CHAPTER III. VINCENT CAWDOR, COMMISSION AGENT
For the second time since their new association, Peter Ruff hadsurprised that look upon his secretary's face. This time he wheeledaround in his chair and addressed her.
"My dear Violet," he said, "be frank with me. What is wrong?"
Miss Brown turned to face her employer. Save for a greater demurenessof expression and the extreme simplicity of her attire, she had changedvery little since she had given up her life of comparative luxury tobecome Peter Ruff's secretary. There was a sort of personal elegancewhich clung to her, notwithstanding her strenuous attempts to dress forher part, except for which she looked precisely as a private secretaryand typist should look. She even wore a black bow at the back of herhair.
"I have not complained, have I?" she asked.
"Do not waste time," Peter Ruff said, coldly. "Proceed."
"I have not enough to do," she said. "I do not understand why you refuseso many cases."
Peter Ruff nodded.
"I did not bring my talents into this business," he said, "to watchflirting wives, to ascertain the haunts of gay husbands, or to detectthe pilferings of servants."
"Anything is better than sitting still," she protested.
"I do not agree with you," Peter Ruff said. "I like sitting still verymuch indeed--one has time to think. Is there anything else?"
"Shall I really go on?" she asked.
"By all means," he answered.
"I have idea," she continued, "that you are subordinating your generalinterests to your secret enmity--to one man. You are waiting until youcan find another case in which you are pitted against him."
"Sometimes," Peter Ruff said, "your intelligence surprises me!"
"I came to you," she continued, looking at him earnestly, "for tworeasons. The personal one I will not touch upon. The other was my loveof excitement. I have tried many things in life, as you know, Peter,but I have seemed to carry always with me the heritage of weariness. Ithought that my position here would help me to fight against it."
"You have seen me bring a corpse to life," Peter Ruff reminded her, alittle aggrieved.
She smiled.
"It was a month ago," she reminded him.
"I can't do that sort of thing every day," he declared.
"Naturally," she answered; "but you have refused four cases within thelast five days."
Peter Ruff whistled softly to himself for several moments.
"Seen anything of our new neighbour in the flat above?" he asked, withapparent irrelevance.
Miss Brown looked across at him with upraised eyebrows.
"I have been in the lift with him twice," she answered.
"Fancy his appearance?" Ruff asked, casually.
"Not in the least!" Violet answered. "I thought him a vulgar, offensiveperson!"
Peter Ruff chuckled. He seemed immensely delighted.
"Mr. Vincent Cawdor he calls himself, I believe," he remarked.
"I have no idea," Miss Brown declared. The subject did not appeal toher.
"His name is on a small copper plate just over the letter-box," Ruffsaid. "Rather neat idea, by the bye. He calls himself a commissionagent, I believe."
Violet was suddenly interested. She realized, after all, that Mr.Vincent Cawdor might be a person of some importance.
"What is a commission agent?" she asked.
Peter Ruff shook his head.
"It might mean anything," he declared. "Never trust any one who is nota little more explicit as to his profession. I am afraid that this Mr.Vincent Cawdor, for instance, is a bad lot."
"I am sure he is," Miss Brown declared.
"Looks after a pretty girl, coughs in the lift--all that sort of thing,eh?" Peter Ruff asked.
She nodded.
"Disgusting!" she exclaimed, with emphasis.
Peter Ruff sighed, and glanced at the clock. The existence of Mr.Vincent Cawdor seemed to pass out of his mind.
"It is nearly one o'clock," he said. "Where do you usually lunch,Violet?"
"It depends upon my appetite," she answered, carelessly. "Most often atan A B C."
"To-day," Peter Ruff said, "you will be extravagant--at my expense."
"I had a poor breakfast," Miss Brown remarked, complacently.
"You will leave at once," Peter Ruff said, "and you will go to theFrench Cafe at the Milan. Get a table facing the courtyard, and towardsthe hotel side of the room. Keep your eyes open and tell me exactly whatyou see."
She looked at him with parted lips. Her eyes were full of eagerquestioning.
"Mere skirmishing," Peter Ruff continued, "but I think--yes, I thinkthat it may lead to something."
"Whom am I to watch?" she asked.
"Any one who looks interesting," Peter Ruff answered. "For instance, ifthis person Vincent Cawdor should be about."
"He would recognize me!" she declared.
Peter Ruff shrugged his shoulders.
"One must hold the candle," he remarked.
"I decline to flirt with him," she declared. "Nothing would induce me tobe pleasant to such an odious creature."
"He will be too busy to attempt anything of the sort. Of course he maynot be there. It may be the merest fancy on my part. At any rate, youmay rely upon it that he will not make any overtures in a public placelike the Milan. Mr. Vincent Cawdor may be a curious sort of person, butI do not fancy that he is a fool!"
"Very well," Miss Brown said, "I will go."
"Be back soon after three," Peter Ruff said. "I am going up to my roomto do my exercises."
"And afterwards?" she asked.
"I shall have my lunch sent in," he answered. "Don't hurry back, though.I shall not expect you till a quarter past three."
It was a few minutes past that time when Miss Brown returned. Peter Ruffwas sitting at his desk, looking as though he had never moved. He wasabsorbed by a book of patterns sent in by his new tailor, and he onlyglanced up when she entered the room.
"Violet," he said, earnestly, "come in and sit down. I want to consultyou. There is a new material here--a sort of mouse-coloured cheviot. Iwonder whether it would suit me?"
Violet was looking very handsome and a little flushed. She raised herveil and came over to his side.
"Put that stupid book away, Peter," she said. "I want to tell you aboutthe Milan."
He leaned back in his chair.
"Ah!" he said. "I had forgotten! Was Mr. Vincent Cawdor there?"
"Yes!" she answered, still a little breathless. "There was some one elsethere, too, in whom you are still more interested."
He nodded.
"Go on," he said.
"Mr. Vincent Cawdor," she continued, "came in alone. He looked just asobjectionable as ever, and he stared at me till I nearly threw my wineglass at him."
"He did not speak to you?" Peter Ruff asked.
"I was afraid that he was going to," Miss Brown said, "but fortunatelyhe met a friend who came to his table and lunched with him."
"A friend," Ruff remarked. "Good! What was he like?"
"Fair, slight, Teutonic," Miss Brown answered. "He wore thickspectacles, and his moustache was positively yellow."
Ruff nodded.
"Go on," he said.
"Towards the end of luncheon," she continued, "an American came up tothem."
"An American?" Peter Ruff interrupted. "How do you know that?"
Miss Brown smiled.
"He was clean-shaven and he wore neat clothes," she said. "He talkedwith an accent you could have cut with a knife and he had a Baedekersticking out of his pocket. After luncheon, they all three went away tothe smoking room."
Peter Ruff nodded.
"Anything else?" he asked.
The girl smiled triumphantly.
"Yes!" she declared. "There was something else--something which Ithink you will find interesting. At the next table to me there was aman--alone. Can you guess who he was?"
"John Dory," Ruff said, calmly.
The girl was disa
ppointed.
"You knew!" she exclaimed.
"My dear Violet," he said, "I did not send you there on a fool'serrand."
"There is something doing, then?" she exclaimed.
"There is likely," he answered, grimly, "to be a great deal doing!"