CHAPTER V
A Flash from the Depths
"I HAVE come to thank you for your kindness of last night,” said Tremaine, as he entered. “It was a great favour.”
“It was nothing,” I protested, waving him to a chair. “I was glad to do it. I had a very pleasant time myself.”
As he sat down, he laid a handful of cigarettes on the table beside him.
“You see I’ve come for a chat,” he said, with his inimitable smile. “I hope you will help yourself.”
“Thank you,” and I suited the action to the word; Tremaine’s cigarettes would have tempted anyone. “I trust the business of the railroad is getting on well?”
“Splendidly!” he answered, inhaling a great puff of smoke. “The interview of last night did much to assist it. It was for that also I wished to thank you—for leaving me free—it was most important.”
I waved my cigarette deprecatingly. I was conscious that he was watching me keenly.
“I am not interrupting any plans of yours?” he asked suddenly. “You were not going out? You’re not expecting visitors?”
“No,” I said, “I’d resigned myself to spend the evening over a book. Your company is very welcome.”
“That is good of you to say. I shall speak frankly, then, as I had intended doing.”
He paused and puffed at his cigarette. I saw that, in spite of his superb assurance, the subject, whatever it was, presented a certain difficulty.
“I have been curious to see,” he began, at last, “how Cecily would affect New Yorkers. She is certainly well stared at.”
“And no wonder!” I said. “She would make St. Anthony turn his head.”
“You really weren’t bored last night?”
“I don’t see how anybody could be bored with Cecily,” I answered with conviction.
“Ah, you think so?” and he shot me a quick glance. “You admire her, then?”
“Admiration is hardly the word,” I said slowly. “It is too weak, too thin”
Evidently he misunderstood me, for he did not wait for me to finish—to explain myself.
“That makes it easier for me,” he interrupted. “You have perhaps suspected that the union between us is not a—ah—a legal one?”
“Yes,” I said, “I had suspected that.”
“Such unions are the rule in Martinique,” he continued calmly, “and have been from time immemorial. They are a part of the life there-they are a matter of course-and frequently they are as permanent and happy as any regular one could be. Cecily is what is known as a fille-de-couleur; physically, I believe, the most beautiful women in the world.”
“Then she is not an exception?”
“Oh, no—she’s a type—physically, at least. Mentally, I believe she does differ somewhat from the typical capresse. For instance, I never knew another attempt to tame a fer-de-lance.”
“It seemed to me,” I observed “that she had as many possibilities as the snake.”
He laughed lightly.
“For evil, you mean? That’s merely the effect of the first view. Really, the capresse girls have an excellent reputation for docility and all the rest. Not that it would matter much in Martinique-the people there are used to living over a volcano and don’t mind. Of course,” he added, in another tone, “I shall, before long, have to break it off. Society, here, is differently organised—different climates, different morals, you know; I feel that I must conform to it. Indeed, I even wish to do so. It is time that I settled down, ranged myself, became a man of family—I have been a wanderer long enough. Cecily can’t endure this climate, anyway. I’ll send her back to St Pierre.”
“What will she say to that?” I asked, with a vivid memory of the adoring way her eyes always dwelt upon him.
“You think it sounds a little brutal?” and he smiled gaily. “It isn’t, in the least. You’ve put Cecily on too high a pedestal. They have an axiom down there, ‘Née de l’amour, la fille-de-couleur nit d’amour, de rires, et d’oublis’—her life is a thing of love, laughter, and forgettings. I think it’s essentially true. At the same time,” he added, more seriously, “I don’t wish to be needlessly cruel. That’s the reason I’m telling you all this. It’s a sort of introduction.”
“Ah,” I said, and looked at him.
“I’ll blurt it out in a word. I’ll be out of town next week—all week—my business demands it—and it’s absurd for me to think of taking Cecily with me—it’s absolutely impossible—it would ruin the whole affair. What I want to ask you is this—look in on her occasionally, cheer her up, take her to the theatre, if you’ll be so good. She knows no one here, and she has a ridiculous need of companionship, of chattering to someone, of having someone to admire her. It’s born in the blood, I suppose; it’s an inheritance from two centuries of ancestors. Left to herself, she’ll soon mope herself sick. Will you do this for me, my friend?”
