The Moving Finger Part 15

He looked at her thoughtfully.

"You yourself should read a little about these things," he said--"read a little and think a little. You would find very much to interest you."

"I am sure of it," she answered, almost humbly. "Will you come and see me one day, and talk about it? I live at Number 17, Cadogan Street."

"I will come with pleasure," he answered, rising. "Will you forgive me if I leave you now? There is a man just leaving with whom I must speak."

He pa.s.sed away, and left the room with a little thrill of satisfaction. He had contrived to impress the one woman whom he was anxious to impress! Children like little Lois Champneyes and those others, were easy. This woman he knew at once was something different.

Besides, she was a friend of Rochester's, and that meant something to him.

He walked along Regent Street to the end, and crossing the road, entered a large cafe. Here he sat before one of the marble-topped tables, and ordered some coffee. In a few minutes he was joined by another man, who handed his coat and hat to the waiter, and sat down with the air of one who was expected. Saton nodded, a little curtly.

"Will you take anything?" he asked.

"A bottle of beer and a cigar," the newcomer ordered. "A s.h.i.+lling cigar, I think, to-night. It will run to it."

"Anything special?" Saton asked.

"Things in general are about the same as usual," his companion answered. "They did a little better in Oxford Street and Regent Street, but Violet had a dull day in Bond Street. I have closed up the Egyptian place in the Arcade--'Ayesha' we called it. The police are always suspicious of a woman's name, and I had a hint from a detective I know."

Saton nodded.

"You have something else to tell me, haven't you?" he asked.

"Yes!" the other answered. "We had a very important client in Bond Street this afternoon, one of those whose names you gave me."

Saton leaned across the table.

"Who was it?" he asked.

"Lady Mary Rochester of Beauleys," the other answered--"got a town house, and a big country place down in Mechesters.h.i.+re."

Something flashed for a moment in Saton's eyes, but he said nothing.

His companion commenced to draw leisurely a sheet of paper from his breast coat pocket. He was fair and middle-aged, respectably dressed, and with the air of a prosperous city merchant. His eyes were a little small, and his cheeks inclined to be fat, or he would have been reasonably good-looking.

"Lady Mary called without giving her name," he continued, "but we knew her, of course, by our picture gallery. She called professedly to amuse herself. She was told the usual sorts of things, with a few additions thrown in from our knowledge of her. She seemed very much impressed, and in the end she came to a specific inquiry."

"Go on," said Saton.

"The specific inquiry was briefly this," the man continued. "She gave herself away the moment she opened her mouth. She behaved, in fact, like a farmer's daughter asking questions of a gipsy girl. She showed us the photograph of a man, whom we also recognised, and wanted to know the usual sort of rubbish--whether he was really fond of her, whether he would be true to her if she married him."

"Married him?" Saton repeated.

"She posed as a widow," the other man reminded him.

"What was the reply?"

"Violet was clever," the man remarked, with a slow smile. "She saw at once that this was a case where something might be done. She asked for three days, and for a letter from the man. She said that it was a case in which a sight of his handwriting, and a close study of it, would help them to give an absolutely truthful answer."

"She agreed?" Saton asked.

The other nodded, and produced a letter from his pocket.

"She handed one over at once," he said. "It isn't particularly compromising, perhaps, but it's full of the usual sort of rot. She's coming for it on Tuesday."

Saton smiled as he thrust it into his pocketbook.

"I will put this into Dorrington's hands at once," he said. "This has been very well managed, Huntley. I will have a liqueur, and you shall have some more beer."

"Don't mind if I do," Mr. Huntley a.s.sented cheerfully. "It's thirsty weather."

They summoned a waiter, and Saton lit a cigarette.

"You've been amongst the big pots to-night," Huntley remarked, looking at him.

Saton nodded.

"I have been keeping our end up," he said, "in the legitimate branch of our profession. You needn't grin like that," he added, a little irritably. "There is a legitimate side, and a very wonderful side, only a brain like yours is not capable of a.s.similating it. You should have heard my paper to-night upon self-directed mesmeric waves."

The man shook his head, and laughed complacently.

"It's not in my way," he answered. "Our business is good enough as it is."

"You are a fool," Saton said, a little contemptuously. "You can't see that but for the legitimate side there would be no business at all.

Unless there was a glimmer of truth at the bottom of the well, unless there existed somewhere a prototype, Madame Helga, and Omega, and Naomi might sit in their empty temples from morning till night. People know, or are beginning to know, that there are forces abroad beyond the control of the ordinary commonplace mortal. They are willing to take it for granted that those who declare themselves able to do so, are able to govern them."

He broke off a little abruptly. Huntley's unsympathetic face, with the big cigar in the corner of his mouth, choked the flow of his words.

"Never mind," he said. "This isn't interesting to you, of course. As you say, the business side is the more important. I will see you at the hotel to-morrow night. Considering where I have been this evening, it is scarcely wise for us to be seen together."

Huntley took the hint, finished his drink, and departed. Saton sat for a few more minutes alone. Then he too went out into the street, and walked slowly homewards. He let himself into the house in Regent's Park with his latchkey, and went thoughtfully upstairs. The room was still brilliantly illuminated, and the woman who was sitting over the fire, turned round to greet him.

"Well?" she asked.

Saton divested himself of his hat and coat. Madame's black eyes were still fixed upon him. He came slowly across towards her.

"Well?" she repeated.

"You were there," he reminded her. "I saw you sitting almost in the front row. What did you think of it?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"What does it matter what I think of it? Tell me about the others."

"My paper was p.r.o.nounced everywhere to be a great success," he declared. "Many of the cleverest men in London were there. They listened to every syllable."

Madame nodded.