Tales of Mystery & Suspense: 25+ Thrillers in One Edition. E. Phillips Oppenheim

broad good-humour from his face on his first appearance. The change came and went like a flash. He finished playing the hand and scored his points before he spoke. Then he turned to Norgate.

      “Your gift of acquiring languages in a short space of time is most extraordinary, my young friend! Since yesterday you have become able to speak German, eh? Prodigious!”

      Norgate smiled without embarrassment. The moment was a critical one, portentous to an extent which no one at that table could possibly have realised.

      “I am afraid,” he confessed, “that when I found that I had a fellow traveller in my coupe I felt most ungracious and unsociable. I was in a thoroughly bad temper and indisposed for conversation. The simplest way to escape from it seemed to be to plead ignorance of any language save my own.”

      Selingman chuckled audibly. The cloud had passed from his face. To all appearance that momentary suspicion had been strangled.

      “So you found me a bore!” he observed. “Then I must admit that your manners were good, for when you found that I spoke English and that you could not escape conversation, you allowed me to talk on about my business, and you showed few signs of weariness. You should be a diplomatist, Mr. Norgate.”

      “Mr. Norgate is, or rather he was,” Mrs. Paston Benedek remarked. “He has just left the Embassy at Berlin.”

      Selingman leaned back in his chair and thrust both hands into his trousers pockets. He indulged in a few German expletives, bombastic and thunderous, which relieved him so much that he was able to conclude his speech in English.

      “I am the densest blockhead in all Europe!” he announced emphatically. “If I had realised your identity, I would willingly have left you alone. No wonder you were feeling indisposed for idle conversation! Mr. Francis Norgate, eh? A little affair at the Cafe de Berlin with a lady and a hot-headed young princeling. Well, well! Young sir, you have become more to me than an ordinary acquaintance. If I had known the cause of your ill-humour, I would certainly have left you alone, but I would have shaken you first by the hand.”

      The fourth at the table, who was an elderly lady of somewhat austere appearance, produced a small black cigar from what seemed to be a harmless-looking reticule which she was carrying, and lit it. Selingman stared at her with his mouth open.

      “Is this a bridge-table or is it not?” she enquired severely. “These little personal reminiscences are very interesting among yourselves, I dare say, but I cut in here with the idea of playing bridge.”

      Selingman was the first to recover his manners, although his eyes seemed still fascinated by the cigar.

      “We owe you apologies, madam,” he acknowledged. “Permit me to cut.”

      The rubber progressed and finished in comparative silence. At its conclusion, Selingman glanced at the clock. It was half-past seven.

      “I am hungry,” he announced.

      Mrs. Benedek laughed at him. “Hungry at half-past seven! Barbarian!”

      “I lunched at half-past twelve,” he protested. “I ate less than usual, too. I did not even leave my office, I was so anxious to finish what was necessary and to find myself here.”

      Mrs. Benedek played with the cards a moment and then rose to her feet with a little grimace.

      “Well, I suppose I shall have to give in,” she sighed. “I am taking it for granted, you see, that you are expecting me to dine with you.”

      “My dear lady,” Selingman declared emphatically, “if you were to break through our time-honoured custom and deny me the joy of your company on my first evening in London, I think that I should send another to look after my business in this country, and retire myself to the seclusion of my little country home near Potsdam. The inducements of managing one’s own affairs in this country, Mr. Norgate,” he added, “are, as you may imagine, manifold and magnetic.”

      “We will not grudge them to you so long as you don’t come too often,” Norgate remarked, as he bade them good night. “The man who monopolised Mrs. Benedek would soon make himself unpopular here.”

      CHAPTER IX

       Table of Contents

      Norgate had chosen, for many reasons, to return to London as a visitor. His somewhat luxurious rooms in Albemarle Street were still locked up. He had taken a small flat in the Milan Court, solely for the purpose of avoiding immediate association with his friends and relatives. His whole outlook upon life was confused and disturbed. Until he received a definite pronouncement from the head-quarters of officialdom, he felt himself unable to settle down to any of the ordinary functions of life. And behind all this, another and a more powerful sentiment possessed him. He had left Berlin without seeing or hearing anything further from Anna von Haase. No word had come from her, nor any message. And now that it was too late, he began to feel that he had made a mistake. It seemed to him that he had visited upon her, in some indirect way, the misfortune which had befallen him. It was scarcely her fault that she had been the object of attentions which nearly every one agreed were unwelcome, from this young princeling. Norgate told himself, as he changed his clothes that evening, that his behaviour had been the behaviour of a jealous school-boy. Then an inspiration seized him. Half dressed as he was, he sat down at the writing-table and wrote to her. He wrote rapidly, and when he had finished, he sealed and addressed the envelope without glancing once more at its contents. The letter was stamped and posted within a few minutes, but somehow or other it seemed to have made a difference. His depression was no longer so complete. He looked forward to his lonely dinner, at one of the smaller clubs to which he belonged, with less aversion.

      “Do you know where any of my people are. Hardy?” he asked his servant.

      “In Scotland, I believe, sir,” the man replied. “I called round this afternoon, although I was careful not to mention the fact that you were in town. The house is practically in the hands of caretakers.”

      “Try to keep out of the way as much as you can. Hardy,” Norgate enjoined. “For a few days, at any rate, I should like no one to know that I am in town.”

      “Very good, sir,” the man replied. “Might I venture to enquire, sir, if you are likely to be returning to Berlin?”

      “I think it is very doubtful, Hardy,” Norgate observed grimly. “We are more likely to remain here for a time.”

      Hardy brushed his master’s hat for a moment or two in silence.

      “You will pardon my mentioning it, sir,” he said—“I imagine it is of no importance—but one of the German waiters on this floor has been going out of his way to enter into conversation with me this evening. He seemed to know your name and to know that you had just come from Germany. He hinted at some slight trouble there, sir.”

      “The dickens he did!” Norgate exclaimed. “That’s rather quick work, Hardy.”

      “So I thought, sir,” the man continued. “A very inquisitive individual indeed I found him. He wanted to know whether you had had any news yet as to any further appointment. He seemed to know quite well that you had been at the Foreign Office this morning.”

      “What did you tell him?”

      “I told him that I knew nothing, sir. I explained that you had not been back to lunch, and that I had not seen you since the morning. He tried to make an appointment with me to give me some dinner and take me to a music-hall to-night.”

      “What did you say to that?” Norgate enquired.

      “I left the matter open, sir,” the man replied. “I thought I would enquire what your wishes might be? The person evidently desires to gain some information about your movements. I thought that possibly it might be advantageous for me to tell him just what you desired.”

      Norgate lit a cigarette. For the moment