The Tigress

"Yes, I know. He attacked his valet for following him and daring to interfere."

"He has been very quiet in the tiger-house – except for that mumbling talk of his to the tigress. But that attracts attention – collects a crowd, you know – and they have to ask him to move on."

"And does he?"

"Oh, yes! Very peaceably. But he's back again in a little while, and then the same thing has to be repeated."

"Poor Hal!" sighed Nina, her locked hands tightly gripped.

"They hope he has gone away to stay, one of the guards told me. Ever since the row outside, they fear he may indulge in some outbreak in the grounds. There is talk of refusing him admission."

"If they only would," she said. And then, abruptly: "But you haven't told me of Mr. Widdicombe. Did you see him?"

Gerald smiled. "Yes, oh yes," he answered. "I saw him. But you were right. He wouldn't talk. He wouldn't open his mouth."

"He just sat dumb?"

"He turned to his desk and touched a bell. A clerk came and – that was all."

"You told him that I wished to know?" There was something imperious in her emphasis.

"I did – yes." And again he questioned why that should bear any weight. Although he did not voice it, she read it in his look.

"I'm his near kin, you know," she explained. "We are cousins."

"I understand," he told her, but he thought the explanation far short of adequate.

She got up and crossed the room, and from a drawer in an escritoire took out a small photograph, which she passed to Andrews.

"That was taken in 1900," she said.

It was easy to recognize her in the slender, tallish girl, with masses of fair hair, and clad in the simplest of white frocks. But he would never have known the slim young man with the waxed mustache for Lord Kneedrock, had she not told him. He wore outing flannels and a blazer of wide stripes, and his arm was about her youthful shoulders.

"It was taken at Henley," she said, "just for a lark. Look at the back."

He turned it over and found written there in pencil: "'Arry and his 'Arriet," in a man's hand.

"Hal used always to call me Harriet," she explained, and in spite of her, her voice shook.

He looked at her sharply as he handed it back, remembering just then a certain night in Simla when she told him that she had met her match and her mate in one.

"Does Widdicombe know about this?" he asked.

"I very much doubt that there is anything in Lord Kneedrock's life which Mr. Widdicombe doesn't know," was her answer.

She returned to her chair, but Gerald Andrews remained standing. "Is there anything else I can do?" he inquired. "If not, I'll – "

"You can stay for luncheon," she interrupted.

He thanked her, but declined.

"I've a little business to look after while I'm up," he added, "and I should be back in Bath to-night."

"You've been so good," she said, giving him her hand. "I shall miss you awfully. You'll be up again soon, won't you, Gerald?"

The door-bell echoed, and at the same instant Tara lifted his head and growled. Neither seemed to notice.

The man drew her closer and placed his disengaged hand on her shoulder.

"I'd give the world, Nina," he said, "to make this thing lighter for you. If I could only help in some real way!"

"You do; you do," she assured him. "Your sympathy is everything to me."

There was a step in the passage, but neither heard it. For it was at that moment that he caught her almost roughly in his arms and crushed her close to him.

And then the door opened, and Kneedrock was gazing at them from the threshold.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Incarnate or Reincarnate

Nina saw him first; for she was facing that way. Most women would have screamed; she only became rigid. It was the situation in the Umballa bungalow over again – save that there was no pistol at hand, and Andrews knew now that the cobra was made of bronze.

Nina became rigid; Gerald sensed the unexpected. He looked over his shoulder and caught the glare of Kneedrock's eyes piercing the gloomy half-light.

They weren't sane eyes. He saw that at once. And a creepy shiver ran along his spine.

Nina's rigidity gave way to trembling, and all in the brief space of two seconds at the most – two seconds that were as taut as a fiddle-string.

Then the staghound sprang up, snarling, his fangs bared, and the hair along his back bristling. But he didn't spring. He pressed close against Nina's legs and cowered as though he had seen a ghost.

And then Kneedrock laughed. It was the very last thing that they expected, and the strain tightened to the point of snapping.

Because of everything – the whole wretched ensemble – the laugh seemed wilder, madder, weirder, possibly, than it was. It broke off in a sort of choking gurgle, and in a flash the laugher had wheeled about and was swallowed up in the murk of the passage.

This only, probably, could have aroused Nina to action. Swiftly as light itself she sped after him with an imploring cry of:

"Hal! Hal!"

Andrews, too, pulled himself together – shook himself free, as it were, of the dread, deathlike inertia that had held him passive and followed to the room door. And there Nina's voice came back to him from the lighted entrance-hall.

"You mustn't go! You must not! I want to see you. I want to make it all clear."

"It's clear enough as it is," he heard Kneedrock say. "Infernally clear, and – funny. You'd try to take the fun out of it. I know what you'd do. I always know what you'd do. You've never fooled me yet. That's because I never let you shut my eyes with your kisses – because I'm strong enough to keep you out of my arms."

There was silence for the briefest moment, and it was Kneedrock's voice that resumed: "Keep your hands off me. Good Lord, if there's one thing I fear it's your velvet paws! I've seen the sharp claws too often. For God's sake, Nina, keep them off, I say!"

"You'll come back?" she pleaded.