Nevertheless, she experienced a thrill of triumph and happiness that she had impressed him so.
“I have millions of questions to ask you,” she said after they had been ushered to a corner of the big dining-room of the Ritz-Carlton. “Did you get my letter? And did you think I was mad to send you those chocolates? Of course, it was terribly unfair to Mr. Groat, but really, Jim, you’re turning me into a suspicious old lady!”
He laughed gently.
“I loved your letter,” he said simply. “And as for the chocolates—” he hesitated.
“Well?”
“I should tell him that you enjoyed them thoroughly,” he smiled.
“I have,” said the girl ruefully. “I hate telling lies, even that kind of lie.”
“And the next box you receive,” Jim went on, “you must send me three or four of its contents.”
She was alarmed now, looking at him, her red lips parted, her eyebrows crescents of inquiry.
“Was there anything wrong with them?” she asked.
He was in a dilemma. He could not tell her the result of the analysis, and at the same time he could not allow her to run any farther into needless danger. He had to invent something on the spur of the moment and his excuse was lame and unconvincing.
Listening, she recognized their halting nature, but was sensible enough not to insist upon rigid explanations, and, moreover, she wanted to discuss the hand and its startling appearance in the middle of the night.
“It sounds almost melodramatic,” said Jim, but his voice was grave, “and I find a great difficulty in reconciling the happening to the realities of life. Of one thing I’m sure,” he went on, “and it is that this strange woman, if woman it be, has a reason for her acts. The mark of the hand is deliberately designed. That it is blue has a meaning, too, a meaning which apparently is not clear to Digby Groat. And now let us talk about ourselves,” he smiled, and his hand rested for a moment over hers.
She did not attempt to withdraw her own until the waiter came in sight, and then she drew it away so gently as to suggest reluctance.
“I’m going to stay another month with the Groats,” she informed him, “and then if Mrs. Groat doesn’t find some real work for me to do I’m going back to the photographers’—if they’ll have me.”
“I know somebody who wants you more than the photographer,” he said quietly, “somebody whose heart just aches whenever you pass out of his sight.”
She felt her own heart beating thunderously, and the hand that he held under the cover of the table trembled.
“Who is that—somebody?” she asked faintly.
“Somebody who will not ask you to marry him until he can offer you an assured position,” said Jim. “Somebody who loves the very ground you walk upon so much that he must have carpets for your dear feet and a mansion to house you more comfortably than the tiny attic overlooking the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.”
She did not speak for a long time, and he thought he had offended her. The colour came and went in her face, the soft rounded bosom rose and fell more quickly than was usual, and the hand that he held closed so tightly upon his fingers that they were almost numb when she suddenly released her hold.
“Jim,” she said, still averting her eyes, “I could work very well on bare boards, and I should love to watch the London, Midland and Scottish trains—go past your attic.”
She turned her head to his and he saw that her eyes were bright with tears.
“If you’re not very careful, Jim Steele,” she said, with an attempt at raillery, “I shall propose to you!”
“May I smoke?” said Jim huskily, and when she nodded, and he lit his match, she saw the flame was quivering in his shaking hand.
She wondered what made him so quiet for the rest of the evening. She could not know that he was stunned and shaken by the great fortune that had come to him, that his heart was as numb with happiness as his fingers had been in the pressure of her hand.
When they drove back to the house that night she wanted him to take her in his arms in the darkness of the cab and crush her against his breast: she wanted to feel his kisses on her lips, her eyes. If he had asked her at that moment to run away with him, to commit the maddest folly, she would have consented joyously, for her love for the man was surging up like a bubbling stream of subterranean fire that had found its vent, overwhelming and burning all reason, all tradition.
Instead, he sat by her side, holding her hand and dreaming of the golden future which awaited him.
“Good night, Jim.” Her voice sounded cold and a little dispirited as she put her gloved hand in his at the door of 409.
“Good night,” he said in a low voice, and kissed her hand. She was nearly in tears when she went into her room and shut the door behind her. She walked to her dressing-table and looked in the glass, long and inquiringly, and then she shook her head. “I wish he wasn’t so good,” she said, “or else more of a hero!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
JIM continued his journey to the flat, so enveloped in the rosy clouds which had descended upon him that he was unconscious of time or space, and it seemed that he had only stepped into the cab when it jerked to a halt before the portals of Featherdale Mansions. He might have continued in his dream without interruption had not the cabman, with some asperity, called him back to remind him that he had not paid his fare.
That brought him back to the earth.
As he was about to open the outer door of the flats (it was closed at eleven every night) the door opened of its own accord and he stepped back to allow a lady to pass. She was dressed from head to foot in black and she passed him without a word, he staring after her as she walked with quick steps to a motor-car that he had noticed drawn up a few yards from where his cab had stopped. Who was she? he wondered as the car passed out of sight.
He dismissed her from his thoughts, for the glamour of the evening was not yet passed, and for an hour he sat in his big chair, staring into vacancy and recalling every incident of that previous evening. He could not believe it was true that this half-divine being was to be his; and then, with a deep sigh, he aroused himself to a sense of reality.
There was work to be done, he thought, as he rose to his feet, and it was work for her. His income was a small one, and must be considerably augmented before he dare ask this beautiful lady to share his lot.
He glanced idly at the table. That afternoon he had been writing up his notes of the case and the book was still where he had left it, only—
He could have sworn he had left it open. He had a remarkable memory for little things, tiny details of placements and position, and he was sure the book had not only been closed, but that its position had been changed.
A woman came in the mornings to clean the flat and make his bed and invariably he let her in himself. She usually arrived when he was making his own breakfast—another fad of his. She had no key, and under any circumstances never came at night.
He opened the book and almost jumped.
Between the pages, marking the place where he had been writing, was a key of a peculiar design. Attached to the handle was a tiny label on which was written: “D.G.‘s master key.”
This time there was no sign of the Blue Hand, but he recognized the writing. It was the same which had appeared on the warning card which the girl had received.
The woman in black had been to his flat—and had left him the means to enter Digby Groat’s premises!
“Phew!” whistled Jim in amazement.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
EUNICE woke in the morning with a queer little sense of disappointment. It was not until she was thoroughly awake, sitting up in bed and sipping the fragrant tea which the maid had brought her, that she analysed the cause. Then she laughed at herself.