CHAPTER III

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_ Pamela, after a brief conversation with her friends, once more left the restaurant. In the lobby she called Ferrani to her.

"Has Mr. Fischer gone, Ferrani?" she asked.

"Not two minutes ago," the man replied. "You wish to speak to him? I can stop him even now."

She shook her head.

"On the contrary," she said drily, "Mr. Fischer represents a type of my countrymen of whom I am not very fond. He is a great patron of yours, is he not?"

"He is a large shareholder in the company," Ferrani confessed.

"Then your restaurant will prosper," she told him. "Mr. Fischer has the name of being very fortunate.... That was a wonderful luncheon you gave us to-day."

"Madame is very kind."

"Will you do me a favour?"

Ferrani's gesture was all-expressive. Words were entirely superfluous.

"I want two addresses, please. First, the address of Joseph, your head musician, and, secondly, the address of Hassan, your coffee-maker."

Ferrani effectually concealed any surprise he might have felt. He tore a page from his pocket-book.

"Both I know," he declared. "Hassan lodges at a shop eighty yards away. The name is Haines, and there are newspaper placards outside the door."

"That is quite enough," Pamela murmured.

"As for Monsieur Joseph," Ferrani continued, "that is a different matter. He has, I understand, a small flat in Tower Mansions, Tower Street, leading off the Edgware Road. The number is 18C. So!"

He wrote it down and passed it to her. Pamela thanked him and stood up.

"Now that I have done as you asked me," Ferrani concluded, "let me add a word. Both these men are already off duty and have left the restaurant. If you wish to communicate with either of them, I advise you to do so by letter."

"You are a very courteous gentleman, Mr. Ferrani," Pamela declared, dropping him a little mock curtsey, "and good morning!"

She made her way into the street outside, shook her head to the commissionaire's upraised whistle, and strolled along until she came to a cross street down which several motor-cars were waiting. She approached one--a very handsome limousine--and checked the driver who would have sprung from his seat.

"George," she said, "I am going to pay a call at a disreputable-looking news-shop, just where I am pointing. You can't bring the car there, as the street is too narrow. You might follow me on foot and be about."

The young man touched his hat and obeyed. A few yards down the street Pamela found her destination, and entered a gloomy little shop. A slatternly woman looked at her curiously from behind the counter.

"I am told that Hassan lodges here, the coffee-maker from Henry's," Pamela began.

The woman looked at her in a peculiar fashion.

"Well?"

"I wish to see him."

"You can't, then," was the curt answer. "He's at his prayers."

"At what?" Pamela exclaimed.

"At his prayers," the woman repeated brusquely. "There," she added, throwing open the door which led into the premises behind, "can't you hear him, poor soul? He's been pinching some more charms from ladies' bracelets, or something of the sort, I reckon. He's always in trouble. He goes on like this for an hour or so and then he forgives himself."

Pamela stood by the open door and listened--listened to a strange, wailing chant, which rose and fell with almost weird monotony.

"Very interesting," she observed. "I have heard that sort of thing before. Now will you kindly tell Hassan that I wish to speak to him, or shall I go and find him for myself?"

"Well, you've got some brass!" the woman declared, with a sneer.

"And some gold," Pamela assented, passing a pound note over to the woman.

"Do you want to see him alone?" the latter asked, almost snatching at the note, but still regarding Pamela with distrustful curiosity.

"Of course," was the calm reply.

The woman opened her lips and closed them again, sniffed, and led the way down a short passage, at the end of which was a door.

"There you are," she muttered, throwing it open. "You've arst for it, mind. 'Tain't my business."

She slouched her way back again into the shop. At first Pamela could scarcely see anything except a dark figure on his knees before a closed and shrouded window. Then she saw Hassan rise to his feet, saw the glitter of his eyes.

"Pull up the blind, Hassan," she directed.

He came a step nearer to her. The gloom in the apartment was extraordinary. Only his shape and his eyes were visible.

"Do as I tell you," she ordered. "Pull up the blind. It will be better."

He hesitated. Then he obeyed. Even then the interior of the room seemed shadowy and obscure. Pamela could only see, in contrast with the rest of the house, that it was wonderfully and spotlessly clean. In one corner, barely concealed by a low screen, his bed stood upon the floor. Hassan muttered something in an Oriental tongue. Pamela interrupted him. She spoke in the soothing tone one uses towards a child.

"That's all right, Hassan," she said. "Sorry to have interrupted you at your prayers, but it had to be done. You know me?"

"Yes, mistress," he answered unwillingly. "I your dragoman one year in Cairo. What you want here, mistress?"

