WILLIAM KINDELL WAS known to have a small income which had been settled upon him by a relative, on an impulse of exceptional family prudence, in such a way that it was beyond his creditors' reach. Apart from that, he appeared to have no regular occupation, and no financial resources beyond what he could gain by backing his considerable wits against those of the professional bookmaker or the banker of the baccarat-table.
He had thus some measure of freedom for the pursuit of whatever might attract attention or rouse desire, and when Myra, whether casually or deliberately, had mentioned that she would be accompanying Professor Blinkwell to Paris (which Mrs. Blinkwell, being a nervous invalid, was unwilling to do), it had required no more than a few hours to enable him to provide himself with an excuse for travelling in the same direction.
He might not wish to advertise to the whole world that it was the attraction of Myra Blinkwell which had caused that hurried journey to be undertaken, but he was not unwilling that she, at least, should be able to make a good guess. The fact that he had come in pursuit of one lady may have made him quicker to see that he might be judged in the same way in a direction he had not meant, and it implied neither unfriendliness to Irene, nor ingratitude for the hospitality he had received from her father's hands, that the difficulty of putting himself in the way of one fellow-guest at the hotel, while keeping out of the sight of another, was the dilemma which he now considered.
He was in funds at the moment, having backed Pilgrim's Progress rather heavily a fortnight before, when the odds had been exceptionally good; and he was not one who held tightly to the money that fortune gave. He went through life bringing subordinates to his service with liberal tips, and the first thought that came to him now was that a ten-franc note would obtain the number of the Blinkwells' suite, without the necessity for a personal enquiry at the hotel bureau; and a more substantial outlay would discover the nearest vacant room with a similar discretion.
After that, it would be a simple matter to make some excuse for being transferred to a position in which he could meet the girl he sought, in the corridor or upon the stairs, with little risk of the encounter which he would prefer to avoid.
He had come to this resolution, and was in the act of beckoning for a boy who would have been commissioned to undertake the first part of the programme, when his purpose was arrested by the sight of Myra standing in the gap of the open door.
Her eyes glanced over a dozen other occupants of the room to fall upon himself, at which they gave a look of pleased, rather surprised recognition, and she came directly towards him.
"I am looking," she explained, "for Professor Blinkwell. I suppose you haven't seen him anywhere about?"
She might not have felt it necessary to make so direct or prompt an approach had not the gentleman she professed to seek returned to the breakfast-room a few minutes before, and said, with an emphasis he rarely employed: "It's no use sitting here. When I ask you to do anything, I don't want it delayed. I want you to act at once."
To which Myra, who was not easy to hurry, either in physical or mental movements, had replied reasonably: "Why, you only asked me ten minutes ago! You didn't say there was such a hurry as that. And I haven't lost any time at all. I've tried to ring him up in his room, but he isn't there. I was just thinking how to make up the tale in a natural way."
As she spoke, she perceived that her uncle's reproach had not only been unreasonable in itself, which, coming from him, was a sufficiently surprising circumstance, but that it had been spoken in a manner as near to perturbation as she had ever seen him exhibit. The few minutes that he had been absent had been spent in his writing-room, which opened out of the one they were in, and had no other entrance. Almost certainly he had been alone the whole time. What could have occurred to cause him to talk to her in such a way? Even for him (or rather, for all the money that he was likely to give), she did not intend to run any risk of being arrested on a criminal charge. She said inconsequently, "I don't think you ought to ask me to do things without explaining what they're about."
But while she spoke Professor Blinkwell had recovered whatever of his usual suave urbanity may have been momentarily lost.
I'm afraid," he said, "I gave rather a jolt to your mental processes before your rather ample breakfast had settled down. But the fact is that I have just recollected that there is a boardmeeting of the Purling Chemical Company on Thursday which it is important for me to attend, so that we must get back to London almost at once.
"But as to what I've asked you to do, it's a simple matter that can't make trouble under any circumstances. Even if Kindell should give you away, which you know quite well that he wouldn't do, and if his tale were believed (and it wouldn't sound very probable when there's no such jewellery to be found), you couldn't be charged with any offence that is known to the French law. He couldn't say that you'd done more than talk about doing something wrong, and even that would have no more than his unsupported word against ours, which is quite as good."
