* * *
My dinner with Arthur can be related very shortly, for while it has distinct bearing on the story it was only remarkable for one incident, though, Heaven knows, that was important enough.
I met him at our Club in Saint James' and we walked together towards Soho.
"You are going to dine," said Arthur, "at 'L'Escargot d'Or' -- The Golden Snail. It's a new departure in Soho restaurants, and only a few of us know of it yet. Soon all the world will be going there, for the cooking is magnificent."
"That's always the way with these Soho restaurants," I observed. "They begin wonderfully, are most beautifully select in their patrons, and then the rush comes and everything is spoiled."
"I know, and the same will happen here no doubt, though lower Bohemia will never penetrate because the prices are going to be kept up; and this place will always equal one of the first-class restaurants in town. Well, how goes it?"
I knew what he meant and as we walked I told him, as in duty bound, all there was to tell of the progress of my suit.
"Met Juanita Morse once," I said/ "Had about two minutes' talk. There's just a chance, I'm not certain, that I may meet her tonight, and not in a crowd -- in which case you may be sure I'll make the very most of my opportunities. If this doesn't come off, I don't see any other chance of really getting to know her until September, at Sir Walter Stileman's, and I have to thank you for that invitation, Arthur."
He sighed. "It's a difficult house to get into," he said, "unless you are one of the pukka shooting set. Anyway, I told old Sir Walter that although you weren't much good in October, and that pheasants weren't in your line, you were A1 at driven birds.'"
"But I can't hit a driven partridge to save my life, unless by a fluke!"
"I know that, Tom. I don't say that you'll be liked at all, but you won the toss and by our bond we're bound to do all we can to give you your opportunity with Juanita. I need hardly say that my greatest hope in life is that she'll have nothing whatever to say to you. And now let's change that subject and enjoy ourselves. I have been on the phone with Anatole, and we are going to dine tonight. Really dine!"
The Golden Snail in a Soho side street presented no great front to the world. There was a sign over a door, a dingy passage to be traversed, until one came to another door, opened it and found oneself in a long, lofty room shaped like a capital L. The long arm was the one at which you entered, the other went round a rectangle. The place was very simply decorated in black and white. Tables ran along each side, and the only difference between it and a dozen other such places in the foreign quarter of London was that the seats against the wall were not of red plush but of dark green morocco leather. It was fairly full, of a mixed company, but long-haired and impecunious Bohemia was conspicuously absent.
A table had been reserved for us at the other end opposite the door, so that sitting there we could see in both directions.
We started with little tiny oysters from Belon in Brittany. I don't suppose there was another restaurant in London at that moment that was serving them. The soup was asparagus cream soup of superlative excellence, and then came a young guinea fowl stuffed with mushrooms, which was perfection itself.
"How on earth do you find these places, Arthur?" I asked.
"Well," he answered, "ever since I left Oxford I've been going about London and Paris gathering information of all sorts. I've lived among the oddest set of people in Europe. My father thinks I'm a waster, but he doesn't know. My mother, angel that she is, understands me perfectly. She knows I've only postponed going into politics until I've had more experience than the ordinary young man in my position gets. I absolutely refused to be shoved into the House directly I came down with my degree, the Union, and all those sort of blushing honours thick on me. In a year or two you'll see, Tom, and meanwhile here's the Moulin à Vent."
Anatole poured out that delightful but little known burgundy for us himself, and it was a wine for the gods.
"A little interval," said Arthur, "in which a cigarette is clearly indicated, and then we are to have some slices of bear ham, stewed in champagne, which I rather think will please you."
We sat and smoked, looking up the long room, when the swing doors at the end opened and a man and a girl entered. They came down towards us, obviously approaching a table reserved for them in the short arm of the restaurant, and I noticed the man at once.
For one thing he was in full evening dress, whereas the only other diners who were in evening kit wore dinner jackets and black ties. He was a tall man of about fifty with wavy, grey hair. His face was clean shaved, and a little full. I thought I had never seen a handsomer man, or one who moved with a grace and ease which were so perfectly unconscious. The girl beside him was a pretty enough young creature with a powdered face and reddened lips -- nothing about her in the least out of the ordinary. When he came opposite our table, his face lighted up suddenly. He smiled at Arthur, and opened his mouth as if to speak.
Arthur looked him straight in the face with a calm and stony stare. I never saw a more cruel or explicit cut.
The man smiled again without the least bravado or embarrassment, gave an almost imperceptible bow and passed on towards his table without anyone but ourselves having noticed what occurred. The whole affair was a question of some five or six seconds.
He sat down with his back to us.
"Who is he?" I asked of Arthur.
He hesitated for a moment and then gave a little shudder of disgust. I thought, also, that I saw a shade come on his face.
