They were on him like a pack of hungry though dubious wolves. He pushed his glass out of sight, accepted one of the drinks pressed upon him, and leaned nonchalantly against the counter.
“What should you say,” he began, “to Miss Katharine Beverley, the New York society young lady—”
“Sister Katharine of St. Agnes’s?” one of them interrupted.
“Daughter of old Joe Beverley, the multi-millionaire?” another exclaimed.
“Both right,” Jocelyn Thew acquiesced. “What should you say to that young woman leaving her hospital and her house in Riverside Drive, breaking all her engagements at less than twenty-four hours’ notice, to take a sick Englishman whom no one knows anything about, back to Liverpool on the City of Boston to-morrow?”
“The story’s good enough,” a ferret-faced little man at his elbow acknowledged, “but is it true?”
Jocelyn Thew regarded his questioner with an air of pained surprise.
“It’s Gospel,” he assured them all, “but you don’t need to take my word. You go right along up and enquire at the Beverley house to-night, and you’ll find that she is packing. Made up her mind just an hour ago. I’m about the only one in the know.”
“Who’s the man, anyway?” one of the little group asked.
“Nothing doing,” Jocelyn Thew replied mysteriously. “You’ve got to find that out for yourself, boys. All I can tell you is that he’s an Englishman, and she has known him for a long time — kind of love stunt, I imagine. She wasn’t having any, but now he’s at death’s door she seems to have relented. Anyway, she is breaking every engagement she’s got, giving up her chairmanship of the War Hospitals Committee, and she isn’t going to leave him while he’s alive. There’s no other nurse going, so it’ll be a night and day job for her.”
“What’s the matter with the chap, anyway?” another questioner demanded.
“No one knows for sure,” was the cautious reply. “He’s been operated upon for appendicitis, but I fancy there are complications. Not much chance for him, from what I have heard.”
The little crowd of men melted away. Jocelyn Thew smiled to himself on his way out, as he watched four of them climb into a taxicab.
“That establishes Phillips all right as Miss Beverley’s protégé,” he murmured, as he turned into Fifth Avenue. “And now—”
He stopped short in his reflections. His careful scrutiny of the heterogeneous crowd gathered together around the bar had revealed to him no unfamiliar type save the little man who at that moment was ambling along on the other side of the way. Jocelyn Thew slackened his pace somewhat and watched him keenly. He was short, he wore a cheap ready-made suit of some plain material, and a straw hat tilted on the back of his head. He had round cheeks, he shambled rather than walked, and his vacuous countenance seemed both good-natured and unintelligent. To all appearances a more harmless person never breathed, yet Jocelyn Thew, as he studied him earnestly, felt that slight tightening of the nerves which came to him almost instinctively in moments of danger. He changed his purpose and turned down Fifth Avenue instead of up. The little man, it appeared, had business in the same direction. Jocelyn Thew walked the length of several blocks in leisurely fashion and then entered an hotel, studiously avoiding looking behind him. He made his way into a telephone booth and looked through the glass door. His follower in a few moments was visible, making apparently some aimless enquiry across the counter. Jocelyn Thew turned his back upon him and asked the operator for a number.
“Number 238 Park waiting,” the latter announced, a few moments later.
Jocelyn Thew reentered the box and took up the receiver.
“That you, Rentoul?” he asked.
“Speaking,” was the guarded reply. “Who is it?”
“Jocelyn Thew. Say, what’s wrong with you? Don’t go away.”
“What is it? Speak quickly, please.”
“You seem rather nervy up there. I’m off to Europe to-morrow on the City of Boston, and I should like to see you before I go.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Why don’t you come up here, then?”
“I’d rather not,” Jocelyn Thew observed laconically. “The fact of it is, I have a friend around who doesn’t seem to care about losing sight of me. If you are going to be anywhere around near Jimmy’s, about seven o’clock—”
“That goes,” was the somewhat agitated reply. “Ring off now. There’s some one else waiting to speak.”
Jocelyn Thew paid for his telephone call and walked leisurely out of the hotel with a smile upon his lips. The stimulus of danger was like wine to him. The little man was choosing a cigar at the stall. As he leaned down to light it, Jocelyn Thew’s practiced eye caught the shape of a revolver in his hip pocket.
“English,” he murmured softly to himself. “Probably one of Crawshay’s lot, preparing a report for him when he returns from Chicago.”
With an anticipatory smile, he entered upon the task of shaking off his unwelcome follower. He passed with the confident air of a member into a big club situated in an adjoining block, left it almost at once by a side entrance, found a taxicab, drove to a subway station up-town, and finally caught an express back again to Fourteenth Street. Here he entered without hesitation a small, foreign-looking restaurant which intruded upon the pavement only a few yards from the iron staircase by which he descended from the station. There were two faded evergreen shrubs in cracked pots at the bottom of the steps, soiled muslin curtains drawn across the lower half of the windows, dejected-looking green shutters which, had the appearance of being permanently nailed against the walls, and a general air of foreign and tawdry profligacy. Jocelyn Thew stepped into a room on the right-hand side of the entrance and, making his way to the window, glanced cautiously out. There was no sign anywhere of the little man. Then he turned towards the bar, around which a motley group of Italians and Hungarians were gathered. The linen-clad negro who presided there met his questioning glance with a slight nod, and the visitor passed without hesitation through a curtained opening to the rear of the place, along a passage, up a flight of narrow stairs until he arrived at a door on the first landing. He knocked and was at once bidden to enter. For a moment he listened as though to the sounds below. Then he slipped into the room and closed the door behind him.
The apartment was everything which might have been expected, save for the profusion of flowers. The girl who greeted him, however, was different. She was of medium height and dark, with dark brown hair plaited close back from an almost ivory-coloured forehead. Her grey eyes were soft and framed in dark lines. Her eyebrows were noticeable, her mouth full but shapely. Her discontented expression changed entirely as she held out both her hands to her visitor. Her welcome was eager, almost passionate.
“Mr. Thew!” she exclaimed.
He held up his hand as though to check further speech, and listened for a moment intently.
“How are things here?” he asked.
“Quiet,” she assured him. “You couldn’t have come at a better time. Every one’s away. Is there anything wrong?”
“I am being followed,” he told her, “and I don’t like it — just now, at any rate.”
“Any one else coming?” she enquired.
“Rentoul,” he told her. “He is in a mortal fright at having to come. They found his wireless, and they are watching his house. I must see him, though, before I go away.”
“Going away?” she echoed. “When? When are you going?”
“To-morrow,” he replied, “I sail for London.”
She seemed for a moment absolutely speechless, consumed by a sort of silent passion that found no outlet in words. She gripped a fancy mat which covered an ornate table by her side, and dragged a begilded vase on to the floor without even noticing it. She leaned towards him. The little lines at the sides of her eyes were suddenly deep-riven like scars. Her eyes themselves were smouldering with fire.