Peter Ruff and the Double Four Part 67

"Violet," he said, "you were asking me just now about the telephone.

You were quite right. These were not ordinary messages which I have been receiving. I am engaged in a little matter which, I must confess, perplexes me. I want your advice, perhaps your help."

"I am quite ready," she answered, smiling. "It is a long time since you gave me anything to do."

"You have heard of Guillot?"

She reflected for a moment.

"You mean the wonderful Frenchman," she asked, "the head of the criminal department of the Double-Four?"

"The man who was at its head when it existed. The criminal department, as you know, has all been done away with. The Double-Four has now no more concern with those who break the law, save in those few instances where great issues demand it."

"But Monsieur Guillot still exists?"

"He not only exists," answered Peter, "but he is here in London, a rebel and a defiant one. Do you know who came to see me the other morning?"

She shook her head.

"Sir John Dory," Peter continued. "He came here with a request. He begged for my help. Guillot is here, committed to some enterprise which no one can wholly fathom. Dory has enough to do with other things, as you can imagine, just now. Besides, I think he recognizes that Monsieur Guillot is rather a hard nut for the ordinary English detective to crack."

"And you?" she demanded, breathlessly.

"I join forces with Dory," Peter admitted. "Sogrange agrees with me.

Guillot was a.s.sociated with the Double-Four too long for us to have him make scandalous history either here or in Paris."

"You have seen him?"

"I have not only seen him, but declared war against him."

"And he?"

"Guillot is defiant," Peter replied. "He has been here only this evening. He mocks at me. He swears that he will bring off this enterprise, whatever it may be, before midnight to-night, and he has defied me to stop him."

"But you will," she murmured, softly.

Peter smiled. The conviction in his wife's tone was a subtle compliment which he did not fail to appreciate.

"I have hopes," he confessed, "and yet, let me tell you this, Violet.

I have never been more puzzled. Ask yourself, now. What enterprise is there worthy of a man like Guillot, in which he could engage himself here in London between now and midnight? Any ordinary theft is beneath him. The purloining of the crown jewels, perhaps, he might consider, but I don't think that anything less in the way of robbery would bring him here. He has his code and he is as vain as a peac.o.c.k. Yet money is at the root of everything he does."

"How does he spend his time here?" Violet asked.

"He has a handsome flat in Shaftesbury Avenue," Peter answered, "where he lives, to all appearance, the life of an idle man of fas.h.i.+on. The whole of his spare time is spent with Mademoiselle Louise, the danseuse at the Empire. You see, it is half-past eight now. I have eleven men altogether at work, and according to my last report he was dining with her in the grill-room at the Milan. They have just ordered their coffee ten minutes ago, and the car is waiting outside to take Mademoiselle to the Empire. Guillot's box is engaged there, as usual. If he proposes to occupy it, he is leaving himself a very narrow margin of time to carry out any enterprise worth speaking of."

Violet was thoughtful for several moments. Then she crossed the room, took up a copy of an ill.u.s.trated paper, and brought it across to Peter.

He smiled as he glanced at the picture to which she pointed, and the few lines underneath.

"It has struck you, too, then!" he exclaimed. "Good! You have answered me exactly as I hoped. Somehow, I scarcely trusted myself. I have both cars waiting outside. We may need them. You won't mind coming to the Empire with me?"

"Mind!" she laughed. "I only hope I may be in at the finish."

"If the finish," Peter remarked, "is of the nature which I antic.i.p.ate, I shall take particularly good care that you are not."

The curtain was rising upon the first act of the ballet as they entered the most popular music-hall in London and were shown to the box which Peter had engaged. The house was full--crowded, in fact, almost to excess. They had scarcely taken their seats when a roar of applause announced the coming of Mademoiselle Louise. She stood for a moment to receive her nightly ovation, a slim, beautiful creature, looking out upon the great house with that faint, bewitching smile at the corners of her lips, which every photographer in Europe had striven to reproduce. Then she moved away to the music, an exquisite figure, the personification of all that was alluring in her s.e.x. Violet leaned forward to watch her movements as she plunged into the first dance.