"No one you are ever likely to meet in life, Tom," he replied, "unless you go to see him tried for murder at the Old Bailey some day. He is a fellow called Mark Antony Midwinter."
"A most distinguished looking man."
"Yes, and I should say he stands out from even his own associates in a pre-eminence of evil. Tom," he went on, with unusual gravity. "Deep down in the soul of every man there's some foul primal thing, some troglodyte that, by the mercy of God, never awakes in most of us. But when it does in some, and dominates them, then a man becomes a fiend, lost, hopeless, irremediable. That man Midwinter is such a one. You could not find his like in Europe. He walks among his fellows with a panther in his soul; and the high imagination, the artistic power in him makes him doubly dangerous. I could tell you details of his career which would make your blood run cold -- if it were worth while. It isn't.
Well, we dined after the fashion of Sybaris, went to the Club for an hour and smoked, and then Arthur returned to his chambers in Jermyn Street to dress. I went back to mine, found from Preston that young Mr. Rolston was safely in bed and fast asleep, changed into a dinner jacket and walked the few yards to the Ritz Hotel, my heart beating high with hope.
I was immediately shown up to the floor inhabited by the millionaire, and knew, therefore, that I was expected. The man who conducted me knocked at a door, opened it, and I entered. I found myself in a comfortable room with writing tables and desks, telephone and a typewriter. A young man in his early twenties was seated at one of the tables, smoking a cigarette.
He jumped up at once.
"Oh, Sir Thomas," he said, "Mr. Morse has not yet returned, and I think it quite likely he may be some little time. But the Señora Balmaceda and Miss Morse are in the drawing room and perhaps you would like to----"
"I shall be delighted," I said, cutting him short, but who on earth was Señora Balmaceda? The chaperone, I supposed, confound it!
The obliging young man led me through three gorgeously furnished rooms and into a large apartment brilliantly lit from the roof, with flowers everywhere. At one end was a little alcove.
"I have brought Sir Thomas, Señora," he said, looking about the room, but there was no one remotely resembling a Señora there. Nevertheless, directly he spoke, someone stepped out of the conservatory from behind a tropical shrub in a green tub, and came towards us.
It was Juanita, and she was alone. The secretary withdrew and I advanced to meet her.
"Ho
w do you do, Sir Thomas," she said in her beautiful, bell-like voice. "Father said you might be coming, and I'm afraid he won't be in just yet. And it's so tiresome, poor Auntie has gone to bed with a bad headache."
"I'm very sorry, Miss Morse," I answered as we shook hands, "I must do what I can to take her place," and then I looked at her perfectly straight.
Yes, I dared to look into those marvellous limpid eyes. I know she saw the hunger in mine, for she took her hand away a little hurriedly.
"What a charming room. Is that a little conservatory over there? It must look out over the Green Park?"
"Yes, it does," she replied, almost in a whisper.
"Then do let's sit there, Miss Morse."
Was I acting in a play, or what on earth gave me this sense of confidence and strength? Heaven only knows, but I never faltered from the first moment I entered the room.
We went to the alcove without a further word, and she sat down on a couch. I have described her once, at Lady Brentford's ball, but at this moment I am not going to attempt to describe her at all.
For half a minute we said nothing, and then I took her hand and pressed it to my lips.
"Juanita," I said, "there are mysterious currents and forces in this world stronger than we are ourselves. This is the third time I've seen you, but no power on earth can prevent me from telling you----"
She was looking at me with parted lips and eyes suffused with an angelic tenderness and modesty. My voice broke in my throat with unutterable joy. I was certain that she loved me.
And then, just as I was about to say the sealing words, there was the sound of a door opening sharply.
I stiffened and rose to my feet. From where we sat we could survey the whole, rich room. Through the open door -- I must say there were several doors in the room -- came a tall man, walking backwards.
He was in full evening dress with a camellia in his button-hole. He stepped back lightly with cat-like steps, his arms a little curved, his fingers all extended.
I saw his face. It was convulsed with the satanic fury of an old Japanese mask. Line for line, it was just like that, and it was also the face of the bland and smiling man I had seen two hours before at the restaurant of The Golden Snail.
I felt something warm and trembling at my side. Juanita was clinging to me, and I put my arm around her waist. Through the open door there now came another figure.
A quiet, resonant voice cut into the tense silence. "Quick, Mark Antony Midwinter -- that's your door, quick, quick!"
The big man paused for an instant and a hissing spitting noise came from his mouth.
There was a sharp crack and a great mirror on the wall shivered in pieces. There was another, and then the big man turned and literally bounded over the soft carpet, flung himself through the door and disappeared.
Gideon Mendoza Morse advanced into the drawing room, smiling to himself and looking down at a little steel-blue automatic in his hand.
Then Juanita and I came out of the alcove, hand in hand, and he saw us.