Part 11

"Yes--not bad after a month's work," said the osteopath. "You must have massage for those back muscles, they are like wool. If you don't mind a man doing it, you couldn't do better than persuade Mr. Sault. He is an excellent masseur--I found this out by accident. The evening he came to engage me, I'd been dining out and sprained my ankle getting out of a cab--young lady, I observe your suspicion. I am an abstainer and have not touched strong wines for twenty years. I came in feeling bad and I was not inclined to discuss spines with him or anybody. But he insisted on massaging the limb--said he had learned the art in a hospital somewhere--yes, ask him. Otherwise it will cost you half a guinea a day."

Evie heard all this early in the afternoon. It was early closing day and she came home to lunch. She flew up the stairs and literally flung herself upon Christina.

"You darling. Isn't it wonderful! Mother says you stood up by yourself. Oh, Chris, didn't it feel splendid!"

"Mother is a romancer," smiled Christina. "I certainly did stand on my feet, with considerable assistance, and it felt like hell!--pardon the language--physically. Spiritually and intellectually it was a golden moment of life. Oh, Evie, I'm gurgling with joy inside and the prospect of Ambrose rubbing my back fills me with bliss."

"Ambrose--Mr. Sault?"

Christina inclined her head gravely.

"But not your _bare_ back?"

"I fear so," said Christina. "I knew this would be a shock to you."

"Don't be silly, Chris--it is all right I suppose," and then with a happy laugh, "of course it is all right. I'm wrong. I think I must have an unpleasant mind. You've always said I had--well, you've hinted. I'd even let him rub my back if it would do you good."

"You Lady Godiva," murmured Christina admiringly, "quo vadis?"

"That means where am I going? I always mix it up with that other one, 'the sign of the cross.' I am going to a matinee with a girl from the shop. She had tickets sent to her by a gentleman who knows the manager. It will be a bad play; you can't get tickets for a success. How is your Ambrose? I haven't seen him for weeks. Ronnie says that there has been an awful lot of trouble at the office--"

"Oh! Has he an office?"

"I don't know--some office Ronnie is connected with. He's a director, my dear. I saw his name in the paper--Ronnie, I mean."

"Has Ambrose been in trouble?"

"No, some other man, I forget his name. It is foreign and he drinks. But it has all blown over now."

Christina sighed. "I don't see how Ambrose came into it, even after your lucid explanation."

"Ambrose, that is to say Mr. Sault, is supposed to look after--whatever his name is. It sounds like the name of a cigarette. He is supposed to stop him drinking. And he found this--Moropulos, that's the name, in a bar and hauled him out and Moropulos fought him. I don't know the whole story but I do know that there was a row."

"Is the cigarette person still able to walk about?" asked Christina incredulously.

"Yes, but they are very bad friends. Moropulos says he'll get even with Sault."

"Unhappy man," said Christina, "Ronnie is getting quite communicative, isn't he?"

"We're real friends," answered the girl enthusiastically, "we're just pals! I sometimes feel--I don't know whether I ought to tell you this. But I will. I sometimes feel that I really don't want to marry Ronnie at all. I feel that I could be perfectly happy, married to somebody else, if I had him for a friend. Isn't that queer?"

Christina thought it was queer and wondered if this attitude of mind was Evie's very own or whether it had grown by suggestion. But she had evidently done Ronnie an injustice in this instance.

"I've never told Ronnie this," said Evie. "I don't fancy that he would understand, but I did ask him whether he thought that he could be friends with Beryl Merville if she married somebody else. I only asked him for fun, just to hear what he would say. My dear, how he loathes that girl! I could tell he was sincere. He was so furious! He said that if she married, he would never visit her house and he wished he had never seen her."

Christina made no response. It was on the tip of her tongue to say that Beryl Merville must know the man very well to have excited such hatred, but she observed the truce.

