Chapter 31

DONALD Wells came to St. John's Wood to consult his friend and found John Leith a broken man. There was no need for Wells to tell the story of his failure. Leith had read it all in the tone of his daughter. He turned on the doctor with weak fury.

"It's something you said to her, something you let out, you damned fool!" he shouted. "All that I've worked for, all I've stood for---gone!"

"All you worked for was yourself, my dear John," said Donald coolly. "If it gives you any pleasure to delude yourself into the belief that you have made sacrifices for Jane, by all means, do so. You gave her all she wanted because it was the easiest thing to do. You think more about your pictures than you do of any human being. There's no sense in flying into a rage. The question is, what are we going to do? Peter in his rôle of profitable lunatic is finished. Peter as a money-making proposition is very much alive." He spoke very deliberately. "There's a good quarter of a million to be made out of that young man, if you are willing to sacrifice your vanity."

John Leith looked up quickly.

"What do you mean---sacrifice my vanity?"

"Jane knows, or guesses, just what part you've played. Sooner or later she must know, unless a miracle happens, that her father was one of the well-paid agents of the greatest forgery organisation that ever ran in this or any other country. By the time she knows that, you will certainly be beyond assistance. I suggest that you go to Peter, or allow me to see him---I dare say I could manage it---put the position very clearly before him----"

"What position?" asked John Leith angrily.

"That you are what you are---an utterer of forged currency. Tell him you want to go abroad and that you do not wish to bring disgrace upon Jane---you know that sob stuff. Peter will part."

The bearded lips curled in a sneer.

"Oh, Peter will part, will he? And you'll take your share, I suppose? Does it occur to you that I am no more a free agent than you are? That I cannot leave London or move without the express permission of the Clever One?"

Donald laughed scornfully.

"Clever grandmother! It's a case of sauve qui peut. Do you suppose that I wouldn't sell him, or that you wouldn't sell him if we knew who he was? I've got plenty of money---I suppose you have too---but I've an ineradicable weakness for getting a little more. If we can't work Peter, don't forget Jane has got a hundred thousand in her own right. And do it quick, John! It is in my bones that there's trouble very near at hand, and I rather want to be out of the way when the shooting starts."

"What are you going to do with Marjorie?" asked Leith.

It was such an unexpectedly mild and domestic question that Donald was surprised to a laugh.

"In a moment of insanity I put ten thousand pounds into her account this morning. I've got rather a weakness for the woman---I suppose it's because I've been married to her for so long, and matrimony is a notorious warper of judgment. Marjorie you need not worry about. Will you do it?"

John Leith shifted uncomfortably.

"I should never forgive myself if I did," he said.

Donald left him, well satisfied that the seed he had sown would sprout munificently.

He had forgotten to take his keys with him, and he wondered uncomfortably if Marjorie had found them. He had hardly pressed the bell before she opened the door, and evidently she had been watching for him.

"I got the creeps, being in the house by myself," she said. "Well, darling, did you have a successful time?"

"Terribly," he said sardonically as he passed into his study.

He saw the keys were where he had left them, in one of the drawers of his desk, and put them in his pocket.

"There is one letter," she said. "It came by hand. If you weren't so violent about my opening your letters I should have looked to see what was inside---it looks important."

That it was important he knew at first glance. Only one man wrote to him on that thick white note-paper. Inside he found, when he had peremptorily dismissed his wife to bring a bottle of champagne from the cellar, yet another envelope, and inside that a third. The writer took no risks, for Donald's name and the large word "Private" were typewritten on each cover. The letter was also typewritten, had neither date, preamble nor signature. He read it through carefully. It was rather a long epistle for one who as a rule indulged in the most laconic phraseology. Donald read and was fascinated.

Attached to the letter by a piece of red tape was a tiny key. Donald read the letter again, committing it to memory: the evening might yet be amusing and profitable.

He put the key in his pocket and poked the ashes of the letter till they were dispersed. At that moment Marjorie came in with the bottle and two glasses on a salver.

"Burning all your guilty secrets?" she said gaily.

He hated her worst when she was most trite. But he was in rather a good mood at the moment, and smiled graciously at her inanity. She was unusually nervous, but in his then state of tension he did not notice this, until he saw the hand that was pouring out the wine shake.

"You're jumpy too, eh?"

"I am---I don't know why."

"Well, don't be," he commanded. "By the way, Marjorie, that little scheme of ours----" He put his hand in his pocket and took out the letter she had written at his dictation and threw it in the fire also. He did not see her relief.

"The art of good generalship lies in an ability to change your front under fire," he said, "and that cat won't jump---you're right about Jane: she's in love with that crazy man."

"You're breaking my heart," she said humorously. Then, in a different tone: "Honestly, Donald, I think she is very fond of him, and it would be very awkward and embarrassing for me if that letter fell into Jane's hands."

"That worries me like the devil," he said sarcastically. "It was intended to fall into Jane's hands, you fool!"

They dined together off cold tongue and champagne. At eight o'clock Donald went out. His wife, watching through the study window, saw him hail a cab and drive away, and sank down quickly into a chair, wiping her damp face.

She had gone through two hours of unexampled strain. At any moment Donald might have gone to the safe and opened the envelope in which he had put the notes he brought from the bank that morning, and, opening them, would have found nothing more valuable than a copy of yesterday's newspaper. Marjorie was taking no risks. That twelve hours' experience in the padded room upstairs was not to be repeated.

She dressed quickly, packed a small handbag, examined again the railway tickets that would carry her, curiously enough, on the continental route that she was supposed to have taken, and was giving a last glance round before leaving the house when there came a thunderous knock at the door. She flew into Donald's study and peeped round the edge of the drawn blind. Two men were standing on the doorstep. Near the pavement was a uniformed policeman.

She opened her bag, took out the bank-notes and slipped them into a pocket that she had sewn in her underskirt. Only then did she open the door to admit Mr. Bourke.