Contraband

      Sir Pellinore stroked his fine white moustache and stood up. 'What a lucky young dog you are. If I had my way the company wouldn't pay you a cent for this investigation;, you're going to get far too much fun out of it.'

      'On the contrary they'll have to pay extra as compensation for the damage I'm doing to my conscience.' Gregory laughed cynically but there was no laughter in his heart. To conceal his troubled thoughts he pursued the jest. 'Here I am having to force myself into following up some rotten game by taking advantage of the confidences of the girl I'm in love with.'

      'You! In love! Never been in love in your life.'

      'Well, I'm not too old to learn,' countered Gregory modestly, 'and I certainly don't want to see Sabine sent to prison.'

      'Yes; awkward that very awkward but I won't have you going romantic. It's bad for the health, bad for business, and it doesn't suit you.'

      'On the contrary, the very thought that I may be lunching with Sabine in about half an hour puts me right on the top of the world. Come along now or you won't have time for that glass of sherry at Justerini's.'

      A few moments later the two men left the house and sauntered down Pall Mall together in the bright August sunshine. Gregory was a tallish man but his queer cultivated stoop made him seem almost short beside Sir Pellinore's magnificent height and upright figure. At the Pall Mall entrance of the Carlton they parted; Gregory disappearing into the hotel and Sir Pellinore into the door of his wine merchants which was less than a dozen yards away.

      It was a little after half past twelve and an inquiry at the hotel office assured Gregory that he had been justified in not hurrying; Sabine was still in her room. He secured a page boy and, tipping the lad lavishly, gave him his instructions, posting him near the florists and within sight of the lift. Next, he spoke to the porters, both at the Pall Mall and Haymarket entrances of the hotel, describing Sabine to them as' an additional precaution in case she slipped by the page unrecognised, and told them that if she went out they were to fetch him at once from the lounge. Then he parked himself at a small table and ordered a double gin fizz which he felt to be a particularly suitable drink in such sultry weather.

      Nearly three quarters of an hour went by and he was beginning to fear that Sabine might be lunching quietly in her suite when the page came hurrying along to inform him that she had just come down and was leaving her key. Without losing an instant Gregory strode from the lounge and into the street by the Pall Mall exit, raced round the corner into the Haymarket, and came sauntering gaily into the hotel's other entrance, just as Sabine was about to sally forth.

      'Hello!' he cried, throwing wide his arms to bar her passage. 'What heavenly luck. Is it really you or am I dreaming things?'

      She smiled as he seized her hand and kissed it. 'But yes, it is most surprising that we should meet so soon again.'

      'Not really,' he assured her, 'since you chance to be in London. It's such a tiny world for people like ourselves who always move around the same old haunts. You were going out but you mustn't. I can't possibly let you.'

      Her face grew serious.

      'You have no reason to detain me, as you had in Deauville.' Under her statement lay the suggestion of a suspicion.

      'Only the reason that was at the bottom of everything before my frantic desire to be with you, unless, of course, you've blotted your copy book again and want me now to save you from the London police. Come in and have a cocktail.'

      She shook her head. 'That would be nice but, really, I must not. I have to lunch at Claridges and I am already late.'

      'Ring up and put them off please do. It seems a thousand years since I've seen you but I've been dreaming of you ever since. Now I've found you again I absolutely refuse to let you go.'

      'But this is business,' she protested.

      He laughed. 'What in the world can so lovely a person as yourself have to do with such a dreary thing as business; or do you mean that you have some job to do for that old devil I saw you with in Deauville?'

      'Mais non, when I say business I mean commerce. You, see, I am a business woman. Representative, you say, of a house in Paris, but that you could not know.'

      'Really? How extraordinary!' Gregory's face expressed blank astonishment at this gratuitous information but he added blandly: 'Somehow it seems so out of keeping that anyone like you should have to face the daily grind, but then everybody's in business these days, aren't they?'

      She shrugged. 'It has become necessary that most people should work since old families lost their money in the war years, and after, but I should be miserable if I had to lead always an idle life.'

      'Well, you're going to take an hour or two off today anyhow,' he declared. 'Surely you can put off your appointment until tomorrow. Nobody could possibly want to do business on a lovely sunny day like this.'

      He saw her hesitate and pressed home his advantage. 'Come on now. I'm lunching here with a friend of mine, but you'll find him charming a delightful person Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust. He's one of the grandest old men in Europe. Put business out of your mind today and let us entertain you. I give you my word you won't regret it.'

      'Sil vous voules,' she surrendered. 'You are such a tempestuous person. It is difficult to refuse you, and that business lunch, it would have been boring anyway.'

      'Page,' Gregory beckoned, 'tell the operator to get me Claridges.' Then he turned to Sabine. 'What's your friend's name? I'll make your excuses for you a little taxi accident in Bond Street this morning I think. Nothing serious but you're a bit shaken and resting now until you've recovered from the shock. How'll that do?'

      She shook her head. 'No. Your powers of invention are quite marvellous but I will speak myself.' She turned and followed the boy away to the telephone booth.

      Gregory smiled with self-congratulation as he watched her take the call. He had failed in a quick attempt to find out with whom she had meant to lunch, but he had achieved his main objective in making his presence there seem accidental and securing, at all events, an hour or two of her company for himself. When they walked into the lounge Sir Pellinore was already there; and rose to meet them. '

      'I'm sure you won't mind,' Gregory said, 'but I've brought a friend, whom I had no idea was in England until I ran into her here five minutes ago. I couldn't possibly let the opportunity slip so I've asked her to join us. This is Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust, a very old friend of mine, Mademoiselle Sabine…' he paused, remembering that he was not supposed to know her other name, and looked away with an excellent imitation of slight embarrassment.

      'Szenty,' she added calmly.

      Gregory repeated the name.

      Sir Pellinore bent over her hand, 'Mademoiselle Szenty's presence could never need an apology. On the contrary I consider it a very great piece of good fortune that anyone so lovely should consent to grace the table of an old man like myself.'

      As they passed up the steps to the restaurant he murmured her name again. 'Surely you are Hungarian. There was a Grof Szenty whom I knew long ago. A delightful feller; a Captain in one of the crack regiments of the old kingdom, who used to bring his horses over, and came within an ace of winning the cup for jumping one year at Olympia.'

      'But, of course,' she smiled, 'that was my father. He would be about the same age as you.'

      'By jove now! Is he…' Sir Pellinore hesitated.

      She shook her head. 'No, he was killed on the Russian front in the early days of the war.'