When Ambrose put in an appearance late in the evening she learned that he had heard from the osteopath. His large smile told her that even before he spoke.

"Now, Ambrose, did he say anything about massage?"

Ambrose nodded. "I'll do it if you'll let me," he said simply. "My hands aren't as awkward as they look."

Later her mother, who had been an interested spectator of the treatment, spoke a great truth. "It seems natural for Mr. Sault to be rubbing your back, Christina. He's just like a--a soul with hands--sounds ridiculous I know, but that is what I felt. He wasn't a man and he wasn't a woman. It seemed natural, somehow--how did you feel about it?"

"Mother, I begin to feel that I got my genius from you," said Christina, patting a rumpled sheet into place, "I couldn't have bettered that; 'a soul with hands'!"

Mrs. Colebrook blinked complacently. "I've always been a bit clever in describing people," she said. "Do you remember how I used to call Evie 'spitfire'?"

"Don't spoil my illusions mother--'a soul with hands' entitles you to my everlasting respect. And don't tell Evie, or she'll talk about his feet. He has big feet, I admit, though he makes less noise than Evie. And he snores, I heard him last night."

XIII

There came a day when Christina put her feet to the grimy pavement of the street and walked slowly but without assistance to Dr. Merville's car, borrowed through Beryl, for the afternoon.

It was a cold, clear day in January, the wind was in the east and the gutters of Walter Street were covered with a thin film of ice.

A momentous occasion, for in addition to other wonders, Christina was wearing her first hat! Evie had chosen and bought it. The woolen costume was one from Mrs. Colebrook's wash-tub. Ambrose had provided a gray squirrel coat. It had appeared at the last moment. But the hat was a joy. Christina had worn it in bed all the morning, sitting up with pillows behind her and a mirror in her hand.

"Lend me that powder-puff of yours, Evie," she said recklessly, "My skin is perfect. I admit it. But I can't appear before the curious eyes of the world wearing my own complexion. It wouldn't be decent."

"If you take my advice," suggested the wise Evie, "you'll put a dab of rouge on your cheeks. Nobody will know."

"I am no painted woman," said Christina, "I am poor but I am respectable. Ambrose would think I had a fever and send for the osteopath. No, a little powder. My eyes are sufficiently languorous without eyeblack, I think. It must be powder or nothing."

Ambrose did not accompany them, and Evie and Mrs. Colebrook were her attendants in the drive to Hampstead.

Beryl saw them; she had arranged with Ambrose and the chauffeur that the car should go past the house and she watched from behind a curtained window.

So that was Evie; it was the first time she had seen her--no, not the first time. She was the girl to whom Ronnie had been speaking that holiday morning when she had passed them in the park. She was very pretty and petite--the kind Ronnie liked. She lingered at the window long after they had passed, loath to face an unpleasant interview.

She knew it would be unpleasant; her father had been so anxious to please her at lunch; his nervousness was symptomatic. He wanted to have a little talk with her that afternoon, he said; she guessed the subject set for discussion.

Sitting before the drawing-room fire she was reading when he came in rubbing his hands, and wearing a cheerful smile which was wholly simulated.

"Ah, there you are, Beryl. Now we can have a chat. I get very little time nowadays."

He poked the fire vigorously and sat down. "Beryl--" he seemed at some loss for an opening, "I had a talk with Steppe the other day--we were talking about you."

"Yes?"

"Steppe is very fond of you--loves you," Dr. Merville cleared his throat. "Yes, he loves you, Beryl. A fine man, a little rough, perhaps, but a fine man and a very rich man."

"Yes?" said Beryl again and he grew more agitated.

"I don't know why you say 'Yes, yes,'" he said irritably, "a young girl doesn't as a rule hear such things without displaying some--well, some emotion. How do you feel about the matter?"

"About marrying Mr. Steppe? I suppose you mean that? I can't marry him: I don't wish to."

"I'm sure you would learn to love him, Beryl."

