He was sipping gin-and-bitters at a table in the tiny foyer when she arrived. At the sight of her he caught his breath, for she was radiant, in clothes of perfect simplicity and impeccable taste.
‘It’s good of you to come!’
‘Did you think I might change my mind?’ she asked with a smile.
‘I could scarcely have blamed you if you had! After all, you know nothing about me.’
‘Nor you—of me,’ she reminded him.
‘Perhaps that’s what I like about it,’ said Alan with a laugh, and then pulled himself up. ‘No, I don’t mean that. I’m—I’m enormously grateful to you for coming. If you hadn’t, I’d have been abjectly miserable. You’ve cheered me up no end. I’ll admit it’s unconventional——’
‘Dreadfully,’ she agreed. ‘Does it matter?’
‘Anyhow, it’s too late to worry about it. A man I met on the boat wanted me to spend this evening with him, and paint the town red. You’re saving me from that, like a good angel.’
‘Somehow or other,’ she remarked, her head a little on one side, ‘I don’t think you’re a painter of things red—not very red.’
‘We won’t argue about it. Cocktail?’
In a secluded corner he had selected a table where the lights were dim; and while he listened to her quiet laughter he felt certain that whatever had been disturbing her in the afternoon, it was now past and done with.
But he noticed, while dinner proceeded, that she was becoming more and more silent. He was talking about the East, and now and then she seemed to be listening to him with an effort. By the time the dessert was served he realized that the gaiety with which she had started the meal had been forced. The same look of apprehension that he had noticed at the Marquise Hotel had crept back into her brown eyes, and he saw her glancing nervously towards the door of the restaurant. Undoubtedly, he decided, there was still something preying on her mind.
‘Look here, Miss Marlowe,’ he said quietly, ‘you’re worrying about something or other. Is there nothing I can do——’
Her glance fell. ‘Please forgive me. I feel hateful, spoiling your evening——’
‘Nothing of the kind,’ he assured her. ‘But when you said you’d come out with me to-night I had a sort of idea you meant to take me into your confidence . . . and ask me to help you. I’d be awfully glad——’
If she had any such intention, he saw that she had certainly changed her mind in the interval. ‘Please—please let’s forget about it!’ . . .
To pursue the matter further, he felt, would be indelicate. For the remainder of the meal, and during the intervals at the play, he did his best to make her forget her depression. Afterwards, on the steps of the theatre, she held out her hand, and to his surprise began to say good night.
‘Aren’t you coming back to the hotel?’ he asked, and then he realized how little she had told him about herself, for he didn’t even know where she lived. ‘You stay at the Marquise?’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve got a little flat near Euston—in Somers Town.’
‘Jump in, then,’ he said cheerfully, indicating the door of a taxi-cab which an attendant held open. ‘I’m driving you home.’ He would take no refusal, and was stepping in beside her when a man on the theatre steps called out something to a friend. Gilmour did not catch the actual words, but he noticed that they were taken up and passed on excitedly among little groups of people around the doors. In the distance, he could hear a newspaper-seller shouting a special edition.
‘What’s up?’ he asked somebody on the pavement, then got in beside Elizabeth Marlowe, and their taxi-cab moved off.
‘It’s Lord John again,’ he explained to her. ‘He’s the man the police have been——’
‘What’s happened?’ she asked quickly.
‘They’ve got him!’
‘Not——’
‘Yes—arrested.’
As he spoke, she seemed to catch her breath in a little gasp. They were passing another theatre, and the lights from the vestibule shone into her corner of the cab. She turned away, but not before he had seen something in her face that sent an uncomfortable tingle down his spine.
‘I say, is anything wrong? ’he inquired. But she brushed aside his question and began to talk quickly and nervously about the play they had just seen. When the taxi-cab drew up opposite St. Pancras Church, and the driver asked for further directions, she jumped out lightly to the pavement.
‘I’ll walk the rest of the way,’ she insisted; ‘it’s only a few minutes farther.’ Her fingers touched Gilmour’s in a quick gesture. ‘Good-night, and thank you—thank you!’ . . .
‘Why walk,’ he cried, ‘if it’s only a few minutes?’ But with a wave of her hand Elizabeth Marlowe was gone. At the kerb he watched her crossing Euston Road. It was absurd that she should go like this, he decided, and he followed his natural impulse, pushing some small silver into the taxi-driver’s hand, and hurrying in the direction she had taken. Gilmour was afraid at first that he had missed her, but presently caught sight of her ahead as she passed a lamp-post. Breaking into a run, he overtook her as she was turning the corner into a narrow side-street.
‘You might at least let a man see you safely home,’ he expostulated.
‘It’s good of you, of course—but, you see, I’m almost there.’ She stopped at an opening on the right. ‘And now won’t you go back?’
‘Why should I?’
Elizabeth Marlowe hesitated. ‘It isn’t a very pleasant part of the world, just here,’ she said quietly.
Even in the semi-darkness he could see the dismal poverty of the street, and his heart went out to her in sudden pity. ‘You live hereabouts?’
‘Yes.’
There was an awkward pause. He realized now why she had not wished him to accompany her. When he thought of the Marquise Hotel, where she passed her working hours, the contrast struck him like a blow, but it also puzzled him.
‘Come on,’ he said gently; ‘I’m going to see you home.’
Presently she stopped at a street-door which was open. It took some time to negotiate the three flights of stairs, for Gilmour had to use matches to see the way. Her hand rested in his for a moment, and he was conscious of the delicate fragrance that seemed to hover about her in the darkness; then the door closed gently behind her.
As he felt his way down the uneven stairs the picture that remained most sharply in his mind was his momentary glimpse of her white, terrified face in the taxi-cab. There was nothing that could explain it, except the news he had passed on to her—the news of a certain man’s arrest. Admittedly, Lord John was no ordinary criminal; it seemed that even his real identity was a mystery, and judging from the amount of space given to him in that day’s newspapers, public interest in him was at boiling-point. But why the news of his arrest should have so powerfully disturbed Elizabeth Marlowe was more than Gilmour could understand.
He was descending the last flight of stairs, and was about to scratch another match, when he heard somebody enter the passage from the street. He stopped, and the footsteps stopped also; then somebody, hurrying upwards, brushed past him. Igniting the match, Alan Gilmour held it high, and, glancing back over his shoulder, got a quick impression of a face in profile on the landing above.