CHAPTER XXVI
THE DOCUMENT DISCOVERED
On the following morning, Laverick surprised his office cleaner andone errand-boy by appearing at about a quarter to nine. He founda woman busy brushing out his room and a man Cleaning the windows.They stared at him in amazement. His arrival at such an hour wasabsolutely unprecedented.
"You can leave the office just as it is, if you please," he toldthem. "I have a few things to attend to at once."
He was accordingly left alone. He had reckoned upon this as beingthe one period during the day when he could rely upon not beingdisturbed. Nevertheless, he locked the door so as to be secureagainst any possible intruder. Then he went to his safe, unlockedit, and drew from its secret drawer the worn brown-leatherpocket-book.
First of all he took out the notes and laid them upon the table.Then he felt the pocket-book all over and his heart gave a littleleap. It was true what Mademoiselle Idiale had told him. On oneside there was distinctly a rustling as of paper. He opened thecase quite flat and passed his fingers carefully over the lining.Very soon he found the opening--it was simply a matter of drawingdown the stiff silk lining from underneath the overlapping edge.Thrusting in his fingers, he drew out a long foreign envelope,securely sealed. Scarcely stopping to glance at it, he rearrangedthe pocket-book, replaced the notes, and locked it up again. Thenhe unbolted his door and sat down at his desk, with the documentwhich he had discovered, on the pad in front of him.
There was not much to be made of it. There was no address, but theblack seal at the end bore the impression of a foreign coat of arms,and a motto which to him was indecipherable. He held it up to thelight, but the outside sheet had not been written on, and he gainedno idea as to its contents. He leaned back in his chair for amoment, and looked at it. So this was the document which wouldprobably reveal the secret of the murder in Crooked Friars' Alley!This was the document which Mademoiselle Idiale considered of somuch more importance than the fortune represented by that packet ofbank-notes! What did it all mean? Was this man, who had eitherexpiated a crime or been the victim of a terrible vengeance,--washe a politician, a dealer in trade secrets, a member of a secretsociety, an informer? Or was he one of the underground criminalsof the world, one of those who crawl beneath the surface of knownthings--a creature of the dark places? Perhaps during those fewminutes, when his brain was cool and active, with the great cityawakening all around him, Laverick realized more completely thanever before exactly how he stood. Without doubt he was walking onthe brink of a precipice. Four days ago there had been nothing forhim but ruin. The means of salvation had suddenly presentedthemselves in this startling and dramatic manner, and withouthesitation he had embraced them. What did it all amount to? Howfar was he guilty, and of what? Was he a thief? The law wouldprobably call him so. The law might have even more to say. Itwould say that by keeping his mouth closed as to his adventure onthat night he had ranged himself on the side of the criminals,--hewas guilty not only of technical theft, but of a criminal knowledgeof this terrible crime. Events had followed upon one another sorapidly during these last few days that he had little enough timefor reflection, little time to realize exactly how he stood. Thelong-expected boom in "Unions," the coming of Zoe, the strangeadvances made to him by Mademoiselle Idiale, her incomprehensibleconnection with this tragedy across which he had stumbled, and herapparent knowledge of his share in it,--these things were sufficient,indeed, to give him food for thought. Laverick was not by nature apessimist. Other things being equal, he would have made, withoutdoubt, a magnificent soldier, for he had courage of a rare and highorder. It never occurred to him to sit and brood upon his own danger.He rather welcomed the opportunity of occupying his mind with otherthoughts. Yet in those few minutes, while he waited for the businessof the day to commence, he looked his exact position in the faceand he realized more thoroughly how grave it really was. How was heto find a way out--to set himself right with the law? What couldhe do with those notes? They were there untouched. He had onlymade use of them in an indirect way. They were there intact, ashe had picked them up upon that fateful night. Was there anypossible chance by means of which he might discover the owner andrestore them in such a way that his name might never be mentioned?His eyes repeatedly sought that envelope which lay before him.Inside it must lie the secret of the whole tragedy. Should he riskeverything and break the seal, or should he risk perhaps as muchand tell the whole truth to Mademoiselle Idiale? It was a strangedilemma for a man to find himself in.
Then, as he sat there, the business of the day commenced. A pileof letters was brought in, the telephones in the outer office beganto ring. He thrust the sealed envelope into the breast-pocket ofhis coat and buttoned it up. There, for the present, it must remain.He owed it to himself to devote every energy he possessed to makethe most of this great tide of business. With set face he closedthe doors upon the unreal world, and took hold of the levers whichwere to guide his passage through the one in which he was an actualfigure.
Her visit was not altogether unexpected, and yet, when they told himthat Mademoiselle Idiale was outside, he hesitated.
"It is the lady who was here the other day," his head clerk remindedhim. "We made a remarkably good choice of stocks for her. Theymust be showing nearly sixteen hundred pounds profit. Perhaps shewants to realize."
"In any case, you had better show her in," said Laverick.
She came, bringing with her, notwithstanding her black clothes andheavy veil, the atmosphere of a strange world into his somewhatseverely furnished office. Her skirts swept his carpet with amusical swirl. She carried with her a faint, indefinable perfumeof violets,--a perfume altogether peculiar, dedicated to her by afamous chemist in the Rue Royale, and supplied to no other personupon earth. Who else was there, indeed, who could have walked thosefew yards as she walked?