She shook her head. "Impossible. I'm sorry, father, especially if you wished me to marry him. But it is impossible."

The doctor stared gloomily into the fire. "You must do as you wish. I cannot conscientiously urge you to make any sacrifice--he is a rough sort, and I'm afraid he will take your refusal badly. I don't mind what he does--really. I've made a hash of things--it was madness ever to invest a penny. I had a hundred and fifty thousand when I came into this house. And now--!"

She listened with a cold feeling in her heart. "Do you mean--that you depend upon the good will of Mr. Steppe--that if you were to break your connection with him and his companies, your position would be affected--?"

He nodded. "I am afraid that is how matters stand," he said, "but I forbid you to take that into consideration." Yet he looked at her so eagerly, so wistfully, that she knew his lofty statements to be so many words by which he expressed principles, long since dead. The form of his vanished code showed dimly through the emptiness of his speech.

"I am a modern father--I believe that a girl's heart should go where it will. Girls do not marry men to save their families, except in melodrama, and fathers do not ask such a ghastly sacrifice. I should have been glad if you had thought kindly of Steppe. It would have made my course so much more smooth. However--" He got up, stooped to poke the fire again, hung the poker tidily on the iron and straightened himself.

"Let me think it over," she said, not looking at him. Not until he was out of the room did he feel uncomfortable.

She had been prepared for this development. Steppe had been a constant visitor to the house and his rare flowers filled the vases of every room except hers. And her father had hinted and hinted. That Dr. Merville was heavily in the debt of her suitor she could guess. Steppe had told her months before that he had to come to the rescue of the doctor. Only she had hoped that so crude an alternative would not be placed before her, though she knew that such arrangements were not altogether confined to the realms of melodrama. At least two friends of hers had married for a similar reason. A knightly millionaire bootmaker had married Lady Sylvia Frascommon and had settled the Earl of Farileigh's bills at a moment when that noble earl was dodging writs in bankruptcy. She could look at the matter more calmly because she had come to a dead end. There was nothing ahead, nothing. She did not count Ambrose Sault's love amongst the tangibilities of life. That belonged to herself. Steppe would marry that possession. It was as much of her, as hands and lips, except that it was beyond his enjoyment. In the midst of her examination, her father came in.

"There is one thing I forgot to say, dear--Ronnie, who is as fond of you as any of us, thinks that you ought to marry--he says he'll be glad to see you married to Steppe. I thought it was fine of Ronnie."

"Shut the door, father, please; there's a draught," said Beryl.

Dr. Merville returned to his study shaking his head. He couldn't understand Beryl.

So Ronnie approved! She sat, cheek in hand, elbow on knee, looking at the fire. Steppe did not seem so impossible after that. Ronnie! He would approve, of course. What terrors he must have endured when he discovered that Steppe was his rival! What mental agonies! An idea came to her.

She went down to the hall where the telephone was and gave his number.

"Hello--yes."

"Is that you, Ronnie?"

"Yes--is that you, Beryl?" his voice changed. She detected an anxious note. "How are you--I meant to come round yesterday. I haven't seen you for an age."

"Father says that you think I ought to marry Steppe."

There was an interval. "Did you hear what I said?" she asked.

"Yes--of course it is heartbreaking for me--I feel terrible about it all--but it is a good match, Beryl. He is one of the richest men in town--it is for your good, dear."

She nodded to the transmitter and her lips twitched. "I can't marry him without telling him, can I, Ronnie?" She heard his gasp.

"For God's sake, don't be so mad, Beryl! You're mad! What good would it do--it would break your father's heart--you don't want to do that, do you? It would be selfish and nothing good could come of it--"

She was smiling delightedly at her end of the wire, but this he could not know.

"I will think about it," she said.

"Beryl--Beryl--don't go away. You mustn't, you really mustn't--I'm not thinking about myself--it is you--your father. You won't do such a crazy thing, will you? Promise me you won't--I am entitled to some consideration."

