The de Bercy Affair

"Are you in earnest?" he said, when he felt that his voice might be trusted.

"Dead in earnest, Mr. Osborne," came the quiet answer.

"You even advise me to adopt an alias?"

"Call it a nom de voyage," said Winter.

"I shall be horribly lonely. May I not take my valet?"

"Take no one. I suppose you can leave some person in charge of your affairs?"

"I have a secretary. But she and my servants will think my conduct very strange."

"I shall call here to-morrow and tell your secretary you have left London for a few days at my request. What is her name?"

"Prout – Miss Hylda Prout. She comes here at 11 a.m. and again at 3 p.m."

"I see. Then I may regard that matter as settled?"

Again there was silence for a time. Oddly enough, Rupert was conscious of a distinct feeling of relief.

"Very well," he said at last. "I shall obey you to the letter."

"Thank you. I am sure you are acting for the best."

Winter, whose eyes had noted every detail of the room while Rupert's back was turned, rose as if his mission were accomplished.

"Won't you have another cigar?" said Rupert.

"Well, yes. It is a sin to smoke these cigars so early in the day – "

"Let me send you a hundred."

"Oh, no. I am very much obliged, but – "

"Please allow me to do this. Don't you see? – if I tell Jenkins, in your presence, to pack and forward them, it will stifle a good deal of the gossip which must be going on even in my own household."

"Well – from that point of view, Mr. Osborne – "

"Ah, I cannot express my gratitude, but, when all this wretched business is ended, we must meet under happier conditions."

He touched a bell, and Jenkins appeared.

"Send a box of cigars to Chief Inspector Winter, at Scotland Yard, by special messenger," said Rupert, with as careless an air as he could assume.

Jenkins gurgled something that sounded like "Yes, sir," and went out hastily. Rupert spread his hands with a gesture of utmost weariness.

"You are right about the man in the street," he sighed. "Even my own valet feared that you had come to arrest me."

"Ha, ha!" laughed Winter.

But when Jenkins, discreetly cheerful, murmured "Good-day, sir," and the outer door was closed behind him, Winter's strong face wore its prizefighter aspect.

"Clarke would have arrested him," he said to himself. "But that man did not kill Mirabel Armaud. Then who did kill her? I don't know, yet I believe that Furneaux guesses. Who did it? Damme, it beats me, and the greatest puzzle of all is to read the riddle of Furneaux."

CHAPTER IV

THE NEW LIFE

No sooner did Rupert begin to consider ways and means of adopting Winter's suggestion than he encountered difficulties. "Pack a kit-bag, jump into a cab, and bury yourself in some seaside town" might be the best of counsel; but it was administered in tabloid form; when analyzed, the ingredients became formidable. For instance, the Chief Inspector had apparently not allowed for the fact that a man in Osborne's station would certainly carry his name or initials on his clothing, linen, and portmanteaux, and on every article in his dressing-case.

Despite his other troubles – which were real enough to a man who loathed publicity – Rupert found himself smiling in perplexity when he endeavored to plan some means of hoodwinking Jenkins. Moreover, he could not help feeling that his identity would be proclaimed instantly when a sharp-eyed hotel valet or inquisitive chambermaid examined his belongings. He was sure that some of the newspapers would unearth a better portrait of himself than the libelous snapshot reproduced that day, in which event no very acute intelligence would be needed to connect "Osborne" or "R. G. O." with the half-tone picture. Of course, he could buy ready-made apparel, but the notion was displeasing; ultimately, he abandoned the task and summoned Jenkins.

Jenkins was one of those admirable servants – bred to perfection in London only – worthy of a coat of arms with the blazoned motto: "Leave it to me." His sallow, almost ascetic, face brightened under the trust reposed in him.

"It is now half-past ten, sir," he said. "Will it meet your convenience if I have everything ready by two o'clock?"

"I suppose so," said his master ruefully.

"What station shall I bring your luggage to, sir?"

"Oh, any station. Let me see – say Waterloo, main line."

"And you will be absent ten days or thereabouts, sir."

"That is the proposition as it stands now."

"Very well, sir. I shall want some money – not more than twenty pounds – "

Rupert opened a door leading to the library. He rented a two-story maisonette in Mayfair, with the drawing-room, dining-room, library, billiard-room and domestic offices grouped round the hall, while the upper floor was given over to bedrooms and dressing-rooms. His secretary was not arrived as yet; but he had already glanced through a pile of letters with the practiced eye of one who receives daily a large and varied correspondence.

He wrote a check for a hundred pounds, and stuffed the book into a breast pocket.

"There," he said to Jenkins, "cash that, buy what you want, and bring me the balance in five-pound notes."

"Yes, sir, but will you please remember to pack the clothes you are now wearing into a parcel, and post them to me this evening?"

"By gad, Jenkins, I should have forgotten that my name is stitched on to the back of the coat I am wearing. How will you manage about my other things?"

"Rip off the tabs, sir, and get you some new linen, unmarked."

"Good. But I may as well leave my checkbook here."

"No, sir, take it with you. You may want it. If you do, the money will be of more importance than the name."

"Right again, Socrates. I wish I might take you along, too, but our Scotland Yard friend said 'No,' so you must remain and answer callers."

"I have sent away more than a dozen this morning, sir."