If Sinners Entice Thee

“Will you allow me to pay my attentions to her?”

“If you are together I cannot prevent it, Zertho. But, candidly speaking, you are not the man I would choose as husband for my daughter.”

“I know I’m not, old fellow,” the other said, shrugging his shoulders slightly. “And you’re not exactly the man that, in ordinary circumstances, I’d choose as my father-in-law. But I have money, and if the man’s a bit decent-looking, and sound of wind and limb, it’s about all a woman wants nowadays.”

“Ah! I don’t think you yet understand Liane. She’s not eager for money and position, like most girls.”

“Well, let me have a fair innings, Brooker, and she’ll consent to become Princess d’Auzac, I feel convinced. You fancy I only admire her; but I swear it’s a bit more than mere admiration. For Heaven’s sake take her out of that dismal hole where you are living, and make her break it all off with Stratfield’s son. She must do that at once. Take her to the seaside – to Paris – anywhere, for a month or two until we can all meet in the South.”

Brooker, leaning against the mantelshelf, slowly flicked the ash from his cigar, meditated deeply for a few moments, then asked —

“Why do you wish to take me back to the old spot?”

“Because only there can you pick up a living. The police have nothing against either of us, so what have we to fear?”

“Recognition by one or other of our dupes. Play wasn’t all straight, you’ll remember.”

“Bah!” cried Zertho with impatience. “What’s the use of meeting trouble half-way? You never used to have a thought for the morrow in the old days. But, there, you’re respectable now,” he added, with a slight sneer.

“If I go South I shall not play,” Brooker said, decisively. “I’ve given it up.”

“Because you’ve had a long run of ill-luck – eh?” the other laughed. “Surely this is the first time you’ve adopted such a course. I might have been in the same unenviable plight as yourself by now if my respected parent had not taken it into his head to drop out of this sick hurry of life just at a moment when my funds were exhausted. One day I was an adventurer with a light heart and much lighter pocket, and on the next wealthy beyond my wildest expectations. Such is one’s fortune. Even your bad luck may have changed during these months.”

“I think not,” Brooker answered gravely.

“Well, you shall have a thousand on loan to venture again,” his old partner said good-naturedly.

“I appreciate your kindness, Zertho,” he answered, in a low tone, smiling sadly, “but my days are over. I’ve lost, and gone under.”

The prince glanced at him for an instant. There was a strange glint in his dark eyes.

“As you wish,” he answered, then walking to a small rosewood escritoire which stood in the window, he sat down and scribbled a cheque, payable to his friend for five hundred pounds. Brooker, still smoking, watched him in silence, unaware of his intention. Slowly the prince blotted it, folded it, and placing it in an envelope, returned to where his visitor was standing.

“I asked you to take Liane from all the painful memories of Stratfield Mortimer. Do so for her sake, and accept this as some slight contribution towards the expense. Only don’t let her know that it comes from me.”

Brooker took the envelope mechanically, regarding his friend steadily, with fixed gaze. At first there was indecision in his countenance, but next instant his face went white with fierce anger and resentment. His hand closed convulsively upon the envelope, crushing it into a shapeless mass, and with a fierce imprecation he cast it from him upon the floor.

“No, I’ll never touch your money!” he cried, with a gesture, as if shrinking from its contact. “You fear lest Liane should know that you are attempting to buy her just as you would some chattel or other which, for the moment, takes your fancy. But she shall know; and she shall never be your wife.”

“Very well,” answered Zertho, with a contemptuous smile, facing the Captain quickly. “Act as you please, but I tell you plainly, once and for all, that Liane will many me.”

“She shall not.”

“She shall!” declared the other, determinedly, looking into his face intently, his black eyes flashing. “And you will use that cheque for her benefit, and in the manner I direct, without telling her anything. You will also bring her to Nice, and stand aside that I may win her, and – ”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort. I’d rather see her dead.”

Zertho’s fingers twitched, as was his habit when excited. Upon his dark sallow face was an expression of cruel, relentless revenge; an evil look which his companion had only seen once before.

“Listen, Brooker,” he exclaimed in a low, harsh tone, as advancing close to him he bent and uttered some rapid words in his ear, so low that none might hear them save himself.

“Good God! Zertho!” cried the unhappy man, turning white to the lips, and glaring at him. “Surely you don’t intend to give me away?” he gasped, in a hoarse, terrified whisper.

“I do,” was the firm reply. “My silence is only in exchange for your assistance. Now you thoroughly understand.”

“Then you want Liane, my child, as the price of my secret! My God!” he groaned, in a husky, broken voice, sinking back into his chair in an attitude of abject dejection, covering his blanched, haggard face with trembling hands.

