CHAPTER X.
THE LADY WHO MODELED.
Smith drove up to No. 409 Portland Place. Mr. Valentine was out, the pompous footman told him, and would not be back until late that evening. Was the young lady in? Yes, she was. Would he ask her to be kind enough to see him, asked Smith, and gave him a card inscribed “Lord Henry Jones”—one of those comic visiting cards which one uses on the Continent with such effect, the French being wholly ignorant of the fact that nobody could be called “Lord Henry Jones” and live.
He was shown into the drawing-room and she came down, holding a card in her hand, and stopped dead at the door at the sight of the, to her, sinister figure. Smith was, by all records, a hardened man and not unacquainted with beautiful women, but he never saw this girl but his tongue did not cleave to the roof of his mouth, and he was not reduced from the cool, sane man of affairs, to a stammering fool. It was not her beauty alone, or her spirituality; it was something worshipful in her, to which his heart responded.
“You!” she said.
“Why, yes,” Smith stammered like a schoolboy. “I came to see you on a matter of importance.” He looked at her hand. One finger was neatly bandaged, and then he laughed, incidentally recovering something of his self-possession.
“My father is out,” she said coldly. “I am afraid I cannot be of any assistance to you.”
“You can be a lot of assistance to me, Miss Valentine,” said the man coolly. “You can give me, for example, a great deal of information.”
“About what?” she asked.
“First, about your finger,” said he boldly. “Have you hurt it badly?”
“What do you mean?” she asked quickly.
“When you cut open my writing case, this morning,” said Smith gently, “I fear the knife or scissors slipped. You left a little of your blue blood behind.”
Her face had gone pink, and for one delicious moment she looked ridiculous. There is nothing more wonderful than to see somebody of whom you stand in awe looking a little foolish. She was wise enough not to attempt to reply.
“Won't you ask me to sit down?” asked Smith. She waved her hand to a chair. “What did you expect to find in my writing case?” he rallied her. “Evidence of my excessive criminality?”
“I have that,” she said. “You seem to forget that I was on the Quai des Fleurs that night.”
She did not say what night, but it was not necessary to ask her for an explanation. What Smith marveled at was her extraordinary coolness. She did not tremble—she who had witnessed what must have been to her a terrible crime. She spoke as coolly of “that night” as though she had been a participant rather than a horrified spectator.
“Yes, I remember,” said Smith. “Curiously enough, I always remember things like that.”
But sarcasm was wasted on her. “You'll have some tea, now that you're here, Mr. Smith? I take tea very early.”
Smith nodded. He was prepared to drink tea, or something more noxious, so that it was delivered to him by her hand—into such a condition had this man fallen. She rang a bell and then came back to her chair, and looked across at him with a little smile in her eyes. “So you think I'm a burglar, Mr. Smith?” she said.
“I—I don't think you're anything of the sort,” stammered Smith. “The fact is, I thought—possibly your father had told you to come” he floundered helplessly.
“We are a queer lot of people, aren't we?” she said unexpectedly.. “My father, you, and I.”
“And Mr, Ross,” added Smith softly, and she looked at him for a moment, startled.
“Of course,” she said quickly. “Mr. Ross. Mr. Valentine put you in the next room to him to watch him, didn't he?”
She was a most disconcerting person, and again Tray-Bong Smith was embarrassed. He had long before discovered that the best way to get out of an embarrassing situation is to return the embarrassment. “I don't know that it is necessary for me to watch Mr. Ross on behalf of your father,” he drawled, “especially when he can sit at home and watch him.”
“What do you mean?” she asked quickly.
“I thought Mr. Ross was a visitor to this house,” said Smith innocently.
“A visitor?” Her eyes were fixed on his, and then suddenly he saw a light dawn, and her face went pink. For a second or two she controlled the laughter which was bubbling at her lips, and then she fell back in the chair and laughed long and musically. “How wonderful!” she said. “Mr. Ross here. And did you see him come?”
“I did,” said Smith boldly.
“And did you see him go?”
“I didn't see him go,” admitted the other.
“Oh, but you should have done,” she said with mock seriousness. “You should have seen him home and tucked him into bed. Isn't that what you're paid for?”
Smith winced under the scarcely veiled scorn in the tone. Or was it good-humored malice?
“So you saw Mr, Ross come here,” she said after a while, “and did you tell my father? No, of course you didn't.”
Smith shook his head. “I told him—nothing,” and she looked at him queerly.
At that moment a footman brought in a silver tea tray and set the table, and further conversation was impossible. When the man had gone and the girl had filled the cups, she sat with her folded hands on her lap, looking down as though she were resolving some problem.
“Mr, Smith,” she said, “perhaps you'll think it is dreadful of me, that I speak so lightly of the terrible scene I witnessed on the Quai des Fleurs, but I have a reason.”
“I think I know your reason,” said Smith quietly.
“I wonder if you do?” she said. “Of course, I ought to shrink away from you and shout for the police when you come near, for you're a horrid criminal, aren't you?”
Smith grinned uncomfortably. She alone of all the people in the world had a trick of making him feel a fool.
“I suppose I am,” he said, “although I have”
“A clean bill in England—I know all about that,” said the girl, and he stared at her, wondering who had used that phrase before, and was startled to remember that it was himself.
