“However, being a smooth, suave sort of a beast, who treats anything in the way of a pretty girl with a kind of good-natured tolerance, he merely said: ‘I’m afraid you’re a bit out of your depth, little lady. I admire your nerve, but there’s nothing doing.’ ”
“And what did you say?”
“Oh, I smiled sweetly at him and told him that there would be a good deal doing — though I’d come up to offer him the easiest way, despite the fact that I never expected he’d be wise enough to accept it.”
“You were askin’ for it, Daph,” murmured Williamson.
“Deliberately!” retorted the girl. “I wanted to make him angry and fix the whole thing in his brain. And what’s more, I did. He turned nasty then — said that the adjusters thought themselves damn clever, but they warn’t as clever as they thought they were.
“I merely smiled and said that I hoped to be able to show him that they were far cleverer than he’d ever imagined. And that finished the interview. Incidentally, he’s appearing at Bow Street to-morrow and we must get busy.”
“What’s he up for this time, Daph?”
A curious little smile played round the corners of the girl’s mouth.
“The police have summoned him,” she said, “for having a false number on the back of his Rolls. The defense will be that he knew nothing about it — but I’m afraid the magistrate will fine him all the same.”
In the little pause that followed, the four men exchanged glances. Then Martin Everest spoke:
“Can you — by any chance, Daph — tell us what was — the false number?” he asked.
Daphne looked up, hazel eyes twinkling mischievously.
“Sure thing, Martin. It was 1004—7–6. Rayte, my chauffeur, and I did it together. His car was drawn up in the yard in front of mine. I’d brought a number plate with me — specially made. It was quite easy.”
IV
Horatio Merryweather was in a furious temper. He came down the steps of Bow Street police court growling and swearing under his breath, for the magistrate had fined him five guineas and costs.
“Curse that infernal girl,” he muttered. “If only I could prove—”
“Pyper, guv-nor? All the winners.”
He took it mechanically from the seedy newsvendor with the tattered bowler and threw him a copper. At the curb stood his offending car, with the chauffeur at the open door.
“The Century,” snapped Merryweather.
“Very good, sir.”
The financier lighted a cigar and lay back on the cushions, smoking moodily. Then he unfolded his paper, but as he did so he uttered a fierce imprecation. Right across the center page were branded in thick, black, glowing type the figures 1004—7—6.
He snatched at the speaking tube and the car slid to the pavement.
“Back to Bow Street at once!” he shouted, as the chauffeur opened the door.
So furious was he when he alighted that he could hardly speak. All the same, standing there on the pavement, a sense of his own helplessness came to him as he glanced up and down and round about, seeing not a sign of the individual who had sold him the paper. To complain to the police would be to have to make explanations. And to have to do that—
“Oh, drive me back to the club,” he flung out, and got into his car again. Then suddenly: “Did you see the man who sold me my paper?” he demanded.
“Me, sir? No, sir. Did you wish—”
“Oh, get on!” snapped his master furiously.
In the reading room of his club, after two stiff brandies and sodas, his courage began to filter back once more. After all, he was safe here. Out in the street, perhaps, he told himself — but not in here in one of the biggest and most expensive clubs in London!
All the same, as he walked upstairs to the billiard room he found himself glancing suspiciously at every man he met.
“Hello, Merryweather!” exclaimed a well known politician, as he entered the room.
“Here’s a victim for you — Williamson!” to a man who was knocking the balls about carelessly. “Here’s an opponent who’ll make you run.”
The other straightened himself up, adjusting his gold-rimmed monocle.
“Delighted, I’m sure,” he said.
Deep in the game the financier soon forgot his disturbing thoughts. He was a keen and skilled billiard player, and his opponent was worthy of his steel. Several men drifted in and settled down to watch.
“What Williamson’s this?” queried Merryweather in an undertone to one of his friends, while his opponent was building up a break. “I know him by sight.”
“Sir Hugh Williamson, the explorer. Devilish good chap, too.”
“Seems it.”
The game came to an end with Merryweather the winner.
“Jolly good game, Sir Hugh. Like another?”
“Mustn’t now. Another time — certainly.”
“Have a drink?”
“Many thanks.”
Sir Hugh Williamson, still in his shirt sleeves, dropped into a chair by the side of two or three other men. Merryweather walked across the room, took his cigar case from his coat, which was hanging on the rack — came back to the table.
“Cigar, Sir Hugh?”
“You’re very kind.”
Merryweather clicked open the case, but as he did so he leaped back as if he had been shot. And simultaneously a big white card fluttered out on to the floor.
The four men had seen it, they couldn’t help seeing it, but it was Merryweather at whom they were staring now. For Merryweather was livid with rage, and tearing at his collar literally as if he was choking.
Williamson was the first to break that amazed silence. There was grave anxiety in his voice.
“Are you ill, Merryweather?”
It seemed to restore the financier. With a desperate effort he appeared partially to regain his composure.
“N-n-no — it’s n-nothing,” he muttered. “I... I... I’ll be back in a minute.”
He made hurriedly for the door, and they noticed that he was mopping at his face with his handkerchief.
“He’s left that card,” said one of the men after an uneasy pause.
“Ask me,” answered another, “and I think he was scared to touch it.”
“Hardly wise to leave it there, is it?” suggested Williamson, as he bent forward and picked it up. The others leaned over eagerly as he turned it. On it was printed in big letters:
V
A week had elapsed. It was rumored at the clubs that something was seriously wrong with Horatio Merryweather, the big financier.
Usually a loud-voiced, thoroughly self-satisfied man with a big laugh and a confident manner, he had all in a week become a mere shadow of his former self — a man who seemed to be on wires, who was always glancing over his shoulder as if in fear of something — moody, irritable, snappish.
And nobody could find out why it was. All that his office could have told you was that he was making the lives of each one of his clerks a burden — always demanding to know who had been in his room — who had been touching his papers, his inkstand, his books, his blotting pad. A thousand questions of that kind, they said — every day! And never any sort of explanation!
And at all his clubs they could have told a similar tale.
Only he himself knew that now, after six days of this, he was almost becoming insane. Only he knew how every moment of his life had suddenly become a nerve-racking, devastating torture. From the moment he left his house in the morning — his house was the only place where nothing ever happened — the spectre of 1004—7—6 gave him no rest.