"You know that I know," she went on, "that you are a Turk and a Mohammedan, and not an Egyptian at all."

"Yes, mistress, you know that," he muttered.

"And you also know," she continued, "that if I give you away to the authorities you will be sent at once to a very uncomfortable internment camp, where you won't even have an opportunity to wash more than once a day, where you will have to herd with all sorts of people, who will make fun of your colour and your religion--"

"Don't, mistress!" he shouted suddenly. "You will not tell. I think you will not tell!"

He was sidling a little towards her. Again one of those curious changes seemed to have transformed him from a dumb, passive creature into a savage. There was menace in his eyes. She waved him back without moving.

"I have come to make a bargain with you, Hassan," she said, "just a few words, that is all. Not quite so near, please."

He paused. There was a moment's silence. His face was within a foot of hers, lowering, black, bestial. Her eyes met his without a tremor. Her full, sweet lips only curved into a faintly contemptuous line.

"You cannot frighten me, Hassan," she declared. "No man has ever done that. And outside I have a chauffeur with muscles of iron, who waits for me. Be reasonable. Listen. There are secrets connected with your restaurant."

"I know nothing," he began at once; "nothing, mistress--nothing!"

"Quite naturally," she continued. "I only need one piece of information. A man disappeared there this morning. I just have to find him. That's all there is about it. At half-past one he was inveigled into the musicians' room and by some means or other rendered unconscious. At three o'clock he had been removed. I want to know what became of him. You help me and the whole world can believe you to be an Egyptian for the rest of their lives. If you can't help me it is rather unfortunate for you, because I shall tell the police at once who and what you are. Don't waste time, Hassan."

He stood thinking, rubbing his hands and bowing before her, yet, as she knew very well, with murder in his heart. Once she saw his long fingers raised a little.

"Quite useless, Hassan," she warned him. "They hang you in England, you know, for any little trifle such as you are thinking of. Be sensible, and I may even leave a few pound notes behind me."

"Mistress should ask Joseph," he muttered. "I know nothing."

"Oh, mistress is going to ask Joseph all right," she assured him, "but I want a little information from you, too. You've got to earn your freedom, you know, Hassan. Come, what do they do with the people who disappear from the restaurant?"

"Not understand," was the almost piteous reply.

Pamela sighed. She had again the air of one being patient with a child.

"See here, Hassan," she went on, "a few days ago I went over that restaurant from top to bottom with the manager. There is the musicians' room, isn't there, just over the entrance hall? I suppose those little glass places in the floor are movable, and then one can hear every word that is spoken below. I am right so far, am I not?"

Hassan answered nothing. His breathing, however, had become a little deeper.

"An unsuspecting person, passing from the toilet rooms upstairs, could easily be induced to enter. I think that there must be another exit from that room. Yes?"

"Yes!" Hassan faltered.

"To where?"

"The wine-cellars."

"And from there?"

Hassan was suddenly voluble. Truth unlocked his tongue.

"Not know, mistress--not know another thing. No one enters wine-cellar but three men. One of those not know. If I guess--I, Hassan--I look at little chapel left standing in waste place. Perhaps I wonder sometimes, but I not know."

Pamela drew three notes from her gold purse, smoothed them out and handed them over.

"Three pounds, Hassan, silence, and good day! You'll live longer if you open your windows now and then, and get a little fresh air, instead of praying yourself hoarse."

Again the black figure swayed perilously towards her. She affected not to notice, not to notice the hand which seemed for a moment as though it would snatch the door handle from her grasp. She passed out pleasantly and without haste. The last sound she heard was a groan.

"Done your bit o' business, eh?" the landlady asked curiously.

Pamela nodded assent.

"Rather an odd sort of lodger for you, isn't he?"

"Not so odd as his visitors," the woman retorted, with an evil sneer.

Pamela passed into the narrow street and drew a long sigh of relief. Then she entered her car and gave the chauffeur an address from the slip of paper which she carried in her hand. When they stopped outside the little block of flats he prepared to follow her.

"Tough neighbourhood this, madam," he said.

"Maybe, George," she replied, waving him back, "but you've got to stay down here. If the man I am going to see thought I was frightened of him I wouldn't have a chance. If I am not down in half an hour you can try number 18C."

The chauffeur resumed his place on the driving-seat of the car. Pamela, heartily disliking her surroundings, was escorted by a shabby porter to a shabbier lift.

"You'll find Mr. Joseph in," the lift boy assured her with a grin.

