‘I have always realized that, Sir Richard.’
‘And yet you dine with the first stranger who invites you! Are you certain that he had no ulterior motive? A man of that type is much more subtle than you realize. Confidential information could have been got with a few apparently innocent questions. Do you realize that Scotland Yard’s plans will be completely upset if anything leaks out about the theft of these Lord John documents from this room two nights ago?’
‘Mr. Gilmour,’ she replied, ‘would never dream of questioning me about my work here—or anything connected with it.’
‘You try to defend him?’ said Templeton dryly. ‘Is a man who invites strange girls to dine with him—is he the type to be trusted? You told Inspector Tripp that this fellow Gilmour walked into your room two days ago by chance. By chance! Have you any proof that he didn’t make your acquaintance deliberately? Have you any proof that he isn’t here to—to spy?’
A flush rose to Elizabeth’s cheek, and she bit her lips.
‘I’m sure you are wrong, Sir Richard.’
‘Sure? Of course you are!’ he said, with the suspicion of a sneer. ‘I’d be surprised if you weren’t. This fellow Gilmour had made himself extremely pleasant to you. No doubt he is a charming fellow—but possibly all the more dangerous.’
There was a pause. ‘I’ve told him not to see me again,’ Elizabeth said in a low voice.
‘I hope he obeys—for his own sake. We will let it rest at that, meantime.’
Sir Richard Templeton rose and walked slowly towards the fire-place. When he returned to the desk his mobile face had a different expression, and his voice had fallen to a softer key.
‘How is your mother, Elizabeth?’
‘Not so well to-day.’
He pursed his lips. ‘Suppose I call this evening, do you think——’
Elizabeth Marlowe shook her head. ‘Mother would rather not see you, Sir Richard. I know it would only distress her. But perhaps there’s some message I can take?’
He nodded eagerly. ‘I want her to leave London. I know how ill she is—I know what the doctors at the clinic think. She must have a change of air. Won’t she go into the country for a few months? You can live here in the hotel. I’ve already told her I am willing to raise your wages—you’ll have ample to keep her in comfort.’
Elizabeth drew back. ‘It’s impossible, Sir Richard. Mother would never agree. She would rather die than accept anything——’ She faltered at the words.
‘From me?’ he asked.
She nodded, and he dropped into a chair with a helpless gesture.
‘I think I understand, Elizabeth.’
His elbows were on his desk, and the grey head was clasped between his hands. He sat thus for several minutes before he looked up. And again there was one of these quick changes in his expression.
‘Tell me about your father, Elizabeth. He is in London—or so I understand your mother to say.’
Elizabeth moistened her lips.
‘I would rather not speak about my father,’ she replied slowly. And then an idea seemed to strike her.
She took a quick step forward and put her hand on his desk.
‘Sir Richard! Please tell me this: Did you ever meet my father? Have you ever seen him?’
Templeton looked at her sharply. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Please—please answer me, Sir Richard!’
He stared at her out of calculating eyes, then gave a slight shrug.
‘I’ve never seen Henry Marlowe in my life!’
He could not catch the look on her face; for with a quick movement she had turned and hurried from the room.
The door shut behind her. Sir Richard Templeton rose to his feet. He was on the point of recalling her when he hesitated and stood motionless, staring with a puzzled frown at the closed door.
CHAPTER XVII
AT THE RIVERSIDE
Eight o’clock that evening saw Alan Gilmour making his way through a maze of dark, narrow streets and alleys on the south side of the river.
He did not ask the way, in case his questions might excite curiosity; and in order still further to appear inconspicuous, he was dressed in an old tweed suit and cloth cap.
At last he reached a dimly-lit street with cobble-stones which he recognized as Thames Wall. Between high warehouses, he got a glimpse of the river with its many flickering lights. Realizing that in his blind search he had come too far, he turned westward again and walked for nearly a quarter of a mile, passing behind wharves and rows of mean, squalid houses before he reached his destination.
Here was the place where he had delivered the letter for Elizabeth Marlowe the previous night. Pausing in a doorway across the street, he ran his eye over Mr. Young’s property, and shivered. On a second inspection, ‘The Green Lantern’ had even a more gloomy and sinister air than he had previously realized. On the ground floor, at the eastern end, the public-house seemed to be in full swing. The double doors at the corner stood open; and among the fumes of tobacco-smoke Alan could see the figures of dock-labourers round the counters and benches. Down the side-alley was a door with a lamp over it—the entrance to the inn above—as inhospitable-looking a place to lodge in as it was possible to imagine. As he glanced at the dismal windows, only two or three of them lighted, he could not help wondering what type of person put up at such a place. Sailors from the Surrey Commercial Docks, junior officers from foreign ships, and a scattering of undesirables: such no doubt was the clientèle.
Pulling down his cap over his eyes, Alan strolled across the street, entered the bar, and sat down in a corner with a small tankard of ale. He looked about him with interest, from the sawdust on the floor and the curious trophies and carved wooden ornaments on the walls, to the long row of tables that stretched down the room, separated by high-backed benches. Alan was surprised at the strange mingling of types gathered here—a knot of Lascars aping the manner of the West; a group of artisans in another corner; some Scandinavian sailors with fair skin and sea-blue eyes; one or two Chinamen who smoked thin cigarettes with quick, jerky movements; several workmen, possibly carpenters from the small boat-building yard down the street; and, for the rest, there were bargemen and watermen and lightermen, with a sprinkling of loafers and ne’er-do-wells with evil brown faces.
As Alan’s eye went leisurely over them, he detected a sudden movement. It seemed to run through the place like a breath of wind through long grass. Heads were turned, looks and nods exchanged, and then he saw that the focus of interest was the doorway behind the big half-moon-shaped bar in the centre. In this doorway stood a man, half-European and half-Asiatic, and he was one of those in the upper room when Alan had called to deliver Elizabeth’s letter the night before.
‘There’s Tom Young,’ Alan overheard a sailor whisper, and there was fear as well as hatred in the voice. ‘Not often he shows his ugly yeller phiz in here.’
The Eurasian’s narrow eyes were looking quickly round the bar; and, moving along the bench, Alan slipped out unobtrusively into the street. As far as he could see, there was little to be learned there. The place appeared to be conducted like any other riverside tavern. But what about the other side of the building, where Tom Young himself lived? Alan wished he could have met this strange man again—this publican who secretly associated with people of social standing like Mrs. Lydia Prideaux of Carbery Square. The more he thought of the queer group he had seen gathered in that upper room the more puzzled he became. And how did it happen that Elizabeth Marlowe was in communication with one of them?
Passing the grimy hotel entrance, Alan went down the steep alley towards the river. A flight of steps took him to the waterside. The building above him seemed to rise sheer from the wall of the embankment; and running out from it, forty or fifty feet into the river, there was the black heavy outline of a pier. In a past century no doubt this had been the private landing-stage of the wealthy merchant who, preferring to live on the south side of the river, had here built his mansion.