, I do not put the question in the House.”

“Don’t,” urged his visitor, glancing at him narrowly. “I somehow don’t like that mysterious note you received. Whoever wrote it means mischief.”

“Neither do I. We’re fighting in the dark.”

“That’s just it,” remarked Tulloch. “And another contretemps has happened. Yesterday, while walking along the King’s Road at Brighton, I met a man who recognised me. Like you--he believed me to be dead. My appearance caused him a terrible shock, I can tell you. And----”

“And what?”

“Well. There are reasons, Gordon, why I should leave the country at once. I expect by this time he has gone to the police, and told them an amazing story of a dead man being alive.”

“Leave the country--and leave me?” gasped the young man in dismay.

“I’m sorry that I must. I’m compelled to go as soon as ever I can, for----well, the fact is, the little affair is so serious that I’m unable to stay and face the music. Therefore I shall go back again--to my tomb in Italy.”

“But without you, Tulloch, I can do nothing. Ruin--nay, death--stares me in the face! Somebody knows my secret, and must be silenced--by fair means or by foul.”

The elder man, smart and spruce as usual, slowly nodded. Then he said:

“To save myself I must fly. As you know, I haven’t exactly a clean sheet,” he laughed a trifle nervously. “I sailed near the wind in the city once or twice, and some people haven’t forgotten it.”

“And how do you manage to live now, Tulloch?” asked his friend.

“Well,” he hesitated, “in a certain set on the Continent there are various ways of earning a living which, if not exactly honest, are scarcely criminal. One meets many pigeons to pluck in Paris, Vienna, or Rome.”

“Ah! The old game, then?”

“Yes; cards chiefly. I, and a friend of mine--a woman--make a neat little coup now and then. It is a safe game providing the police haven’t your photo, and you are not in the gallery of photographs published in the Rats d’Hôtel. But once be arrested for sharp practice with cards, and your picture is taken and circulated to all hotels by that infernal international system they have nowadays, and, of course, the game is up. I was nearly caught in Carlsbad last season through being a trifle careless. I had to submit to heavy blackmail, and pay up nearly every farthing I possessed.”

“Yours is not exactly an exemplary life, Tulloch, is it?” remarked Gordon. “Have a cigar?”

The other man took the weed offered him and lit it, while the young man, lying back upon a lounge, wondered how he should act.

“I’ve half a mind to come abroad with you,” he said.

“My dear fellow, you’d better not. Remember what you are--and what I am. A secret friendship is all very well, but you couldn’t go about openly with me. Besides, I should have attention directed towards me, and, in all probability, find myself arrested. No. You must keep clear of me, at all costs.”

“Well, Tulloch, what shall I do?” asked the young man. “Suggest something.”

“I could suggest lots, if it were not for Maidee. She’s the most difficult problem,” said Tulloch. “While you don’t put that question she will still remain suspicious that you are in possession of some facts which ought to be revealed.”

“You compelled me to put the query to the Home Secretary.”

“Yes, I did. I admit that I made a great mistake. Yet had you not put the question, the consequences might have been much worse,” he said slowly.

“How?” asked Cunningham instantly. “I don’t follow you.”

“I merely say that by putting the question you misled certain other people who were ready to think evil of you, Gordon. So congratulate yourself that, though I might have acted foolishly in compelling you to demand the truth from Scotland Yard, yet by so doing you saved yourself.”

“But I have not saved myself. Remember that threat!” he cried.

“While you do not repeat the question, the mysterious person who threatened will say nothing.”

“Why?”

“Ah! that I can’t tell, my dear fellow. It is the motive I’ve been trying to discover. If I found that, the rest would be quite easy. The worst is, however, that I have to clear out of the country in order to save myself.”

“When do you go?”

“As soon as ever I can. If there is any inquiry for me after I have gone tell Newton not to admit that I have ever visited you. I am dead as far as you know--understand?”

“Quite,” replied Gordon, with failing heart. While he had this clever, unscrupulous man at his side he somehow felt protected from his enemies. But now he would be left to fight alone.

Tulloch had not sat down, for he was in a hurry. He stood near the fire, smoking the excellent cigar, his eyes fixed upon the young man before him.

Then at last he put forth his hand, saying:

“Well, my dear boy, I must wish you au revoir. When the coast is clear I shall turn up again--never fear.”

“I may be dead,” remarked Gordon in a half-whisper.

“Dead--rot!”

“I can’t endure this suspense much longer, Tulloch,” he said in a low, hoarse voice. “You say Maidee suspects?”

“Pair, and go abroad for a month or so. Plead illness, and you’ll get a respite from Maidee. Act with caution, and at the same time remain bold. Don’t go about wearing that wretched, worried look. It will give you away, if you’re not careful. Chin-chin, my boy--and the best of good luck.”

Then he gripped the young man’s hand, and went forth, leaving him seated motionless in despair.

As he passed from Bruton Street into Piccadilly Don Mario Mellini joined him, and together they walked westward along by the park railings, deep in earnest conversation.

At nine o’clock Maidee, pleading a headache, had gone to her room, but instead of retiring had hastily exchanged her black dinner gown for a dark stuff dress, and was in the act of tying her veil, prior to going forth upon one of those clandestine excursions to “Uncle John,” when Rayner, her discreet maid, knocked lightly and entered with a note.

