“More urgent business brought me to London. I dined and spent last evening, by-the-by, with Doctor Gant — the doctor who was in attendance upon that poor fellow who died on the way over.”
“A very ingenious gentleman,” Crawshay observed drily.
“Ah! you appreciate that, do you?” Jocelyn Thew replied, with a faint smile. “You should go and cultivate his acquaintance. He is staying over at the Regent Palace Hotel.”
“One doesn’t always attach oneself to the wrong person, Mr. Thew.”
“Even the stupidest people in the world,” Jocelyn Thew agreed, “can scarcely make mistakes all the time, can they? By the way,” he went on, turning towards the detective, “is it my fancy or have I not had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Brightman in America? I fancied so when I saw him board the steamer in the Mersey on Sunday, but it did not fall to my lot to receive the benefit of his offices.”
“I was just telling Mr. Crawshay that I had had the pleasure of professional dealings with you,” Brightman said drily. “I was also lamenting the fact that they had not ended according to my desires.”
“Mr. Brightman was always ambitious,” the newcomer observed, with gentle satire. “He is, I am sure, a most persevering and intelligent member of his profession, but he flies high.”
“I am much obliged for your commendation,” Brightman said bluntly. “As regards professions, I was just explaining to Mr. Crawshay that you were almost at the top of the tree in yours.”
“If you have discovered my profession,” Jocelyn Thew replied, “you have succeeded where my dearest friends have failed. Pray do not make a secret of it, Mr. Brightman.”
“I have heard you called an adventurer,” was the prompt reply.
“It is a term with which I will not quarrel,” Jocelyn declared. “I certainly am one of those who appreciate adventures, who have no pleasure in sitting down in these grey-walled, fog-hung cities, and crawling about with one’s nose on the pavements like a dog following an unclean smell. No, that has not been my life. I have sought fortune in most quarters of the globe, sometimes found it and sometimes lost it, sometimes with one weapon in my hand and sometimes with another. So perhaps you are right, Mr. Brightman, when you call me an adventurer.”
“These very uncomfortable times,” Crawshay remarked, “rather limit the sphere in which one may look for stirring events.”
“You are wrong, believe me,” Jocelyn Thew replied earnestly. “The stories of the Arabian Nights would seem tame, if one had the power of seeing what goes on around us in the most unsuspected places. But we are digressing. Mr. Brightman and I were speaking together. It occurred to me, from what he said, that he has not quite the right idea as to my aspirations, as to the place I desire to fill in life. I shall try to give him an opportunity to form a saner judgment.”
“It will give me the utmost pleasure to accept it,” the detective confessed, with ill-concealed acerbity.
Jocelyn Thew sighed lightly. He had seated himself upon the arm of a neighbouring easy-chair and was resting his hand upon the head of a cane he was carrying.
“If our friend Brightman here has a fault,” he said, “in the execution of his daily duties, it is that he brings to bear into his task a certain amount of prejudice, from which the mind of the ideal detector of crime should be free. Now you would scarcely believe it, Mr. Crawshay, I am sure, to judge from his amiable exterior, but Mr. Brightman is capable of very strong dislikes, of one of which, alas! I am the object. Now this is not as it should be. You see what might happen, supposing Mr. Brightman were engaged to watch a little coterie, or, in plainer parlance, a little gang of supposed misdemeanants. If by any possible stretch of his imagination he could connect me with them, I should be the one he would go for all the time, and although I perhaps carry my fair burden of those peccadilloes to which the law, rightly or wrongly, takes exception, still, in this particular instance I might be the innocent one, and in Mr. Brightman’s too great eagerness to fasten evil things upon me, the real culprit might escape. — Thank you, Mr. Crawshay,” he added, accepting the cocktail which the waiter had presented. “Let us drink a little toast together. Shall we say ‘Success to Mr. Brightman’s latest enterprise, whatever it may be!’”
Crawshay glanced at his companion.
“I think we can humour our friend by drinking that toast, Brightman,” he said.
“I shall drink it with great pleasure,” the detective agreed.
They set down their empty glasses. Jocelyn Thew rose regretfully to his feet.
“I fear,” he said, “that I must tear myself away. We shall meet again, I trust. And, Mr. Brightman, a word with you. If you are in town for a holiday, if you have no business to worry you just at present, why not practise on me for a time? Watch me. Find out the daily incidents of my life. See what company I keep, where I spend my spare time — you know — and all the rest of it. I can assure you that although I am not the great criminal you fancy me, I am a most interesting person to study. Take my advice, Mr. Brightman. Keep your eye upon me.”
They watched him on the way to the door — a little languid but exceedingly pleasant to look upon, exceedingly distinguished and prepossessing. A look of half unwilling admiration crept into Brightman’s face.
“Whatever that man really may be,” he declared, “he is a great artist.”
The swing door leading from the room into the café was pushed open, and a woman entered. She stood for a moment looking around until her eyes fell upon Jocelyn Thew. Crawshay suddenly gripped the detective’s arm.
“Is there anything for us in this, my friend?” he whispered. “Watch Jocelyn Thew’s face!”
.
CHAPTER XVII
For a few seconds Jocelyn Thew was certainly taken aback. His little start, his look of blank astonishment, were coupled with a certain loss of poise which Crawshay had been quick to note. But, after all, the interlude was brief enough.
“Exactly what does this mean, Nora?” he demanded.
Her vivid brown eyes were fastened upon his face, eager to understand his attitude, a little defiant, a little appealing. There was nothing to be gathered from his expression, however. After that first moment he was entirely himself — well-mannered, unemotional, cold.
“I came over on the Baltic,” she explained, “I guessed I’d find you here. Fourteenth Street was getting a little sultry. The old man hopped it to San Francisco the day you left.”
“Sit down,” he invited.
They found places on a lounge and were served with cocktails. The girl sipped hers disapprovingly.
“Rum stuff, this,” she declared. “I guess I’ll have to get my shaker out.”
“You are staying here, then?” he enquired.
“Why not?” she replied, with a faint note of truculence in her tone. “You know I’m not short of money, and I guessed it was where I should find you.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“That is very nice and companionable of you,” he said, “and naturally I shall be very glad to be of any assistance possible whilst you are over here, but I hope you will remember, Nora, that I did not encourage you to come.”
“I’m wise enough about that,” she admitted. “I never expected you to care two pins whether you ever saw me again or not, and I know quite well,” she went on hastily, “that I haven’t any right to follow you, or anything of that sort. But honestly, Mr. Thew, we were being watched down there, and New York wasn’t exactly healthy.”
He nodded.
“Yes,” he assented, “no doubt you are right. They have awkward methods of cross-examination there, although I don’t think they’d get much out of you, Nora.”