LITMIR.BIZ

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desert.

      Now, like a bush-cat, he crept to the door, opened it, and peeped out. Certainly the light which he had left burning had been extinguished by some hand; the corridor was in darkness.

      Nerves, as commonly understood, did not much enter into Harcourt’s scheme of things. But his heart beat quicker. The speed of thought cannot be measured. Many questions, and one doubt, one question, flitted through his brain. He stood in deep gloom; near him, he was convinced, was something in the guise of woman. The face in chalks on the mantelpiece seemed to crowd the dark, the face of the woman who had been hovering on the verge of his consciousness ever since the agent had mentioned her to him.

      CHAPTER II

      A SIGNATURE WITH A FLOURISH

      He was collected enough, though the blood was rather cool in his veins, and there was an odd sensitiveness at the roots of his hair. “Who is there?” he asked in a matter-of-fact voice.

      There was no answer, and now he had a feeling that the presence was drawing nearer.

      He was unarmed, of course. The inseparable six-shooter of the West lay at the bottom of a cabin-trunk in his bed-room. But his faculties were exerted to an extent hardly possible to men who have not lived close to wild nature. He conceived that his safety demanded the exercise not only of pluck, but of artifice. So he stepped softly to the corner by the entrance to the servants’ apartments, and, standing there, sought a loose match in his waistcoat pocket, and held it against the wall, ready to light it at an instant’s notice. He did not mean to sacrifice to any chivalric nonsense about sex the opening move in what might prove to be a game of life or death. The woman, or whatever it was, showed by her conduct that she was not there by some mischance capable of explanation; he would determine by her first move, by the first flash of light, how to deal with her; and, if there were others with her, her body would be his shield until he gained the outer door and staircase. And so he waited, with the alert patience of an Indian, poised on the very tip-toe of action.

      But as time passed, and there was no further sign of life in the corridor, the situation became over trying. He formulated a fresh plan. Behind him lay the kitchen, with its fire-irons, and thither he ran, seized a poker, then rushing out again, had the corridor, the drawing-room, every room, alight. But he saw no one.

      He searched each room with eager haste, but there was nothing out of the common to be discovered. The front door was closed as he had left it. He ran into the exterior lobby, and, keeping an eye on the exit, summoned the elevator. Up it came; but the porter, throwing open the doors, checked his ready salute in his alarm at the sight of “No. 7” facing him poker in hand.

      “Have you seen a lady go out?” demanded David.

      The man drew back, one hand on his lever and the other on a sliding trellis-work of iron.

      “N-no, sir,” he stammered.

      “Don’t be frightened,” said David, sharply. “I want you to keep your wits. Some one has been in my flat – ”

      “Is that so, sir?”

      “Where have you been during the last five minutes?”

      “Down-stairs, sir.”

      “At the door?”

      “No, sir, in the back, not five yards from the lift, sir.” He thought it unnecessary to mention that he had been talking to the housemaid of No. 2, in the basement on her way to the post.

      “So any one could have gone out without your knowledge?”

      “If they went by the stairs, sir.”

      “Come in and help me to search my place again.”

      The porter hung back. The man’s sheepish face was almost comical.

      “Come, come,” said David, “there isn’t much to be afraid of now, but I tell you that some one put out the light in the corridor, and I am almost sure that I heard the stir of a woman’s dress somewhere.”

      The lift-attendant’s pallor increased.

      “That’s just it, sir,” he murmured. “The others have heard it, too.”

      “Stuff!” said David, turning on his heel.

      Few Britons can stand contempt. The porter followed him.

      “That’s a man,” said David, and they entered the flat. Harcourt shut and bolted the door.

      “Now,” he said, “you mount guard in the passage, while I carry on the hunt.”

      He would have disturbed a mouse were it in hiding, so complete was his second scrutiny of every nook. At the end of a fruitless quest he gave the porter a whisky and soda.

      “I’ll tell you wot, sir,” said the man, “there’s more in this than meets the heye. Miss L’Estrange, she never saw anythink, but she ’eard all sorts o’ rummy noises, an’ twiced she found that all ’er things ’ad bin rummidged. An’ it was no thief, neither. The maid, she acshully sawr the pore lydy. If I may s’y it in confidence, sir, and you wants ter be comfortable, there’s No. 18 in the next block – ”

      “I have rented the place for six months, and I shall stay in it,” said David. “Have another? No? Well, here is half a crown. Say nothing about to-night’s adventure. I am going to bed.”

      “Lordy! Goin’ ter sleep ’ere alone?” gasped his companion. “I wouldn’t do it for a pension.”

      “Yet I am paying for the privilege. However, not a word, remember.”

      “Right you are, sir. ’Ope you’ll ’ave a good night’s rest, sir. I’ll be in the lift for another ’arf hour, if you should ’appen to want me.”

      Left to himself, David bolted the outer door again, and returned to the dining-room. Obeying an impulse, he jotted down some notes of the occurrence, paying special heed to times and impressions. Then he went to bed, having locked his bed-room door and placed his revolver under his pillow. He imagined that he would remain awake many hours, but, tired and overwrought, he was soon asleep, to be aroused only by the news-agent’s effort to stuff a morning paper into the letter-box. The charwoman was already in the flat, and the sun was shining through the drawn-thread pattern of the blinds.

      “The air of London must be drugged,” thought David, looking at his watch. “Asleep at half-past eight of a fine morning!”

      Such early-morning reproaches mark the first stage of town life.

      After breakfast he went to his bank. He had expended a good deal of money during the past month, but was well equipped in substantials, owned a comfortable home for six months – barring such experiences as those of the preceding night – and found at the bank a good balance to his credit.

      “I will hold on until I have left two hundred pounds of my capital and earnings combined,” he decided; “then I shall take the next mail steamer to some place where they raise stock.”

      He called at the agent’s office.

      “Nothing amiss, I hope?” said Mr. Dibbin.

      “Nothing, whatever. I just happened in to get a few pointers about Miss Gwendoline Barnes.”

      Harcourt found that in London it was helpful to use Americanisms in his speech. People smiled and became attentive when new idioms tickled their metropolitan ears. But the mention of the dead tenant of No. 7 Eddystone Mansions froze Dibbin’s smile.

      “What about her? Poor lady! she might well be forgotten,” he said.

      “So soon? I suppose you knew her?”

      “Yes. Oh, yes.”

      “Nice girl?”

      The agent bent over some papers. He seemed to be unable to bear Harcourt’s steady glance.

      “She was exceedingly good-looking,” he answered; “tall, elegant figure, head well poised, kind of a face you see in a Romney, high forehead, large eyes, small nose and mouth – sort of artist type.”

      “Wore

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