Pamela found the number at the end of an unswept stone passage. At her third summons the door was cautiously opened by a large, repulsive-looking woman, with a mass of peroxidised hair. She stared at her visitor first in amazement, then in rapidly gathering resentment.

"Mr. Joseph is at home," she admitted truculently, in response to Pamela's inquiry. "What might you be wanting with him?"

"If you will be so good as to let me in I will explain to Mr. Joseph," Pamela replied.

The woman seemed on the point of slamming the door. Suddenly there was a voice from behind her shoulder. Joseph appeared--not the smiling, joyous Joseph of Henry's but a sullen-looking negro, dressed in shirt and trousers only, with a heavy under-lip and frowning forehead.

"Let the lady pass and get into the kitchen, Nora," he ordered, "Come this way, mam."

Pamela followed her guide into a parlour, redolent of stale cigar smoke, with oilcloth on the floor and varnished walls, an abode even more horrible than Hassan's lair. Joseph closed the door carefully behind him, and made no apology for his dishabille. He simply faced Pamela.

"Say, what is it you want with me?" he demanded truculently.

"A trifle," she answered. "The key of the chapel in the little plot of waste ground next Henry's."

She meant him to be staggered, and he was. He reeled back for a moment.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he gasped.

"Facts," Pamela replied. "Do you want to save yourself, Joseph? You can do it if you choose."

He folded his arms and stood in front of the closed door. Without a collar, his neck bulged unpleasantly behind. There was nothing whatever left of the suave and genial chef d'orchestra.

"Save myself from what, eh? Just let me get wise about it."

Pamela's eyebrows were daintily elevated.

"Dear me!" she murmured. "I thought you were more intelligent. Listen. You know where we met last? Let me remind you. You were playing in the Winter Garden at Berlin, and the gentleman whom I was with, an attache at the American Embassy, spoke to you. He told me a good deal about your past life, Joseph, and your present one. You are in the pay of the Secret Service of Germany. Am I to go to Scotland Yard and tell them so?"

He looked at her wickedly.

"You'd have to get out of here first."

"Don't be silly," she advised him contemptuously. "Remember you're talking to an American woman and don't waste your breath. You can be in the Secret Service of any country you like, without interference from me. On the other hand, there's just one thing I want from you."

"What is it? I haven't got any key."

"I want to discover exactly what has become of Captain Graham," she declared.

"What, the guy that missed his lunch to-day?" he growled.

"I see you know all about it," she continued equably.

"So he's your spark, is he?" Joseph observed slowly, his eyes blinking as he leaned a little forward.

"On the contrary," Pamela replied, "I have never met him. However, that's beside the point. Do I have the key of that chapel?"

"You do not."

"Have you got it?"

"Right here," Joseph assented, dangling it before her eyes.

"I think it's a fair bargain I'm offering you," she reminded him. "You lose the key and keep your place. You only have to keep your mouth shut and nothing happens."

"Nothing doing," the negro declared shortly. "Keys as important as this ain't lost. If I part with it, I get the chuck, and I probably get into the same mess as the others. If I keep it--"

"If you keep it," Pamela interrupted, "you will probably stand with your back to the light in the Tower within the next few days. They've left off being lenient with spies over here."

He looked at her, and there were things in his eyes which few women in the world could have seen without terror. Pamela's lips only came a little closer together. She pressed the inside of the ring upon her third finger, and a ray of green fire seemed to shoot forward.

"I guess I'm up against it," he growled, taking a step forward. "I'll have something of what's coming to me, if I swing for it."

His arm was suddenly around her, his face hideously close. He gave a little snarl as he felt the pinprick through his shirt sleeve. Then he went spinning round and round with his hand to his head.

"What in God's name!" he spluttered. "What in hell--!"

He reeled against the horsehair easy-chair and slipped on to the floor. Pamela calmly closed her ring, stooped over him, withdrew the key from his pocket, crossed the room and the dingy little hall with swift footsteps, and, without waiting for the lift, fled down the stone steps. Before she reached the bottom, she heard the shrill ringing of the lift bell, the angry shouting of the woman. Pamela, however, strolled quietly out and took her place in the car.

"Back to the hotel, George," she directed the chauffeur. "Don't stop if they call to you from the flats."

The young man sprang up to his seat and the car glided off. Pamela leaned forward and looked at herself in the mirror. There was a shade more colour in her face, perhaps, than usual, but her low waves of chestnut hair were unruffled. She used her powder puff with attentive skill and leaned back.

"That's the disagreeable part of it over, anyway," she sighed to herself contentedly. _

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