The Cold Blooded Vengeance: 10 Mystery & Revenge Thrillers in One Volume. E. Phillips Oppenheim

I can assure you that it is entirely accidental! You have no right to detain me for a moment.”

      The clock on the mantelpiece struck midnight. A sudden passion surged in his veins, a passion which, although at the time he could not have classified it, was assuredly a passion of jealousy! He remembered the man Barnes, whom he hated.

      “You shall not go to his rooms—at this hour!” he exclaimed. “You don’t know the man! If you were seen—”

      She laughed mockingly.

      “Let me pass!” she insisted.

      He hesitated. She saw very clearly that she was conquering. A moment before she had respected this man. After all, though, he was like the others.

      “I will go with you and wait outside,” he said doggedly. “Barnes, at this hour—is not always sober!”

      Her lips curled.

      “Be wise,” she said, “and let me go. I do not need your protection or—”

      She broke off suddenly. The interruption was certainly startling enough. From a table only a few feet off came the shrill tinkle of a telephone bell. Wrayson mechanically stepped backwards and took the receiver into his hand.

      “Who is it?” he asked.

      The voice which answered him was faint but clear. It seemed to Wrayson to come from a long way off.

      “Is that Mr. Wrayson’s flat in Cavendish Mansions?” it asked.

      “Yes!” Wrayson answered. “Who are you?”

      “I am a friend of Mr. Morris Barnes,” the voice answered. “May I apologize for calling you up, but the matter is urgent. Can you tell me if Mr. Barnes is in?”

      “I am not sure, but I believe he is never in before one or two o’clock,” Wrayson answered.

      “Will you write down a message and leave it in his letter- box?” the voice asked anxiously. “It is very important or I would not trouble you.”

      “Very well,” Wrayson answered. “What is it?”

      “Tell him instantly he returns to leave his flat and go to the Hotel Francis. A friend is waiting there for him, the friend whom he has been expecting!”

      “A lady?” Wrayson remarked a little sarcastically.

      “No!” the voice answered. “A friend. Will you do this? Will you promise to do it?”

      “Very well,” Wrayson said. “Who are you, and where are you ringing up from?”

      “Remember you have promised!” was the only reply.

      “All right! Tell me your name,” Wrayson demanded.

      No answer. Wrayson turned the handle of the instrument viciously.

      “Exchange,” he asked, “who was that talking to me just now?”

      “Don’t know,” was the prompt answer. “We can’t remember all the calls we get. Ring off, please!”

      Wrayson laid down the receiver and turned round with a sudden sense of apprehension. There was a feeling of emptiness in the room. He had not heard a sound, but he knew very well what had happened. The door was slightly open and the room was empty. She had taken advantage of his momentary absorption to slip away.

      He stepped outside and stood by the lift, listening. The landing was deserted, and there was no sound of any one moving anywhere. The lift itself was on the ground floor. It had not ascended recently or he must have heard it. He returned to his room and softly closed the door. Again the sense of emptiness oppressed him. A faint perfume around the place where she had stood came to him like a whiff of some delicious memory. He set his teeth, lit a cigarette, and sitting down at his desk wrote a few lines to his neighbour, embodying the message which had been given him. With the note in his hand he ascended to the next floor.

      There was apparently no light in flat number 11, but he rang the bell and listened. There was no answer, no sound of any one moving within. For nearly ten minutes he waited—listening. He was strongly tempted to open the door with his own key and see for himself if she was there. Then he remembered that Barnes was a man whom he barely knew, and cordially disliked, and that if he should return unexpectedly, the situation would be a little difficult to explain. Reluctantly he descended to his own flat, and mixing himself a whisky and soda, lit a pipe and sat down, determined to wait until he heard Barnes return. In less than a quarter of an hour he was asleep!

      II. THE HORROR OF THE HANSOM

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      Wrayson sat up with a sudden and violent start. His pipe had fallen on to the floor, leaving a long trail of grey ash upon his waistcoat and trousers. The electric lights were still burning, but of the fire nothing remained but a pile of ashes. As soon as he could be said to be conscious of anything, he was conscious of two things. One was that he was shivering with cold, the other that he was afraid.

      Wrayson was by no means a coward. He had come once or twice in his life into close touch with dangerous happenings, and conducted himself with average pluck. He never attempted to conceal from himself, however, that these few minutes were minutes of breathless, unreasoning fear. His heart was thumping against his side, and the muscles at the back of his neck were almost numb as he slowly looked round the room. His eyes paused at the door. It was slightly open, to his nervous fancy it seemed to be shaking. His teeth chattered, he felt his forehead, and it was wet.

      He rose to his feet and listened. There was no sound anywhere, from above or below. He tried to remember what it was that had awakened him so suddenly. He could remember nothing except that awful start. Something must have disturbed him! He listened again. Still no sound. He drew a little breath, and, with his eyes glued upon the half-closed door, recollected that he himself had left it open that he might hear Barnes go upstairs. With a little laugh, still not altogether natural, he moved to the spirit decanter and drank off half a wineglassful of neat whisky!

      “Nerves,” he said softly to himself. “This won’t do! What an idiot I was to go to sleep there!”

      He glanced at the clock. It was five minutes to three. Then he moved towards the door, and stood for several moments with the handle in his hand. Gradually his confidence was returning. He listened attentively. There was not a sound to be heard in the entire building. He turned back into the room with a little sigh of relief.

      “Time I turned in,” he muttered. “Wonder if that’s rain.”

      He lifted the blind and looked out. A few stars were shining still in a misty sky, but a bank of clouds was rolling up and rain was beginning to fall. The pavements were already wet, and the lamp-posts obscured. He was about to turn away when a familiar, but unexpected, sound from the street immediately below attracted his notice. The window was open at the top, and he had distinctly heard the jingling of a hansom bell.

      He threw open the bottom sash and leaned out. A hansom cab was waiting at the entrance to the flats. Wrayson glanced once more instinctively towards the clock. Who on earth of his neighbours could be keeping a cab waiting outside at that hour in the morning? With the exception of Barnes and himself, they were most of them early people. Once more he looked out of the window. The cabman was leaning forward in his seat with his head resting upon his folded arms. He was either tired out or asleep. The attitude of the horse was one of extreme and wearied dejection. Wrayson was on the point of closing the window when he became aware for the first time that the cab had an occupant. He could see the figure of a man leaning back in one corner, he could even distinguish a white-gloved hand resting upon the apron. The figure was not unlike the figure of Barnes, and Barnes, as he happened to remember, always wore white gloves in the evening. Barnes it probably was, waiting—for what? Wrayson closed the window a little impatiently, and turned back into the room.

      “Barnes