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The Box with Broken Seals (Strange Case of Mr. Jocelyn Thew), a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Chapter 20 |
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_ CHAPTER XX Crawshay, having the good fortune to find, as he issued from his rooms, a taxicab whose driver's ideas of speed were in accordance with his own impatience, managed to reach the Savoy at a few minutes before eight. He entered the hotel by the Court entrance. An insignificant-looking young man with a fair moustache and watery eyes touched him on the shoulder as he passed through the Court lobby. Crawshay glanced lazily around and assured himself that they were unobserved. "Anything fresh?" he asked laconically. "Nothing. We have searched Miss Sharey's rooms thoroughly, and two of our men have been over Thew's apartments again." "Miss Sharey up-stairs?" The young man shook his head. "Hasn't been up for some hours," he reported. Crawshay nodded and strolled on. He left his coat and hat in charge of the attendant, and entered the grill room. Here, however, he met with disappointment. The place was crowded but his search was methodical. There was no sign there of Nora Sharey. He climbed the few stairs and entered the smoking room. Seated in an armchair, reading a novel, he discovered the young lady of whom he was in search. He crossed the room at a slow saunter, as though on his way to the bar, and paused before the girl's chair. She laid down her book and looked up at him. Her smile at once assured him of a welcome. "I am glad that I am not altogether forgotten, Miss Sharey," he said, holding out his hand which she promptly accepted. "I suppose it still is Miss Sharey, is it? I hope so." "I guess the name's all right," she replied. "Glad to see you don't bear any ill-will against me, Mr. Crawshay. You Englishmen sometimes get so peevish when things don't go quite your way, and you weren't saying nice things to me last time we met." Crawshay smiled and glanced at the seat by her side. She made room for him, and he subsided into the vacant space with a little sigh of content. "A man's profession," he confided, "sometimes makes large and repugnant demands upon him." "If that means you are sorry you were rude to me last time we met down in Fourteenth Street," she said, "I guess I may as well accept your apology. You were a trifle disappointed then, weren't you?" "We acted," Crawshay explained, with studied laboriousness,--"my friends and I acted, that is to say--upon inconclusive information. America at that time, you see, was a neutral Power, and the facilities granted us by the New York police were limited in their character. My department was thoroughly convinced that the--er--restaurant of which your father was the proprietor was something more than the ordinary meeting place of that section of your country-people who carried their enmity towards my country to an unreasonable extent." She looked at him admiringly. "Say, you know how to talk!" she observed. "What about getting an innocent girl turned out of a job at Washington, though?" Crawshay stroked his long chin reflectively. "You don't suppose," he began-- "Oh, don't yarn!" she interrupted. "I'm not squealing. You knew very well that I'd no need to take a post as telephone operator, and you did your duty when you got me turned off. It was very clever of you," she went on, "to tumble to me." Crawshay accepted the compliment with a smile. "If you will permit me to say so, Miss Sharey," he declared, "you are what we call in this country a good sportsman." "Oh, I can keep on the tracks all right," she assented. "I guess I am a little easier to deal with, for instance, than your friend Mr. Jocelyn Thew." Crawshay frowned. His expression became gloomier. "I am bound to confess, Miss Sharey," he sighed, "that your friend Mr. Jocelyn Thew has been the disappointment of my life." "Some brains, eh?" "He has brains, courage and luck," Crawshay pronounced. "Against these three things it is very hard work to bring off--shall I say a _coup_?" "The man who gets the better of Jocelyn Thew," she declared, with a little laugh, "deserves all the nuts. He is a sure winner every time. You're up against him now, aren't you?" "More or less," Crawshay confessed. "I crossed on the steamer with him." "I bet that didn't do you much good!" "I lost the first game," Crawshay confessed candidly. "I see that you know all about it." "No need to put me wiser than I am," the girl observed carelessly. "Jocelyn Thew's no talker." "Not unless it serves his purpose. It is astonishing," Crawshay went on reflectively, "how the science of detection has changed during the last ten years. When I was an apprentice at it--and though you may not think it. Miss Sharey, I am a professional, not an amateur, although