Chapter Seven

The Missing Mariette

In London the January afternoon was wet and cheerless. Alone in his dingy chambers on the third floor of an ancient smoke-begrimed house in Clifford’s Inn, one of the old bits of New Babylon now sadly fallen from its once distinguished estate, George Stratfield sat gazing moodily into the fire. In his hand was a letter he had just received from Liane; a strange letter which caused him to ponder deeply, and vaguely wonder, whether after all he had not acted unwisely in sacrificing his fortune for her sake.

She had been nearly three months abroad, and although she had written weekly there was an increasing coldness about her letters which sorely puzzled him. Twice only had they met since he left the Court – on the two evenings she and her father had spent in London on their way to the Continent. He often looked back upon those hours, remembering every tender word she had uttered, and recalling the unmistakable light of love that lit up her face when he was nigh. Yet since she had been en séjour on the Riviera her letters were no longer long and gossipy, but brief, hurriedly-written scribbles which bore evidence that she wrote more for the fulfilment of her promise than from a desire to tell of her daily doings, as lovers will.

A dozen times he had read and re-read the letter, then lifting his eyes from it his gaze wandered around the shabby room with its ragged leather chairs, its carpet so faded that the original pattern had been lost, its two well-filled bookcases which had stood there and been used by various tenants for close upon a century, its panelled walls painted a dull drab, and its deep-set windows grimy with the soot of London. The two rooms which comprised this bachelor abode were decidedly depressing even on the brightest day, for the view from the windows was upon a small paved court, beyond which stood the small ancient Hall, the same in which Sir Matthew Hale and the seventeen judges sat after the Great Fire in 1666, to adjudicate on the claims of landlords and tenants of burned houses, so as to prevent lawsuits. An ocean of chimneys belched around, while inside the furniture had seen its best days fully twenty years before, and the tablecloth of faded green was full of brown holes burnt by some previous resident who had evidently been a careless cigarette smoker.

George drew his hand wearily across his brow, sighed, replaced the letter slowly in its envelope, examined the post-mark, then placed it in his pocket.

“No,” he said aloud, “I won’t believe it. She said she loved me, and she loves me still.”

And he poked the fire vigorously until it blazed and threw a welcome light over the gloomy, dismal room.

Suddenly a loud rapping sounded on the outer door, and rising unwillingly, expecting it to be one of his many friends of the “briefless brigade,” he went and opened it, confronting to his surprise his father’s solicitor, Harrison.

“Well, George,” exclaimed his visitor, thrusting his wet umbrella into the stand in the tiny cupboard-like space which served as hall, and walking on uninvited into the apartment which served as office and sitting-room. “Alone I see. I’m glad, for I want ten minutes’ chat with you.”

“At your service, Harrison,” Stratfield answered, in expectation of a five-guinea brief. “What is it? Something for opinion?”

“Yes,” answered the elder man, taking a chair. “It is for opinion, but it concerns yourself.”

George flung himself into the armchair from which he had just risen, placed his feet upon the fender and his hands at the back of his head, as was his habit when desiring to listen attentively.

“Well,” he said, sighing, “about that absurd provision of the old man’s will, I suppose? I’m comfortable enough, so what’s the use of worrying over it?”

“But it is necessary. You see, I’m bound to try and find this woman,” the other answered, taking from his pocket some blue foolscap whereon were some memoranda. “Besides, the first stage of the inquiry is complete.”

“And what have you discovered?” he asked eagerly. “I placed the matter in the hands of Rutter, the private inquiry agent, whose report I have here,” answered the solicitor. “It states that no such person as Madame Lepage is living at 89 Rue Toullier, Paris, but the concierge remembers that an elderly lady, believed to be a widow, once occupied with her daughter a flat on the fourth floor. The man, however forgets their name, as they only resided there a few months. During that time the daughter, whom he describes as young and of prepossessing appearance, mysteriously disappeared, and although a search was instituted, she was never found. There was no suspicion of suicide or foul play, but the police at the time inclined to the belief that, possessing a voice above the average, she had, like so many other girls who tire of the monotony of home life, forsaken it and obtained an engagement at some obscure café-concert under an assumed name. Rutter, following up this theory, then visited all the impressarios he could find in an endeavour to discover an artist whose real name was Lepage. But from the first this search was foredoomed to failure, for girls who desire to exchange home life for the stage seldom give their impressarios their correct names, hence no such person as Mariette Lepage could be traced.”

“Then, after all, we are as far off discovering who this mysterious woman is as we ever were,” George observed, glancing at his visitor with a half-amused smile.

“Well, not exactly,” the solicitor answered. “Undoubtedly the girl who disappeared from the house in the Rue Toullier was the woman for whom we are searching.”

“The letter found on Nelly Bridson is sufficient proof that she’s still alive,” said the younger man.

“Exactly; and from its tone it would appear that she is in the lower strata of society,” Harrison remarked.

“Whoever she is I shall, I suppose, be required to offer her marriage, even if she’s a hideous old hag! My father was certainly determined that I should be sufficiently punished for my refusal to comply with his desire,” George observed, smiling bitterly.