Without Rayner’s help she could never escape on these little expeditions, for the young woman, who had been four years in her service, was always loyal to her young mistress.

“This has just come by boy messenger, miss,” she said, as she handed Maidee the note. “He said there was no answer.”

The girl took it, and in an instant recognised the handwriting of the superscription.

Tearing it open with trembling fingers, she read it, and then stood aghast. Her hands fell limply by her side, and she stared straight before her.

“I hope nothing is wrong, miss,” the maid said, alarmed at the sudden change in her.

“Oh, no! Rayner,” Maidee managed to say, “nothing at all--at least really nothing,” and she tried to smile. But it was a sorry attempt. The news had utterly crushed her.

She had just been about to go to Uncle John and put to him a few pointed questions--questions arising out of certain strange things which Medland had told her that afternoon--when this note informed her that he had been suddenly called away into the country for a short time.

“I will let you know where I am as soon as I have a permanent address,” he wrote. “In the meantime be wary and watchful. Remember our compact. Acting together, we must discover the truth. Though absent, I shall have constant news of you through a third party. All good wishes, and hoping soon to see you again.--Your Uncle John.”

When the maid had gone out to attend to Lady Ravenscourt, the girl sank into a chair and sat wondering.

She had been anxious to put some curious questions to the old man. Yet at the very moment when she was about to visit him he had been called away.

He did not say where he was going. That was very unlike him, for whenever he moved his abode--which was very frequently--he always sent her, in secret, his new address. During the past few years he had lived in many parts of London, including Fulham, Battersea, Notting Hill, Hackney, Westbourne Park, Acton, Kew, Hammersmith, Camberwell and Peckham. He constantly changed his habitation, for no apparent reason other than that he was in the habit of contracting a violent dislike of his landlady.

That day had, indeed, been an eventful one for Maidee. What the detective had hinted had astounded her. Again her suspicions had been aroused, and at eight o’clock she had telephoned to Gordon to call at once as she wished to consult him. But Newton replied that his master had left for Reading, where he had to deliver a political speech that evening.

As for old John Ambrose, he returned from Bruton Street about half-past seven to his lodgings, and, having ascertained that his landlady was in the basement, he slipped in unobserved by means of his latchkey. Standing before the glass over-mantel in the shabby sitting-room, he rapidly transformed his features by removing various marks and adding others. Then he threw off his overcoat, and, ascending to his bedroom, exchanged his clothes for a suit of dark blue serge, the pea-jacket of which gave him almost a nautical appearance.

As the reader may have guessed, it was he who, decrepit and shabby, had lingered in Westminster Abbey for so many hours--he who was known to the vergers as “Old Chestnut.”

About six o’clock he had returned, and entering unobserved by the front door, as was his habit, he had exchanged his clothes, and, in a few minutes had gone forth again as Mr. Tulloch. His change of garb never troubled him much, for the majority of landladies put his various modes of dress down to his eccentricity. When they became curious he simply moved to other apartments.

In that one day he had played three rôles, and played them with such success that, as in his narrow bedroom he once again became John Ambrose, he chuckled to himself in triumph.

“It was fortunate that I went to the Abbey to-day--very fortunate. Or I might have remained here and have been faced by the girl--which would have been decidedly awkward!”

Then, with a self-satisfied grin upon his face, the crafty old fellow busied himself in gathering up his small belongings and throwing them into an old and battered travelling trunk. From his sitting-room he got an armful of books and other things, and carried them upstairs, afterwards carefully collecting his various clothes, which he placed on top, and locked the lid.

Then he wrote upon a luggage label, “John Ambrose, Totnes Station, G.W.R. To be called for,” and tied it upon the handle.

Into a small handbag he placed his false white beard, his spectacles, and a few other mysteries of his disguises, while from beneath the carpet in his bedroom, near the window, he took a flat envelope filled with English banknotes.

Then he descended to his sitting-room, called his landlady, paid her a month’s rent, which greatly pleased the good woman, and asked her to give the box over to a railway carman on the morrow.

“I’m called away on business suddenly,” he explained to her. “I only knew an hour ago. Probably I shall be back in April, and if so I shall return to you.”

“I’ll be most pleased, sir,” declared the woman, for if old Mr. Ambrose was eccentric, he was nevertheless always a good payer.

When she had gone he paced the room several times. There was nothing more to be done. He had already written to Maidee. He had only now to make good his escape.

So, shouting farewell to the woman, who had returned to the regions below, he put on a thick, dark grey ulster and left the house with his handbag, and walking to the corner of the street, he hailed a passing cab, in which he drove away rapidly.

In the cab he adjusted the white beard, and put on his glasses, by which he became absolutely transformed.

“A few hours!” he exclaimed, speaking to himself, “will carry me into safety. I’ve had a narrow squeak of it--a devilish narrow squeak. And even now it will require all my wits if I am to avoid exposure. But, for the present, I am surely quite safe.”

And he laughed again in complete satisfaction.

He, however, was in ignorance that ever since seven o’clock, in that deep doorway opposite the house wherein he lodged, the dark figure of a man had been lurking, wary and vigilant, as he had watched before, or that on his emerging the figure had stolen swiftly, with evil in his deep-set eyes, after him and entered a taxi-cab waiting round the corner.

And that taxi was now slowly following the cab in which the fugitive sat.