I am generally employed on Government business--secrecy was our watchword. We hid in corners, we were stealthy, we always posed as being something we weren't. We should have denied emphatically having the slightest interest in the person under surveillance. In these days, however, everything is changed. We play the game with the cards upon the table--all except the last two or three, perhaps--and curiously enough, I am not at all sure that it doesn't add finesse to the game." Her eyes flashed appreciatively. "You're dead right," she acknowledged. "Take us two, for instance. You know very well that Jocelyn Thew is a pal of mine. You know very well that I shall see him within the next twenty-four hours. You know very well that you're out to hunt him to the death, and you know that I know it. Every question you ask me has a purpose, yet we talk here just as chance acquaintances might--I, a girl whom you rather like the look of--you do like the look of me, don't you, Mr. Crawshay?" Crawshay had no need to be subtle. His eyes and tone betrayed his admiration. "I have thoroughly disliked you ever since you were too clever for me in New York," he confessed, "and I have been in love with you all the time." "And you," she continued, with a little gleam of appreciation in her eyes, "are a very pleasant-looking, smart, agreeable Englishman, who looks as though he knew almost enough to ask a poor girl out to dinner." Crawshay glanced at his wrist watch. "It is you who have the science of detection," he declared. "You have read my thoughts. Do you wish to change your clothes first, or shall we turn in at a grill room?" She rose promptly to her feet. "I'm all for the glad rags," she insisted. "I bought a heap of clothes in Bond Street this afternoon, and I don't know how many chances I shall have of wearing them. I am a quick dresser, and I shan't keep you more than a quarter of an hour. But just one moment first." Crawshay stood attentively by her side. "I am at your service," he murmured. "It's all in the game," she went on, "for you to take me out to dinner, of course, but I guess I needn't tell you that there's nothing doing in the information way. You've fixed it up in your mind, I dare say, that I am mad with Jocelyn Thew. I may be or I may not, but that doesn't make me any the more likely to come in on your side of the game." Mr. Crawshay's gesture was entirely convincing. "My dear Miss Sharey," he said softly, "I am going to take a holiday. Business is one thing and pleasure is another. For this evening I am going to put business out of my mind. The sentiment at which I hinted a few moments ago, has, I can assure you, a very real existence." "Hinted?" she laughed. "Guess there wasn't much hint about it. You said you were in love with me." "I am," Crawshay sighed. Her eyes danced joyously. "You shall tell me all about it over dinner," she declared. "I've got a peach of a black gown--you won't mind if I am twenty minutes?" "I shall mind every moment that you are away," Crawshay replied, "but I can pass the time. I will telephone and have a cocktail." She leaned towards him. "I can guess whom you are going to telephone to." "Perhaps--but not what I am going to say." "You are going to telephone to that chap with the dark moustache--Brightman, isn't it? I can hear you on the wire. 'Say, boys,' you'll begin, 'I'm on to a good thing! Everything's looking lovely. I'm taking little Nora Sharey, of Fourteenth Street, out to dine--girl who came over to Europe after Jocelyn Thew, you know. Good business, eh?'" Crawshay laughed tolerantly. The girl's humour pleased him. "You are wrong," he declared. "If I told them that, they'd expect something from me which I know I shan't get. You are right about the person, though. I am going to telephone to Brightman." "What are you going to say?" she challenged him. "I am just going to tell him," Crawshay confided, "that Jocelyn Thew is dining with Miss Beverley and her brother, more red roses and a corner table in the restaurant, and--" "Well, what else?" Crawshay hesitated. "Perhaps," he said, "if I went on I might put just one card too many on the table, eh?" "We'll let it go at that, then," she decided. "After all, you know, I am not coming exactly like a lamb to the slaughter. There are a few things you'd like to get to know from me about Jocelyn Thew, but there are also a few things I should like to worm out of you. We'll see which wins. And, Mr. Crawshay." "Miss Sharey?" he murmured, bending down to her as he held the door open. "I don't mind confessing that it depends a great deal upon what brand of champagne you fancy." "_Mum cordon rouge_?" he suggested. She made a little grimace as she turned away. "I am rather beginning to fancy your chance," she declared. _ |
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