"I'll think about it," she repeated and left him in a state of collapse.

XIV

It happened sometimes that Mr. Moropulos had extraordinary callers at his bleak house in Paddington. They came furtively, after dark, and were careful to note whether or not they were followed. Since few of these made appointments and were unexpected, it was essential that the Greek should be indoors up to ten o'clock. Therefore, he failed in his trust when his unquenchable thirst drew him away from business. He was maintained in comfort by Jan Steppe to receive these shy callers. Mr. Moropulos was not, as might be supposed, engaged in a career of crime, as we understand crime. The people who came and whom he interviewed briefly in his sitting-room, were respectable persons who followed various occupations in the city and would have swooned at the thought of stealing a watch or robbing a safe. But it was known in and about Threadneedle Street, Old Broad Street and in various quaint alleyways and passages where bareheaded clerks abound, that information worth money could be sold for money. A chance-heard remark, the fag-end of a conversation in a board room, heard between the opening and closing of a door; a peep at a letter, any of these scraps of gossip could be turned into solid cash by the bearded Greek.

It was surprising how quickly his address passed round and even more surprising how very quickly Moropulos had organized an intelligence service which was unique as it was pernicious. He paid well, or rather Steppe paid, and the returns were handsome. A clerk desiring to participate in a rise of value which he knew was coming, could buy a hundred shares through Moropulos and that, without the expenditure of a cent. Moropulos knew the secrets of a hundred offices; there were few business amalgamations that he did not hear about weeks in advance. When the Westfontein Gold Mines published a sensational report concerning their properties, a report which brought their stock from eight to nothing, few people knew that Moropulos had had the essential part of the report in his pocket the day after it arrived in London. It cost Steppe three thousand pounds, but was worth every penny. The amount of the sum paid was exaggerated, but it was also spread abroad. And in consequence, Mr. Moropulos was a very busy man.

He was in his sitting-room on that shivering winter night. A great fire roared in the chimney, a shaded lamp was so placed, that it fell upon the book and the occupant of the sofa could read in comfort. On a small eastern table was a large tumblerful of barley water. From time to time Mr. Moropulos sipped wryly.

It was nearing ten and he was debating within himself whether he should go to bed or test his will by a visit to a café where he knew some friends of his would be, when he heard the street door slam and looked over his shoulder. It could only be Sault or--

The door opened and Jan Steppe came in, dusting the snow from the sleeve of his coat. It was a handsome coat, deeply collared in astrachan and its lining was sealskin, as Mr. Moropulos did not fail to observe.

"Alone, huh?" said Steppe. He glanced at the barley water by the Greek's side and grinned sardonically. "That's the stuff, not a headache in a bucketful!"

"Nor a cheerful thought," said Moropulos. "What brings you this way, Steppe?"

"I want to put some things in the safe."

Sault's invention stood on a wooden frame behind a screen.

"Have to be careful about this word--give me some more light," said Steppe at the dial.

Moropulos rose wearily and turned a switch.

"That's better--huh. Got it!"

The door swung open and, taking a small package from his pocket, the big man tossed it in.

"Got something here, huh?"

He pulled out an envelope. There was a wax seal on the back.

"'The photograph'?" he read and frowned at the other.

"It is mine," said Moropulos.

"Nothing to do with the business?"

"Nothing."

Steppe threw it back and turned the dial.

"Nothing new, huh?"

He glanced at the barley water again.

"Where's Sault?"

"He goes home early. I don't see him again unless one of your hounds sends for him."

Steppe's smile was half sneer.

"You don't like Sault--a good fellow, huh?"

Moropulos wrinkled his nose like an angry dog. His beard seemed to stiffen and his eyes blazed.

