CLOWNS AND CRIMINALS - Complete Series (Thriller Classics). E. Phillips Oppenheim

Richard laughed outright—it was some time since he had laughed!

      “You shall have it, Peter Ruff,” he declared, raising his glass—“and here’s to you!”

      VINCENT CAWDOR, COMMISSION AGENT

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      For the second time since their new association, Peter Ruff had surprised that look upon his secretary’s face. This time he wheeled around in his chair and addressed her.

      “My dear Violet,” he said, “be frank with me. What is wrong?”

      Miss Brown turned to face her employer. Save for a greater demureness of expression and the extreme simplicity of her attire, she had changed very little since she had given up her life of comparative luxury to become Peter Ruff’s secretary. There was a sort of personal elegance which clung to her, notwithstanding her strenuous attempts to dress for her part, except for which she looked precisely as a private secretary and typist should look. She even wore a black bow at the back of her hair.

      “I have not complained, have I?” she asked.

      “Do not waste time,” Peter Ruff said, coldly. “Proceed.”

      “I have not enough to do,” she said. “I do not understand why you refuse so many cases.”

      Peter Ruff nodded.

      “I did not bring my talents into this business,” he said, “to watch flirting wives, to ascertain the haunts of gay husbands, or to detect the pilferings of servants.”

      “Anything is better than sitting still,” she protested.

      “I do not agree with you,” Peter Ruff said. “I like sitting still very much indeed—one has time to think. Is there anything else?”

      “Shall I really go on?” she asked.

      “By all means,” he answered.

      “I have idea,” she continued, “that you are subordinating your general interests to your secret enmity—to one man. You are waiting until you can find another case in which you are pitted against him.”

      “Sometimes,” Peter Ruff said, “your intelligence surprises me!”

      “I came to you,” she continued, looking at him earnestly, “for two reasons. The personal one I will not touch upon. The other was my love of excitement. I have tried many things in life, as you know, Peter, but I have seemed to carry always with me the heritage of weariness. I thought that my position here would help me to fight against it.”

      “You have seen me bring a corpse to life,” Peter Ruff reminded her, a little aggrieved.

      She smiled.

      “It was a month ago,” she reminded him.

      “I can’t do that sort of thing every day,” he declared.

      “Naturally,” she answered; “but you have refused four cases within the last five days.”

      Peter Ruff whistled softly to himself for several moments.

      “Seen anything of our new neighbour in the flat above?” he asked, with apparent irrelevance.

      Miss Brown looked across at him with upraised eyebrows.

      “I have been in the lift with him twice,” she answered.

      “Fancy his appearance?” Ruff asked, casually.

      “Not in the least!” Violet answered. “I thought him a vulgar, offensive person!”

      Peter Ruff chuckled. He seemed immensely delighted.

      “Mr. Vincent Cawdor he calls himself, I believe,” he remarked.

      “I have no idea,” Miss Brown declared. The subject did not appeal to her.

      “His name is on a small copper plate just over the letter-box,” Ruff said. “Rather neat idea, by the bye. He calls himself a commission agent, I believe.”

      Violet was suddenly interested. She realized, after all, that Mr. Vincent Cawdor might be a person of some importance.

      “What is a commission agent?” she asked.

      Peter Ruff shook his head.

      “It might mean anything,” he declared. “Never trust any one who is not a little more explicit as to his profession. I am afraid that this Mr. Vincent Cawdor, for instance, is a bad lot.”

      “I am sure he is,” Miss Brown declared.

      “Looks after a pretty girl, coughs in the lift—all that sort of thing, eh?” Peter Ruff asked.

      She nodded.

      “Disgusting!” she exclaimed, with emphasis.

      Peter Ruff sighed, and glanced at the clock. The existence of Mr. Vincent Cawdor seemed to pass out of his mind.

      “It is nearly one o’clock,” he said. “Where do you usually lunch, Violet?”

      “It depends upon my appetite,” she answered, carelessly. “Most often at an A B C.”

      “To-day,” Peter Ruff said, “you will be extravagant—at my expense.”

      “I had a poor breakfast,” Miss Brown remarked, complacently.

      “You will leave at once,” Peter Ruff said, “and you will go to the French Cafe at the Milan. Get a table facing the courtyard, and towards the hotel side of the room. Keep your eyes open and tell me exactly what you see.”

      She looked at him with parted lips. Her eyes were full of eager questioning.

      “Mere skirmishing,” Peter Ruff continued, “but I think—yes, I think that it may lead to something.”

      “Whom am I to watch?” she asked.

      “Any one who looks interesting,” Peter Ruff answered. “For instance, if this person Vincent Cawdor should be about.”

      “He would recognize me!” she declared.

      Peter Ruff shrugged his shoulders.

      “One must hold the candle,” he remarked.

      “I decline to flirt with him,” she declared. “Nothing would induce me to be pleasant to such an odious creature.”

      “He will be too busy to attempt anything of the sort. Of course he may not be there. It may be the merest fancy on my part. At any rate, you may rely upon it that he will not make any overtures in a public place like the Milan. Mr. Vincent Cawdor may be a curious sort of person, but I do not fancy that he is a fool!”

      “Very well,” Miss Brown said, “I will go.”

      “Be back soon after three,” Peter Ruff said. “I am going up to my room to do my exercises.”

      “And afterwards?” she asked.

      “I shall have my lunch sent in,” he answered. “Don’t hurry back, though. I shall not expect you till a quarter past three.”

      It was a few minutes past that time when Miss Brown returned. Peter Ruff was sitting at his desk, looking as though he had never moved. He was absorbed by a book of patterns sent in by his new tailor, and he only glanced up when she entered the room.

      “Violet,” he said, earnestly, “come in and sit down. I want to consult you. There is a new material here—a sort of mouse-coloured cheviot. I wonder whether it would suit me?”

      Violet was looking very handsome and a little flushed. She raised her veil and came over to his side.

      “Put that stupid book away, Peter,” she said. “I want to tell you about