“I'm rather a queer girl, because I've had rather a queer life,” she said. “You see, the earlier days of my life were spent in a little New Jersey town”
“How eccentric!” murmured Smith as he stirred his tea.
“Don't be sarcastic,” said the girl with a smile. “I was very, very happy in America, except that I didn't seem to have any parents around. Father came only occasionally, and he is rather—how shall I put it, forbidding?”
All the time her eyes were fixed on his, and Smith nodded.
“I might have stayed on in New Jersey for a very long time,” she went on; “in fact, all my life, because I love the place; only you see”—again she hesitated—“I made rather a terrific discovery.”
“How terrific?” asked Smith.
“Well, I won't tell you that,” said the girl. “At least, not at present.”
He was curious enough now. “Perhaps if you told me,” he said quietly, “it might help me a lot, and help you, too.”
She looked at him doubtfully and shook her head. “I wonder,” she said. “I'll tell you this much, and I'm not going to ask you to keep my secret, because I'm sure you will—I have rather a secret of yours, you know.”
“I had a horrible fear you were going to betray me” began Smith, but she stopped him.
“Don't let us talk about that,” she said. “One of these days I'm going to surprise you.”
“What was it you discovered in New Jersey?” asked Smith.
“After mother—died,” said the girl slowly, “and father went to Europe, he left a lot of things with his lawyer, Judge Cramb. The judge used to pay all my expenses and the cost of the upkeep of the house, and give me an allowance every month when I was old enough to have an allowance; and generally he acted as father's agent. Well, while Mr. Valentine was away in Europe, the old judge died suddenly and his practice passed into the hands of strangers. The first thing the strangers did was to send back a small black box which father had kept in the judge's office for safe-keeping.
“I rather fancy that at the time of his death the judge was not acting for father at all, because my money used to come through the Farmers' Bank, and I suppose that the new lawyer, finding his office cluttered up with old boxes, thought he would make a clean sweep, so father's effects came back to me. I hadn't the slightest idea as to what I should do with it until Mrs. Temple, the lady who was looking after me, suggested that I should send it to him in Europe, by registered post. Of course, I couldn't send a big, heavy box, so I tried to find a key which would fit the lock, and after a while found one. The box was full of papers, all tied neatly into bundles, except for a few loose documents and photographs. I took them out, wrote a big envelope, and addressed it to father, and it was while I was going over the loose papers that I saw something which decided me to come to Europe. Father had often asked me to come, though I don't think he seriously meant me to leave America. But now I made up my mind.”
“How long ago was this?” asked Smith quietly.
“Two years ago,” replied Stephanie.
“And you came to Europe?”
She nodded.
“Your father knew?”
“Oh, yes,” said the girl indifferently. “He agreed. In fact, I think he was pleased.”
Smith thought a while.
“That explains a lot,” he said, then asked carelessly, “what do you do with your days?”
The answer was the last he expected. “I model in wax,” said the girl.
“Model?”
She nodded. “I will show you,” she said, and led him out of the drawing-room through the big hall to a little room at the back of the house. The “room” was really a small conservatory which had been furnished with a long deal bench, a few chairs, and a cupboard.
He looked at the beautiful little figures, finished and unfinished, that decorated the bench, and was genuinely astonished.
“You're an artist, Miss Stephanie—Miss Valentine,” he corrected himself.
“Miss Stephanie would do,” she said with a little smile. “I'm an artist, am I?”
“Of course, I don't know much about art,” began Smith.
“But you know just what you like?” she said dryly. “Now, you've disappointed me, Mr. Smith. I thought a man with your artistic temperament would really have said something original.”
They were exquisite little models; a shepherdess in the French style was as perfect a thing as Smith had seen.
“And do you color them yourself?”
She nodded. She glanced round, and Smith saw a look of anxiety in her face and followed the direction of her eyes. It was at a cupboard against the wall that she was looking, and almost before he discovered the cause of her anxiety she had darted across the room, shut the cupboard door, and locked it, and, thrusting the key into her pocket, turned a very red face to him.
“Family skeleton?” said Smith.
She looked at him suspiciously. “The family skeleton,” she replied steadily. “Now come back and finish your tea.”
She was perturbed, and Smith wondered what there was in that mysterious cupboard, which she was so anxious to hide. And what had amused her so when he had told her that he had been shadowing Mr. Ross? She was a Strange girl. He did not understand her, and what he did not understand worried him.
“The family skeleton,” she said unexpectedly after a long silence. “There are a lot of skeletons in this family, Mr. Smith.”
“There are in most families,” said Smith lamely.
“But, we”—she lingered on the word—“we—Borgias—have more than our share, Mr. Smith.”
“Borgias?” said Smith softly. “What do you mean by Borgias?”
“Didn't you know? Of course you knew!” she said derisively. She had recovered something of her spirits, and her old flippancy. “Have you never heard of the illustrious house of the Borgias—can you understand why father did not call me Lucrezia?”
“I think I can,” said Smith. “Oh, yes, I think I can,” and he nodded wisely.
“What is your explanation?” she asked.
“My explanation is the mysterious box that you discovered in your little New Jersey town,” said Smith. “The box and the contents thereof.”
She got up from her seat and held out her hand.
“I hope you've enjoyed your tea,” she said. “I think you ought to get back.” And Smith was in the street before he realized that he had been summarily dismissed.