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

      “Yes!” she answered.

      “Why did you sup alone with Austen Abbott last night?”

      She shrank a little away.

      “Why should I not?” she asked.

      “You have been on the stage, my dear Miss Shaw,” Peter Ruff continued, “for between four and five years. During the whole of that time, it has been your very wise habit to join supper parties, of course, when the company was agreeable to you, but to sup alone with no man! Am I not right?”

      “You seem to know a great deal about me,” she faltered.

      “Am I not right?” he repeated.

      “Yes!”

      “You break your rule for the first time,” Peter Ruff continued, “in favour of a man of notoriously bad character, a few weeks after the announcement of your engagement to an honourable young English gentleman. You know very well the construction likely to be put upon your behaviour—you, of all people, would be the most likely to appreciate the risk you ran. Why did you run it? In other words, I repeat my question. Why did you sup alone with Austen Abbott last night?”

      All this time she had been standing. She came a little forward now, and threw herself into an easy-chair.

      “It doesn’t help!” she exclaimed. “All this doesn’t help!”

      “Nor can I help you, then,” Peter Ruff said, stretching out his hand for his hat.

      She waved to him to put it down.

      “I will tell you,” she said. “It has nothing to do with the case, but since you ask, you shall know. There is a dear little girl in our company—Fluffy Dean we all call her—only eighteen years old. We all love her, she is so sweet, and just like I was when I first went on the stage, only much nicer. She is very pretty, she has no money, and she is such an affectionate little dear that although she is as good as gold, we are all terrified for her sake whenever she makes acquaintances. Several of us who are most interested made a sort of covenant. We all took it in turns to look after her, and try to see that she did not meet any one she shouldn’t. Yet, for all our precautions, Austen Abbott got hold of her and turned her silly little head. He was a man of experience, and she was only a child. She wouldn’t listen to us—she wouldn’t hear a word against him. I took what seemed to me to be the only chance. I went to him myself—I begged for mercy, I begged him to spare the child. I swore that if—anything happened to her, I would start a crusade against him, I would pledge my word that he should be cut by every decent man and woman on the stage! He listened to what I had to say and at first he only smiled. When I had finished, he made me an offer. He said that if I would sup with him alone at the Milan, and permit him to escort me home afterwards, he would spare the child. One further condition he made—that I was to tell no one why I did it. It was the man’s brutal vanity! I made the promise, but I break it now. You have asked me and I have told you. I went through with the supper, although I hated it. I let him come in for a drink as though he had been a friend. Then he tried to make love to me. I took the opportunity of telling him exactly what I thought of him. Then I showed him the door, and left him. Afterwards—afterwards—Brian came in! They must have met upon the very threshold!”

      Peter Ruff took up his hat.

      “Thank you!” he said.

      “You see,” she continued, drearily, “that it all has very little to do with the case. I meant to keep it to myself, because, of course, apart from anything else, apart from Brian’s meeting him coming out of my rooms, it supplies an additional cause for anger on Brian’s part.”

      “I see,” he answered. “I am much obliged to you, Miss Shaw. Believe me that you have my sincere sympathy!”

      Peter Ruff’s farewell words were unheard. Letty had fallen forward in her chair, her head buried in her hands.

      Peter Ruff went to Berkeley Square and found Lady Mary waiting for him. Sir William Trencham, the great solicitor, was with her. Lady Mary introduced the two men. All the time she was anxiously watching Ruff’s face.

      “Mr. Ruff has been to see Miss Shaw,” she explained to Sir William. “Mr. Ruff, tell me quickly,” she continued, with her hand upon his shoulder, “did she say anything? Did you find anything out?”

      He shook his head.

      “No!” he said. “I found nothing out!”

      “You don’t think, then,” Lady Mary gasped, “that there is any chance—of getting her to confess—that she did it herself?”

      “Why should she have done it herself?” Peter Ruff asked. “She admits that the man tried to make love to her. She simply left him. She was in her own home, with her mother and servant within call. There was no struggle in the room—we know that. There was no necessity for any.”

      “Have you made any other enquiries?” Lady Mary asked.

      “The few which I have made,” Peter Ruff answered gravely, “point all in the same direction. I ascertained at the Milan that your brother called there late last night, and that he heard Miss Shaw had been supping alone with Austen Abbott. He followed them home. I have ascertained, too, that he had a key to Miss Shaw’s flat. He apparently met Austen Abbott upon the threshold.”

      Lady Mary covered her face with her hands. She seemed to read in Ruff’s words the verdict of the two men—the verdict of common sense. Nevertheless, he made one more request before leaving.

      “I should like to see Captain Sotherst, if you can get me an order,” he said to Sir William.

      “You can go with me to-morrow morning,” the lawyer answered. “The proceedings this morning, of course, were simply formal. Until after the inquest it will be easy to arrange an interview.”

      Lady Mary looked up quickly.

      “There is still something in your mind, then?” she asked. “You think that there is a bare chance?”

      “There is always the hundredth chance!” Peter Ruff replied.

      Peter Ruff and Miss Brown supped at the Milan that night as they had arranged, but it was not a cheerful evening. Brian Sotherst had been very popular among Letty Shaw’s little circle of friends, and the general feeling was one of horror and consternation at this thing which had befallen him. Austen Abbot, too, was known to all of them, and although a good many of the men—and even the women—were outspoken enough to declare at once that it served him right, nevertheless, the shock of death—death without a second’s warning—had a paralysing effect even upon those who were his severest critics. Violet Brown spoke to a few of her friends—introduced Peter Ruff here and there—but nothing was said which could throw in any way even the glimmerings of a new light upon the tragedy. It all seemed too hopelessly and fatally obvious.

      About twenty minutes before closing time, the habitues of the place were provided with something in the nature of a sensation. A little party entered who seemed altogether free from the general air of gloom. Foremost among them was a very young and exceedingly pretty girl, with light golden hair waved in front of her forehead, deep blue eyes, and the slight, airy figure of a child. She was accompanied by another young woman, whose appearance was a little too obvious to be prepossessing, and three or four young men—dark, clean-shaven, dressed with the irritating exactness of their class—young stockbrokers or boys about town. Miss Brown’s eyes grew very wide open.

      “What a little beast!” she exclaimed.

      “Who?” Peter Ruff asked.

      “That pretty girl there,” she answered—“Fluffy Dean her name is. She is Letty Shaw’s protege, and she wouldn’t have dreamed of allowing her to come out with a crowd like that. Tonight, of all nights,” she continued, indignantly, “when Letty is away!”

      Peter Ruff was interested.

      “So that is Miss Fluffy Dean,” he remarked, looking at her curiously.