Peter was occupied looking around the house. Monsieur Guillot was there, sitting insolently forward in his box, sleek and immaculate. He even waved his hand and bowed as he met Peter's eye. Somehow or other, his confidence had its effect. Peter began to feel vaguely troubled. After all, his plans were built upon a surmise. It was so easy for him to be wrong. No man would show his hand so openly, unless he were sure of the game. Then his face cleared a little. In the box adjoining Guillot's, the figure of a solitary man was just visible, a man who had leaned over to applaud Louise, but who was now sitting back in the shadows. Peter recognized him at once, notwithstanding the obscurity. This was so much to the good, at any rate. He took up his hat.

"For a quarter of an hour you will excuse me, Violet," he said. "Watch Guillot. If he leaves his place, knock at the door of your own box, and one of my men, who is outside, will come to you at once. He will know where to find me."

Peter hurried away, pausing for a moment in the promenade, to scribble a line or two at the back of one of his own cards. Presently he knocked at the door of the box adjoining Guillot's and was instantly admitted.

Violet continued her watch. She remained alone until the curtain fell upon the first act of the ballet. A few minutes later, Peter returned.

She knew at once that things were going well. He sank into a chair by her side.

"I have messages every five minutes," he whispered in her ear, "and I am venturing upon a bold stroke. There is still something about the affair, though, which I cannot understand. You are absolutely sure that Guillot has not moved?"

Violet pointed with her program across the house. "There he sits," she remarked. "He left his chair as the curtain went down, but he could scarcely have gone out of the box, for he was back within ten seconds."

Peter looked steadily across at the opposite box. Guillot was sitting a little further back now, as though he no longer courted observation.

Something about his att.i.tude puzzled the man who watched him. With a sudden quick movement he caught up the gla.s.ses which stood by his wife's side. The curtain was going up for the second act, and Guillot had turned his head. Peter held the gla.s.ses only for a moment to his eyes, and then glanced down at the stage.

"My G.o.d!" he muttered. "The man's a genius! Violet, the small motor is coming for you."

He was out of the box in a single step. Violet looked after him, looked down upon the stage and across at Guillot's box. It was hard to understand.

The curtain had scarcely rung up upon the second act of the ballet when a young lady who met from all the loungers, and even from the doorkeeper himself, the most respectful attention, issued from the stage-door at the Empire and stepped into the large motor car which was waiting, drawn up against the curb. The door was opened from inside and closed at once.

She held out her hands, as yet ungloved, to the man who sat back in the corner.

"At last!" she murmured. "And I thought, indeed, that you had forsaken me."

He took her hands and held them tightly, but he answered only in a whisper. He wore a sombre black cloak and a broad-brimmed black hat. A m.u.f.fler concealed the lower part of his face. She put her finger upon the electric light, but he stopped her.

"I must not be recognized," he said thickly. "Forgive me, Louise, if I seem strange at first, but there is more in it than I can tell you. No one must know that I am in London to-night. When we reach this place to which you are taking me, and we are really alone, then we can talk. I have so much to say."

She looked at him doubtfully. It was indeed a moment of indecision with her. Then she began to laugh softly.

"Dear one, but you have changed!" she exclaimed, compa.s.sionately. "After all, why not? I must not forget that things have gone so hardly with you. It seems odd, indeed, to see you sitting there, m.u.f.fled up like an old man, afraid to show yourself. You know how foolish you are? With your black cape and that queer hat, you are so different from all the others. If you seek to remain unrecognized, why do you not dress as all the men do? Any one who was suspicious would recognize you from your clothes."

"It is true," he muttered. "I did not think of it."

She leaned towards him.

"You will not even kiss me?" she murmured.

"Not yet," he answered.

She made a little grimace.

"But you are cold!"

"You do not understand," he answered. "They are watching me--even to-night they are watching me. Oh, if you only knew, Louise, how I have longed for this hour that is to come!"