He rose to his feet and pointed to a chair.
"You have come to ask about your shares?" he asked politely. "Sofar, we have nothing but good news for you."
She recognized that he spoke to her in the presence of his clerk,and she waved her hand.
"Women who will come themselves to look after their poor investmentsare a nuisance, I suppose," she said. "But indeed I will not keepyou long. A few minutes are all that I shall ask of you. I ambeginning to find city affairs so interesting."
They were alone by now and Louise raised her veil, raised it sohigh that he could see her eyes. She leaned back in her chair,supporting her chin with the long, exquisite fingers of her righthand. She looked at him thoughtfully.
"You have examined the pocket-book?" she asked.
"I have."
"And the document was there?"
"The document was there," he admitted. "Perhaps you can tell me howit would be addressed?"
Looking at her closely, it came to him that her indifference wasassumed. She was shivering slightly, as though with cold.
"I imagine that there would be no address," she said.
"You are right. That document is in my pocket."
"What are you going to do with it?" she asked.
"What do you advise me to do with it?"
"Give it to me."
"Have you any claim?"
She leaned a little nearer to him.
"At least I have more claim to it," she whispered, "than you to thattwenty thousand pounds."
"I do not claim them," he replied. "They are in my safe at thismoment, untouched. They are there ready to be returned to theirproper owner."
"Why do you not find him?"--with a note of incredulity in her tone.
"How am I to do that?" Laverick demanded.
"We waste words," she continued coldly. "I think that if I leaveyou with the contents of your safe, it will be wise for you to handme that document."
"I am inclined to do so," Laverick admitted. "The very fact thatyou knew of its existence would seem to give you a sort of claim toit. But, Mademoiselle Idiale, will you answer me a few
questions?"
"I think," she said, "that it would be better if you asked me none."
"But listen," he begged. "You are the only person with whom I havecome into touch who seems to know anything about this affair. Ishould rather like to tell you exactly how I stumbled in upon it.Why can we not exchange confidence for confidence? I want neitherthe twenty thousand pounds nor the document. I want, to be frankwith you, nothing but to escape from the position I am now in ofbeing half a thief and half a criminal. Show me some claim to thatdocument and you shall have it. Tell me to whom that money belongs,and it shall be restored."
"You are incomprehensible," she declared. "Are you, by any chance,playing a part with me? Do you think that it is worth while?"
"Mademoiselle Idiale," Laverick protested earnestly, "nothing in theworld is further from my thoughts. There is very little of theconspirator about me. I am a plain man of business who stumbled inupon this affair at a critical moment and dared to make temporaryuse of his discovery. You can put it, if you like, that I am afraid.I want to get out. Nothing would give me greater pleasure, if sucha thing were possible, than to send this pocket-book and its contentsanonymously to Scotland Yard, and never hear about them again."
She listened to him with unchanged face. Yet for some moments afterhe had finished speaking she was thoughtful.
"You may be speaking the truth," she said. "If so, I have beendeceived. You are not quite the sort of man I did believe you were.What you tell me is amazing, but it may be true."
"It is the truth," Laverick repeated calmly.
"Listen," she said, after a brief pause. "You were at school, wereyou not, with Mr. David Bellamy? You know well who he is?"
"Perfectly well," Laverick admitted.
"You would consider him a person to be trusted?"
"Absolutely."
"Very well, then," she declared. "You shall come to my fiat at fiveo'clock this afternoon and bring that document. If it is possible,David Bellamy shall be there himself. We will try then and proveto you that you do no harm in parting with that document to us."
"I will come," Laverick promised, "at five o'clock; but you musttell me where."
"You will put it down, please," she said. "There must not be anymistake. You must come, and you must come to-day. I am staying atnumber 15, Dover Street. I will leave orders that you are shownin at once."
She rose to her feet and he walked to the door with her. On the wayshe hesitated.
"Take care of yourself to-day, Mr. Laverick," she begged. "Thereare others beside myself who are interested in that packet you carrywith you. You represent to them things beside which life and deathare trivial happenings."
Laverick laughed shortly. He was a matter-of-fact man, and thereseemed something a little absurd in such a warning.
"I do not think," he declared, "that you need have any fear. Londonis, as you doubtless find it, a dull old city, but it is a remarkablysafe one to live in."
"Nevertheless, Mr. Laverick," she repeated earnestly, "be on yourguard to-day, for all our sakes."
He bowed and changed the subject.
"Your investments," he remarked, "you will be content, perhaps, toleave as they are. It is, no doubt, of some interest to you toknow that they are showing already a profit of considerably over athousand pounds."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"It was an excuse--that investment," she declared. "Yet money isalways good. Keep it for me, Mr. Laverick, and do what you will. Iwill trust your judgment. Buy or sell as you please. You will letnothing prevent your coming this afternoon?"
"Nothing," he promised her.
From the window of her beautifully appointed little electric broughamshe held out her hand in farewell.
"You think me foolish, I know, that I persist," she said, "but I dobeg that you will remember what I say. Do not be alone to-day morethan you can help. Suspect every one who comes near to you. Theremay be a trap before your feet at any moment. Be wary always and donot forget--at five o'clock I expect you."
Laverick smiled as he bowed his adieux.
"It is a promise, Mademoiselle," he assured her.