"Yes, I see that. But I don't understand - - "
"And it isn't necessary that you should. If I want you to do anything further, I'll explain then, which will be the best time. But I want you to get it into your head that neither you nor I are going to risk anything over this affair. We're not going to be in it at all."
"Well," she said, rising in a slow and rather sullen reluctance under the force of his stronger will, "if there's such a rush, I'd better see if I can find him anywhere now. I don't want to have to ring up his room again."
She did not believe the tale of the board-meeting, and she had an instinctive perception of the fact that her uncle was in nearer danger than he would admit to her, or perhaps to his own mind.
But she had confidence still in his ability to avoid it, well founded on past experience, and she could not answer his argument that there was, as yet, little aspect of danger to herself in that which he had asked her to do.
As to any development in his own affairs which could have disturbed his mind since his request had been made half an hour before, it is a fact that he had been alone in his room for the whole of the intervening period, occupied in the writing of a quite innocent business letter, and interrupted only by a telephone call which, on the evidence both of himself and the angry Frenchman at the other end of the line, had not been intended for him. M. Bonfleur had been urgent in his desire to inform the Messieurs Celeste et Cie that a consignment of Spanish grapes must be taken off his hands by 5 p.m. tomorrow if legal consequences were to be avoided. He had been in a state of angry and voluble excitement which had made it difficult for the Professor to convince him that he had been put through to the wrong number, and he had expressed and repeated his facts and feelings with much unnecessary emphasis before admitting his mistake, and checking, abruptly, with a curt apology, and a more elaborate curse upon the inefficiency of the telephone service. . . .
"No," Kindell replied, "I don't think he's been here. Not since I came in some time ago."
"Then I don't know where he can be. I've looked about everywhere else."
"Perhaps, if you wait here, he might - - "
"Yes, I dare say that's as good a chance as running around," she said doubtfully. "We might only miss each other again." Hesitantly, she sat down, and accepted a cigarette, her eyes still watching the door.
"Nothing that I can do for you?" he asked hopefully, thanking Fate for that which had the appearance of better fortune than he could reasonably have expected.
"No, thanks. I'm only going shopping, but I thought I'd get him to go with me, if he hadn't anything special on this morning. He talks the language a lot better than I do."
"You know Paris?"
"I've never been here before."
"Then, if Professor Blinkwell isn't available, may I offer to show you round?"
"Oh, no," she said, but in a more gracious tone than he had expected to hear. "I couldn't ask you to do that. You'd get bored to death. I might stay in one shop for hours! Besides I don't suppose it will be more than two minutes before my uncle turns up."
William Kindell could not regard this as a very hopeful reply, but did not accept rebuff. He said: "Oh, but you're wrong there! There's nothing I should like more."
He said this with a sincerity which was sufficiently evident but Myra, remembering a coolness she had shown him at their last meeting in London, was too adroit to accept the proffered service now. She said: "It's very nice of you to say that. But I've no doubt you've got your own business to do. You haven't come to Paris to waste time showing me round the shops!"
He was sufficiently skilful in such exchanges to avoid the obvious denial which would have sounded as no more than a perfunctory courtesy. He said: "Oh, well, it's always better to expect little and get a lot. I only came to look up a man who owes me a betting debt, as I happened to hear he was in funds and it would be the right time to touch him for the amount can get hold of him best at night, so I'm quite free now."
His voice and manner dismissed the defaulting debtor into the category of trivial things. They suggested more convincingly than direct assertion might have done that she had been the real lure that had brought him there. As she remained noncommittally silent, and the gesture with which she crushed out the end of her cigarette indicated that at the next moment she might be rising to go, he added, "Suppose you give Professor Blinkwell another two minutes, and if he hasn't turned up by then, you make the best of me for a substitute?"
She appeared to hesitate at this, and said at last: "It's very kind of you, if you really mean it. But I'm not dressed to go out so we can give him longer than that. I shall be down in about ten minutes, and if he hasn't appeared by then, I shall suppose he's forgotten me altogether. So if he comes in while I'm upstairs perhaps you'd ask him to wait."
Mr. Kindell undertook this, and she went back to her own rooms to warn the Professor not to go down until she had left the hotel, and to prepare herself for the expedition during the next half-hour, which was as punctual to the promised ten minutes as a woman could be expected to be.