CHAPTER XXIII
INDISCRETION
The expression on Henson's usually benign countenance would have startledsuch of his friends and admirers as regarded him as a shining light andgreat example. The smug satisfaction, the unctuous sweetness of theexpansive blue eyes were gone; a murderous gleam shone there instead. Hislips were set and rigid, the strong hand seemed to be strangling thebedclothes. It wanted no effort of imagination to picture Henson as themurderer stooping over his prey. The man had discarded his maskaltogether.
"Oh," he said, between his teeth, "you are a clever fellow. You wouldhave made an excellent detective. And so you have found out where VanSneck is?"
"I have already told you so," Littimer said, doggedly.
"How many days have you been hanging about Brighton?"
"Two or three. I came when I heard that Chris was ill. I didn't dare tocome near the house, at least not too near, for fear of being seen. But Ipumped the doctor. Then he told me that Chris was dead, and I risked itall to see the last of her."
"Yes, yes," Henson said, testily; "but what has this to do withVan Sneck?"
"I was looking for Van Sneck. I found that he had been here. I discoveredthat he had left his rooms and had not returned to them. Then it occurredto me to try the hospital. I pretended that I was in search of somemissing relative, and they showed me three cases of bad accidents, thevictims of which had not been identified. And the third was Van Sneck."
Littimer told his story with just the suggestion of triumph in his voice.Henson was watching him with the keenest possible interest.
"Do you know how Van Sneck got there?" he asked.
Littimer nodded. Evidently he had heard most of the story. Henson wassilent for some little time. He was working out something in his mind.His smile was not a pleasant one; it was nothing like his bland platformsmile, for instance.
"Give me that black book," he said. "Do you know how to work thetelephone?"
"I daresay I could learn. It doesn't look hard."
"Well, that is an extension telephone on the table yonder worked inconnection with the main instrument in the library. I like to have my owntelephone, as it is of the greatest assistance to me. Turn that handletwo or three times and put that receiver to your ear. When the Exchangeanswers tell them to put you on to O,017 Gerrard."
Littimer obeyed mechanically, but though he rang and rang again no answercame. With a snarling curse Henson dragged himself out of bed and crossedthe room, with limbs that shook under him.
He twirled the handle round passionately.
"You always were a fool," he growled, "and you always will be."
Still no reply came. Henson whirled angrily, but he could elicit noresponse. He kicked the instrument over and danced round it impotently.Littimer had never seen him in such a raging fury before. The language ofthe man was an outrage, filthy, revolting, profane. No yelling, drunkenHooligan could have been more fluent, more luridly diffuse.
"Go on," Littimer said, bitterly. "I like to hear you. I like to hear thesmug, plausible Pharisee, the friend of the good and pious, going on likethis. I'd give fifty years of my life to have just a handful of yourfuture constituents here for a moment."
Henson paused suddenly and requested that Littimer should help him intobed.
"I can afford to speak freely before you," he said. "Say a word againstme and I'll crush you. Put out a hand to injure me and I'll wipe you offthe face of the earth. It's absolutely imperative that I should send animportant telephone message to London at once, and here the machine hasbroken down and no chance of its being repaired for a day or two. Cursethe telephone."
He lay back on his bed utterly exhausted by his fit of passion. One ofthe white bandages about his throat had started, and a little thin streamof blood trickled down his chest. Littimer waited for the next move. Hewatched the crimson fluid trickle over Henson's sleeping-jacket. He couldhave watched the big scoundrel bleeding to death with the greatestpossible pleasure.
"What was Van Sneck doing here?"
The voice came clear and sharp from the bed. Littimer responded to it asa cowed hound does to a sudden yet not quite unexpected lash from ahuntsman's whip. His manliness was of small account where Henson wasconcerned. For years he had come to heel like this. Yet the questionstartled him and took him entirely by surprise.
"He was looking for the lost Rembrandt."
But Littimer's surprise was as nothing to Henson's amazement. He lay flaton his back so that his face could not be seen. From the expression of ithe had obtained a totally unexpected reply to his question. He was soamazed that he had no words for the moment. But his quick intelligenceand amazing cunning grasped the possibilities of the situation. Littimerwas in possession of information to which he was a stranger. Except in avague way he had not the remotest idea what Littimer was talking about.But the younger man must not know that.
"So Van Sneck told you so?" he asked. "What a fool he must have been! Andwhy should he come seeking for the Rembrandt in Brighton?"
"Because he knows it was there, I suppose."
"It isn't here, because it doesn't exist. The thing was destroyed byaccident by the police when they raided Van Sneck's lodgings years ago."
"Van Sneck told me that he had actually seen the picture in Brighton."