"Like him--he's not human, that fellow! Nothing moves him, nothing. I tried to smash him up with a bottle, but he took it away from me as if I were a child. I hate a man who makes me feel like that--if he hadn't got my gun away I'd have laid him out. It would be fine to hurt the devil--and he is a devil, Steppe. Inhuman. Sometimes I give him a newspaper to read--just for the fun of it. But it never worries him."

"Don't try. He's a bigger man than you. You want to rouse him, huh? The day you do, God help you! I don't think you will. That's how I feel about him. He's cold. Chilly as a Druid's hell. He is dangerous when he's quiet--and he's always quiet."

"He is no use to me. It is a waste of money keeping him. I'll give you no more trouble."

Steppe pursed his lips until his curling black moustache bristled like the end of a brush. It was a grimace indicative of his skepticism. He had reason.

"Leave it. Sault will not give you any bother. I don't want strangers here, huh? Cleaners who are spying detectives."

Moropulos took his book again as his employer went out. But he did not read. His eyes looked beyond the edge of the page, his mind was busy. Detestation of Ambrose Sault was not assumed, as he had simulated so many likes and dislikes. Sault's maddening imperturbability, his immense superiority to the petty annoyances with which his daily companion fed him, his contempt for the Greek's vulgarity, these things combined to the fire of the man's hatred. They were incompatibles--it was impossible to imagine any two men more unlike.

Moropulos was one whose speech was habitually coarse; his pleasures fleshly and elemental. He delighted to talk of his conquests, cheap enough though they were. He had collected from the Levant the pictures that hawkers and dragomen show secretly, and these were bound up in two huge volumes over which he would pore for hours. So it pleased him, beyond normal understanding, to bring Beryl Merville into the category of easy women. He had never doubted that she was bad. There were no other kind of women to Moropulos. Suspecting, before there were grounds for suspicion, he had watched and justified his construction of the girl's friendship with Ronnie Morelle. He was certain when he watched her come out of the Knightsbridge flat that if he had been fortunate, he would have seen her there before, perhaps the previous night. Beryl was no less in his eyes than she had been. She was bad. All women were bad, only some were more particular than others in choosing their partners in sin.

He had reason to meet Ronald Morelle the next morning and returning he brought news.

Ambrose was clearing the snow from the steps and path before the house when he arrived.

"Come in," he was bubbling over with excitement, "I've got a piece of interesting information." Ambrose in his deliberate fashion put away broom and spade before he joined the other.

"You know Beryl Merville, don't you? Steppe is marrying her."

He had no other idea than to pass on the news, and create something of the sensation which its recital had caused him. But his keen eyes did not miss the quick lift of Sault's head or the change that came to his face. Only for the fraction of a second, and then his mask descended again.

"What do you think of it, Sault? Some girl, eh?"

He added one of his own peculiar comments. "Who told you?"

"Ronald Morelle. I don't suppose he minds--now. Lucky devil, Steppe. God! If I had his money!"

Ambrose walked slowly away, but his enemy had found the chink in his armor. He was certain of it. It was incredible that a man like Ambrose Sault would feel that way, but he would swear that Ambrose was hurt. Here he was wrong. Ambrose was profoundly moved; but he was not hurt.

That day Moropulos said little. It was on the second and third days that he went to work with an ingenuity that was devilish to break farther into the crevice he had found.

Ambrose made little or no response. The slyest, most outrageous innuendo, he passed as though it had not been spoken. Moropulos was piqued and angry. He dare not go farther for fear Sault complain to Steppe. That alone held him within bounds. But the man was suffering. Instinctively he knew that. Suffering in a dumb, hopeless way that found no expression.

On the Friday night Ambrose returned to his lodging looking very tired. Christina was shocked at his appearance. "Ambrose--what is the matter?"

"I don't know, Christina--yes, I know. Moropulos has been trying, very trying. I find it so much more difficult to hold myself in. I suppose I'm getting old and my will power is weakening."

She stroked the hand that lay on the arm of the chair (for she was sitting up) and looked at him gravely.