There was a compelling wizardry in his eyes as he looked at me, yet I had self-control enough to pause and reflect. Still, I saw no reason why I should refuse, even had my own inclination not greatly urged me forward. Here would be an opportunity to unveil such secrets of his as Cecily might know—especially as to where they had been on the evening of the murder. Perhaps she even knew the victim; could give me a clew to the connection between him and Tremaine, if such a connection existed—there were unlimited possibilities. And yet, a feeling of shame held me back. To take advantage in this way of a man who trusted me, against whom there was nothing but the merest, most intangible suspicion…
I looked up and met his intent gaze.
“You were reflecting?” he said.
“Merely that it is a delicate trust. I’m not at all unwilling to undertake it, only”
Again he misunderstood; again he did not wait for me to finish. It was the only weakness I ever detected in him—he made a false step that could never be retraced.
“Only you are flesh and blood, you would say?” and he shot me a smile which illumined as a lightning flash the depths of his character. “On that score, do not worry, I beg of you; I am not of a jealous disposition—I shall not”
A knock at the door interrupted him, or I might have answered in a way that would have wrecked Godfrey’s plan forever. I flung the door open and saw Higgins standing there.
“A call at th’ telephone fer you, Mr. Lester,” he said.
“Excuse me, please,” I called over my shoulder to Tremaine, and strode down the hall after the janitor. So heated was I with anger, so shaken by this sudden revelation, that not till we were in the elevator dropping downward did I remember that Godfrey was in my bedroom. A sudden chill struck through me. Suppose Tremaine should take advantage of the opportunity to examine my rooms; suppose he should discover Godfrey…
It was too late now to avert it; I could not go back, so I went on to the telephone. It was Mr. Royce who wanted me; he had been called suddenly out of town and wished to give me some instructions for the next day. Our conversation lasted perhaps five minutes; then I hung up the receiver and mounted to my rooms. With a hand not wholly steady, I opened the door. Tremaine was sitting in the chair where I had left him and was just lighting another cigarette.
He arose with a smile as I came in.
“I must be going,” he said. “And you will keep an eye on Cecily?”
“Yes, I’ll be glad to,” I assented. Surely, I need hesitate at no means to learn the truth about him.
“And be as gay as you please,” he added. “You’re doing me a great favour, which I shall take care to repay some day. Good-night.”
“Good-night,” I answered and closed the door.
As I turned, Godfrey walked calmly out of the bedroom. I waited till I heard Tremaine’s door close. Then I opened mine softly and looked up and down the hall. It was empty.
“You’re getting cautious,” said Godfrey, as I closed the door a second time.
“Yes—I’m beginning to fear him. You heard?”
“Every word.”
“And what do you think of him?”
“I think,” said Godfrey slowly, “that he’s one of the most consummate scoundrels I ever had to deal with. However, we’ll unmask him—he’s letting us into his citadel.”
“Yes,” I said, “and I hesitated”
“I saw you did; and I was trembling for fear you’d refuse—your notions of honour are a little too finely drawn.”
“I think I should have refused,” I said, “if I hadn’t been called away to the telephone, and so had time to cool off a bit and think it over. I don’t understand yet how he came to strike such a false note.”
“It’s the Latin blood in him. They never can comprehend the Anglo-Saxon point of view.”
“Perhaps that’s it. By the way,” I added suddenly, “that was mighty lucky.”
“It was uncommonly lucky,” he agreed, with an enigmatic smile.
“I mean his not looking through the rooms. I almost had a nervous chill when I remembered you were in there. But it was too late to come back.”
“I’m glad you didn’t come back-that would have spoiled everything.”
“You mean he didn’t sit still?”
“Not for an instant. I was sure he wouldn’t; therefore as soon as I caught Higgins’s errand, I dived behind your raincoat. Luckily, it’s a long one.”
“Yes—and then?”
“And then he took a quick look through the bedroom—I heard him open the closet door and drop on one knee to glance under the bed. Then he went on into the bathroom, and finally came back again to the sitting-room.”
“Well?” I asked, for I saw that there was something yet untold.
“Well,” continued Godfrey, “after a minute or two, I thought it safe to venture out from under the raincoat, more especially as certain peculiar sounds from the other room awakened my curiosity. The sounds were a sort of slow, regular scraping.”
He paused a moment to look at me; I could only stare at him.
“I crept to the door and peeped through. Guess what I saw! You never could guess, though. Tremaine was crawling slowly about the room, running his hands carefully over the carpet. He was searching for the diamond.”