Chapter 10

MADAME Untersohn lived in a dark little Georgian house in Hampstead: a squat, two-floored building that was hardly visible behind high walls or through a confusion of trees which must have been planted in some remote period almost trunk to trunk. It had been built in the days when America was still a British colony and the neighbourhood a veritable woodland, and was a house of uneven floors and low ceilings; the lower rooms had the everlasting musty earth smell which seems inevitable in such old houses. They are living yet decaying things, rooted in stale soil.

A dark house that at nights was full of creaks and rustlings; one almost heard the shuffling of ghostly feet along its crooked corridors.

If Mrs. Untersohn could have lived happily anywhere it was at Heathlands with its half-acre of unkempt garden. The place was to her taste. A long drawing-room cluttered up with quaint modern furniture, showy Japanese cabinets and tawdry little souvenirs of her limited travels, was her ideal of what such a room should be. Two domestic servants and a chauffeur (she hired a footman for state occasions from a local garage) comprised her staff.

Mrs. Untersohn was in her drawing-room sitting at an inadequate writing-table and endeavouring, with the aid of pencil-stub and a memorandum book, to make both ends meet. There were inevitable miscalculations, both in addition and subtraction, but the broad effect of her accountancy was depressing. She rubbed her nose with her knuckles, shook her head and betrayed by other signs the extent of her dismay.

She enjoyed a fixed income on which she could have lived comfortably, but Madame Untersohn had many demands upon her purse---heavy and insistent demands which could not be denied.

She looked at the jewelled watch on her wrist, rose with a groan of discomfort and went upstairs to her bedroom. When she came down she was dressed in an unpretentious ulster and a very plain hat---a change which considerably improved her appearance, though she would have been annoyed if anybody had told her this.

She went out, not announcing her departure, and, walking to the Edgware Road, boarded a bus. It was nine o'clock when she came to Marylebone Lane and Knowlby Street. Higgson House was a narrow-faced office block that had been built on the frontage of a dwelling house by a speculative builder. It stood, an eyesore to the neighbourhood, in a street of good class houses and ran back to the untidy mews behind. Higgson House had ruined its builder and brought to bankruptcy two of its eventual purchasers. Its present owner had apparently found tenants for the tiny suites and narrow rooms, for on the door posts were divers brass plates and painted names. In faded yellow letters she read "Blonberg, Financier."

The front door was closed and she pressed a bell. Almost instantly there was a "click!" and the door yielded to her pressure. Closing it behind her, she passed along the meagre passage and began to climb the stairs. Three flights she negotiated and then came to a small landing from which two doors opened. She turned the handle of that facing her and entered a small back room lighted by one dusty lamp.

"Come in," called a voice.

It came from an inner room. There was no illumination here, but sufficient light came from the outer office to show a small table apparently set against the wall. Mrs. Untersohn knew, as she sat down breathlessly, that the "wall" was a screen of fine wire gauze and that sitting behind that gauze was the man she sought.

"I had your note." The voice from the darkness had a hollow sound---a little metallic and unnatural. "You ask for a lot of money."

"I'm worth a lot of money," she answered in her deep voice. "Millions! If I had my rights. . . ."

"I am not interested in your rights," said the voice, "but I am very much interested in something else. You come at a very good time. Mrs. Untersohn, if your son values his life he must not repeat his visit to Longford Manor!"

"Eh!"

The unseen could imagine her jaw dropping with astonishment. Then she was not in it, he decided.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Blonberg," she gasped. "My son? He didn't go to Longford at all. I went there meself---and it was like talking to a bit of stone tryin' to make Clifton do the right thing by me. Him rollin' in money an' me tryin' to make a penny do the work of a pound----"

"Your son was at Longford Manor last night," said the voice sternly. "He broke into the room of Mrs. Clifton. Warn him. He should be down on his knees in gratitude that he has the chance I give him. How much do you want?"

The last question was put abruptly.

"A thousand, Mr. Blonberg---and as to my son."

"You can't have a thousand. Five hundred will be posted to you. Have you the promissory note?"

She fumbled in her bag, produced a slip of paper and pushed it through a slit, in shape and size like the slit of a letter-box, cut in the gauze. Instantly she heard the crinkle of notes and saw a thin pad of money lying on the table before her.

"Unfasten the spring catch of the front door as you go out and close it after you," said the voice of Mr. Blonberg, "and as usual wait in the outer office until you hear my bell ring."

Mrs Untersohn got up from the table.

"I only want to tell you that my boy wouldn't do anything wrong," she said. "He's naturally high spirited being a gentleman born, but----"

"Better be a gentleman born than a gentleman dead," said the ominous voice. "Wait in the office."

She went outside. Presently she heard the snap of a lock and a faint moaning sound that died away into silence. A few seconds later, a noisy bell tinkled. Mrs. Untersohn went out, shutting the door, which fastened behind her. Obediently she released the catch of the front door and slammed it.

This time she did not go back by bus: it was raining, and, chartering a providential taxicab which she found in Marylebone Lane, she was driven home.

And throughout the journey her troubled mind was so occupied by the thought of the danger attending the one person she loved, that she did not realise she was still grasping the bundle of notes Blonberg had pushed into her hands.

Her son. There had been a threat in Blonberg's voice. What did he know about her boy? She was frightened by Blonberg---terribly frightened of the glare of those unseen eyes. She had a strange, grotesque picture of him in her mind, this ogre in the wire cage who knew everything---who told her, on her first visit to him, all the secrets that she thought were locked tight in her own breast.

But he wouldn't hurt her boy---for whom she had sacrificed everything---almost everything.

With that piece of self-assurance she went to bed.

The next morning her maid brought her a cup of coffee and the newspaper. The coffee she sipped leisurely, and enjoyed a sensation of complacent comfort. The heavy demands that had been made upon her during the last week could now be satisfied. He was a dear boy, she told herself, and worth it.

The maid pulled up the blinds and handed her a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles as she idly turned the pages of the newspaper. As idly she read the headlines:

"MYSTERIOUS MURDER IN HERTFORDSHIRE.
Mr. Basil Hale found battered to death in the grounds of historic manor."

The maid heard the scream, turned in startled surprise to see the old woman leap from her bed, gibbering and mouthing and still holding the paper in her hand.

"My son, my son!" she shrieked. "Murdered---my son!"