A Woman at Bay Part 13

"That will be about enough of that, thank you," she interrupted him coldly. "I know all about my beauty, and don't in the least need to be told about it."

"One could not very well remember you at all without remembering your beauty," insisted Nick boldly. "It is the first thing about you that strikes one; and the second is----"

"Well--what? Possibly I will be more interested in that."

"The fear you inspire, I think. You have what the French call a 'way'

about you."

She started perceptibly.

"What do you know about the French?" she demanded; and Nick saw instantly that he had made a mistake in reminding her of her career in Paris. Now it was possible that she might recall where she had seen him.

But he dismissed the idea as soon as it came to him, for he remembered again how perfectly he was disguised, and how impossible it should be for her to remember him after all these years, through the disguise.

But now she was looking steadily at him, and for the moment she had forgotten to eat.

"Who are you, Dago?" she demanded suddenly. "You are not what you seem."

"Few of us are," returned the detective evasively.

"Who are you?"

"I have told you, madam, as much as it is possible to tell. You do not demand the past records of your followers. All that you insist upon is that they shall be faithful in the future."

"Who are you?" she repeated again.

"I am Dago John, madam, at your service."

"But you have another name than Dago John."

"I had another--once."

"What was it?"

"Madam does not suppose, when she asks the question, that it will be answered, does she?" Nick inquired boldly.

"By Heaven, sir, do you dare to defy me?"

"Not at all. I merely feel sure that madam asked the question as a joke, knowing that it could not be answered."

For a moment it seemed as if she did not know whether to be angry at him for his cool effrontery, or to laugh the matter off entirely, in admiration of his bravery. She decided upon the latter course evidently, for she did laugh--in a way that was not quite pleasant to hear, however; and she said:

"Try to think where you have seen me before. Help me to remember. I want to recall it."

"It is impossible, madam. I have already tried."

"Is the memory that is a.s.sociated with me pleasant or otherwise?"

"It could not be but pleasant, since it was--you," he ventured; and she frowned. It was plain that she did not relish such compliments.

And now she sat with her eyes fixed upon him, idly stirring her second cup of coffee, and seeming to look him through and through, while she cast her memory back over the storms of her life, not yet more than twenty-three years, all told, and attempted with all her strength of will to call up for recognition the ghost which his appearance had conjured.

After a little she leaned forward, nearer to him, and her eyes, coal black, and blazing, fairly burned into his own; but he held his gaze steadily upon her, never once flinching from the scrutiny.

And then, so suddenly that it startled him, she leaped to her feet, knocking her coffee to the floor, and she stood over him--but whether in anger or only in astonishment that she had remembered, he could not have told.

"By all the G.o.ds!" she cried out. "I remember you now. It is your eyes that have haunted me, and now I remember where I have seen them. I remember. It was in Paris. It was at the prefecture of police. I was there. I was only a girl. I had just finished with the chief when you entered the room. I did not notice your name when it was announced, but now I remember you--at the prefecture of police in Paris! Tell me--tell me, I say, what you were doing there!"

The detective knew that it would be folly to deny the charge that she made. He knew that she remembered now, perfectly well, and that nothing could disabuse her mind of the determination it had reached.

Acting upon the impulse of the instant, therefore, and determined now to play out his role as it should appear, Nick pretended instantly to be as greatly astonished as she was at the recollection, and the strangeness of it.

He, too, leaped to his feet, imitating an astonishment as great as her own. He did not tip over his coffee, but he did manage to upset his chair, so that it fell backward on the floor; and then for the s.p.a.ce of a moment they stood staring into each other's eyes, both--from all appearances--speechless with astonishment.

And then, very slowly, she subsided into her chair again, still keeping her eyes upon him, and still evidently taxing her memory to the utmost to recall all the incidents of that meeting at the prefecture in Paris.

"I remember now," she murmured at last, more to herself than to him. "It all comes back to me, bit by bit. Monsieur Goron was chief at the time--no? Yes. I remember. There had been a sudden death in the house where I lived--it was on the floor just beneath me--and Goron sent for me to question me about it. It was thought at first that Lucie had been murdered, and Goron thought that perhaps I would know about it. He had just finished questioning me when you entered the room--ah!"

Her eyes blazed with a sudden fire of anger, and her lips tightened over her teeth.

"When you entered the room Goron rose and shook hands with you. Why did he do that? Goron did not shake hands with criminals!"

"Nor with his police spies, did he?" asked Nick, smiling and shrugging his shoulders.

"But why did he shake hands with you?"

"Because we were old acquaintances, madam."

"And he called you by name. What was that name?"

"Madam, for some time past I have deemed it best to forget it."

"Nevertheless you shall remember it now."

Nick shrugged his shoulders, and did not reply.

"What was that name?" she demanded again.

"I have told madam that I----"

She started from her chair, and ran across the room so suddenly that Nick was interrupted in what he was about to say; and she seized a rope that hung from the ceiling and stood with her hand upon it, grasping it.

"If I pull this rope," she said coldly, "as many of my followers as hear it will rush to this place. You know what is likely to happen then if I loose them upon you. They are all like wild beasts, or like dogs, ready to tear each other at the slightest provocation. If I should point my finger at you--so--and say to them, 'Take him; he is yours,' your life would not be worth as much as the dregs in your coffee cup. Tell me, what that name was, or I will summon the men."

The detective shrugged his shoulders, and leaned back in his chair, smiling.

"It would be a foolish and a useless proceeding," he said calmly. "I should not tell them that name any more than I tell it to you. I will not tell it. It is of no moment here. It could do you no good to hear it, and to mention it might do me harm; therefore, I shall not mention it, no matter how often you order me to do so. It pains me to disobey you, madam, but you force me into the alternative, and I have no choice.

Pull the rope if you will."