Henson chuckled. The noise was intended to convey amused contempt, and ithad that effect, so far as Littimer was concerned. It was well for Hensonthat the latter could not see the strained anxiety of his face. The manwas alert and quivering with excitement in every limb. Still he chuckledagain as if the whole thing merely amused him.
"'The Crimson Blind' is Van Sneck's weak spot," he said. "It is KingCharles's head to him. By good or bad luck--it is in your hands to saywhich--you know all about the way in which it became necessary to getHatherly Bell on our side. All the same, the Rembrandt--the _other_one--is destroyed."
"Van Sneck has seen the picture," Littimer said, doggedly.
"Oh, play the farce out to the end," Henson laughed, good-humouredly."Where did he see it?"
"He says he saw it at 218, Brunswick Square."
Henson's knees suddenly came up to his nose, then he lay quite flat againfor a long time. His face had grown white once more, his lips utterlybloodless. Fear was written all over him. A more astute man than Littimerwould have seen the beads standing out on his forehead. It was somelittle time before he dared trust himself to speak again.
"I know the house you mean," he said. "It is next door to the temporaryresidence of my esteemed friend, Gilead Gates. At the present moment theplace is void--"
"And has been ever since your bogus 'Home' broke up. Years ago, beforeyou used your power to rob and oppress us as you do now, you had a Homethere. You collected subscriptions right and left in the name of theReverend Felix Crosbie, and you put the money into your pocket. A certainweekly journal exposed you, and you had to leave suddenly or you wouldhave found yourself in the hands of the police. You skipped so suddenlythat you had no time even to think of your personal effects, which youunderstood were sold to defray expenses. But they were not sold, asnobody cared to throw good money after bad. Van Sneck got in with theagent under pretence of viewing the house, and he saw the picture there."
"Why didn't he take it with him?" Henson asked, with amused scorn. He wasmaster of himself again and had his nerves well under control.
"Well, that was hardly like Van Sneck. Our friend is nothing if notdiplomatic. But when he did manage to get into the house again thepicture was gone."
"Excellent!" Henson cried. "How dramatic! There is only one thingrequired to make the story complete. The picture was taken away byHatherly Bell. If you don't bring that in as the _denouement_ I shall beutterly disappointed."
"You needn't be," Littimer said, coolly. "That is exactly what didhappen."
Henson chuckled again, quite a parody of a chuckle this time. He coulddetect the quiet suggestion of triumph in Littimer's voice.
"Did Van Sneck tell you all thi
s?" he asked.
"Not the latter part of it," Littimer replied, "seeing that he was in thehospital when it happened. But I know it is true because I saw Bell andDavid Steel, the novelist, come away from the house, and Bell had thepicture under his arm. And that's why Van Sneck's agent couldn't find itthe second time he went. Check to you, my friend, at any rate. Bell willgo to my father with Rembrandt number two, and compare it with numberone. And then the fat will be in the fire."
Henson yawned affectedly. All the same he was terribly disturbed andshaken. All he wanted now was to be alone and to think. So far as hecould tell nobody besides Littimer knew anything of the matter. And nostarved, cowed, broken-hearted puppy was ever closer under the heel ofhis master than Littimer. He still held all the cards; he stillcontrolled the fortunes of two ill-starred houses.
"You can leave me now," he said. "I'm tired. I have had a trying day, andI need sleep; and the sooner you are out of the house the better. Foryour own sake and for the sake of those about you, you need not say oneword of this to Enid Henson."
Littimer promised meekly enough. With those eyes blazing upon him hewould have promised anything. We shall see presently what a stupendousterror Henson had over the younger man, and in what way all the sweetnessand savour of life was being crushed out of him.
He closed the door behind him, and immediately Henson sat up in bed. Hereached for his handkerchief and wiped the big beads from his forehead.
"So the danger has come at last," he muttered. "I am face to face withit, and I knew I should be. Hatherly Bell is not the man to quietly liedown under a cloud like that. The man has brains, and patience, andindomitable courage. Now, does he suspect that I have any hand in thebusiness? I must see him when my nerves are stronger and try and get atthe truth. If he goes to Lord Littimer with that picture he shakes mypower and my position perilously. What a fool I was not to get it away.But, then, I only escaped from the Brighton police in those days by theskin of my teeth. And they had followed me from Huddersfield like thosecursed bloodhounds here. I wonder--"
He paused, as the brilliant outline of some cunning scheme occurred tohim. A thin, cruel smile crept over his lips. Never had he been in atight place yet without discovering a loophole of escape almost before hehad seen the trap.
A fit of noiseless laughter shook him.
"Splendid," he whispered. "Worthy of Machiavelli himself! Provided alwaysthat I can get there first. If I could only see Bell's face afterwards,hear Littimer ordering him off the premises. The only question is, am Iup to seeing the thing through?"