XX
“Allow me, madam.”
Larry Hughes stood beside them, a gold cigarette case open in his hand. He had entered so silently that neither of them had heard him. Mrs. Gertstein delicately selected a cigarette, and he offered the case to Penelope who shook her head. He showed his white teeth in a smile.
“We three should have no secrets from each other,” he said blandly. “We are now allies in a common cause—our own safety. The harsh and brutal methods of your friend Mr. Labar, Miss Noelson, have resulted in my offering harbourage to this lady here. I am sure that you will be as delighted as I am to have her company on our travels.”
“Travels?”
“Where are—”
Both women spoke simultaneously. He held up a slim white hand. “Don’t be alarmed. We are safe enough for the moment. I doubt if Scotland Yard knows where we are within fifty miles. But I have enough respect for them to suppose that they will some time or other find out. In plain words they are likely to make the place too hot for me—for us. So we shall leave this place within the next day or two, as soon as I am able to make arrangements.
“I must let Solly know that I am safe,” said Mrs. Gertstein.
His smile contorted into a contemptuous sneer. “Your amiable and anxious husband has no doubt had a story told him by Labar by this time,” he said. “He will be under no great concern as to your safety. He will believe that you have eloped with me.”
Adèle Gertstein started to her feet and her eyebrows drew together. “You beast,” she said.
He waved his hand impatiently. “My dear girl,” he said, “I have always been tempted to admire your beauty rather than your brains. I am stating a fact. You elected to come away with me. What can your estimable Gertstein think?”
“I don’t care what he thinks. I shall write to him this minute,” she retorted.
“If I didn’t know you so well, I might think that you were in love with your husband,” he declared. “Upon my soul I am beginning to be sorry I cluttered myself up with you.” He menaced her fiercely with a forefinger. “How long do you think it would be after you had written to him, before Labar would have you in the dock? What is it that the police want you for? Attempted murder! Forgery! Do you think that the detectives will not be watching to get a line on you? You poor fool! From now on you will not lift a finger without my permission, or I will throw you to the police.” He banged his fist fiercely on to a table and glared at her. “Do you get that? Ten, perhaps fifteen years in Aylesbury. That’s what is waiting for you if you start any funny business.”
She flung up an arm as though she feared a physical assault, and indeed during his tirade it seemed as though he was restraining himself from striking her only by an effort. “I didn’t understand, Larry,” she said, shrinking from him. “Of course you are right. I will do whatever you say.”
“I think you will,” he returned grimly. “I think you will eat out of my hand before I am finished with you.”
He turned with an abrupt change of manner to Penelope. “I am sorry to have inflicted this scene upon you, Miss Noelson. It is necessary that people who deal with me should know where they stand.”
There was an inflection in his tone that told her she might apply the lesson to herself. She met the hint scornfully.
“I have had some examples of your methods,” she retorted.
“Then I hope that they have not been lost on you,” he replied, and thrusting his hands deep in his pockets walked from the room.
It was a minute or two before either woman spoke. Then Mrs. Gertstein flung the stub of her cigarette through the open window. “What a devil that man is,” she observed. “How did you come to get here, Pen?”
“Never mind about that,” said Penelope. “He may be back at any moment. Tell me, is it true what he said? Are you escaping from the police?”
The eyes of Mrs. Gertstein avoided her. “In a way—yes,” she confessed in a low voice. “I’ve got into a mess, Pen.”
“And it is for attempted murder as well as for the forgery of that cheque?”
“I didn’t mean anything, Pen. Don’t look at me like that. Honestly I didn’t. Things just happened. I was mad. Oh, Pen, if you knew what I’ve gone through.”
Adèle Gertstein felt sincerely sorry for herself. She turned an appealing face to Penelope. The other girl regarded her inquiringly.
“Who was it that you tried to kill?” she asked.
“A detective man. He had found out about—about the cheque I cashed. I was out of my mind. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“Detective Inspector Labar—the man you got me to pass a note to?”
The other’s attitude underwent a swift transition. “Don’t you question me in that tone, Penelope Noelson,” she exclaimed with sudden asperity. “What right have you to judge me? I employed you out of charity and now that things are going against me, you think that you can bully me.” She stamped her foot. “I won’t have it. Who are you to put on airs and graces with me?”
It was as though she had not spoken. Penelope’s eyes were fixed upon her, but they seemed to look right through her. She got to her feet with an air of calm detachment that hid an intensity of feeling, and gripped Mrs. Gertstein’s arm.
“Is he dangerously hurt?” she asked. “Tell me the truth.” Her fingers bit deep in the soft flesh of the other woman. “You have done enough harm as it is. Now tell me.”
Their eyes fought for domination for an instant. The grip on Mrs. Gertstein’s arm tightened, and she saw that in Penelope’s face that she had not seen before.
“It was an accident,” she said slowly as though the words were dragged from her. “I never meant it. I had a knife in my hands and he—”
“Is he dangerously hurt?” persisted Penelope.
“No. It was nothing, Penelope. Just a small cut. I swear it. Why, an hour later he was chasing us in a car. I am sure that he was not hurt.”
Penelope released her arm. “That is all right, then,” she said steadily. “There is only one thing for you to do. At the first chance you must give yourself up. I don’t know how it is to be managed, but you must do it.”
The other woman recoiled from her, her face showing her emotion. “No,” she declared. “I should be mad to do a thing like that. You are mad to suggest it.”
“And if you don’t,” cried Penelope, something of her restraint falling from her, “in what kind of a position will you be? You will be a hunted woman—the slave of every whim and caprice of this man, Larry Hughes. Do you think that you will not be caught sooner or later, and what construction will be put on your flight? Even if the police do not get you, what kind of a life will be yours? Do you believe that Larry Hughes will save you at any risk to himself? Much better to face it all out now than put yourself farther in the wrong.”
Mrs. Gertstein shuddered. “I know,” she exclaimed. “But, Pen, can’t you see I dare not? I should have to go to prison. It would be too terrible.” She wrung her hands. “I would rather die. They would have taken me to gaol then, if I hadn’t come away with Larry. He is my only chance. I must stick by him. After all, the police don’t catch everybody. If I could get abroad—to South America or somewhere. I could live quietly there, until it was all forgotten about.”
Penelope dropped the discussion abruptly. It was no use trying to present the stern logic of facts to this frightened and harebrained woman. She was sickened, but she had some sympathy with the panic in which Mrs. Gertstein was caught. It might be as she said that there was a real chance of escape for her, although the girl viewing the position with a detached and more clear sighted appreciation of the facts, thought it a tenuous one.
She felt that her own plight had become more delicate in some ways. Her sense of loyalty to Mrs. Gertstein had been shaken, but it was not absolutely shattered. It was one thing to advise her to give herself up; it was quite another actively to betray her either voluntarily or under pressure. Penelope knew that, if she did at any time manage to escape, that questions would be put to her by the police—questions designed so that the answers should lead them not only to Larry Hughes but to Mrs. Gertstein. She had suffered much already in trying to protect the other woman, but she could not bring herself to contemplate aiding to bring her to justice. Yet the only alternative was to stay by her. That, if they were to submit to Larry Hughes’ will, was still more unthinkable.
“Well, Adèle,” she said, quietly, “we will talk about it later on. You are not yourself now. I wonder if Mrs. Lengholm has got a room for you? You will need a rest.”
She pressed a bell, and Sophie, whose face was a little less serene than usual, stalked into the room. Penelope put a question.
“If you don’t mind,” said Sophie, “we’ll have to put an extra bed in your room, Miss Noelson. You see our accommodation is rather limited.”
“Then we shall be together. That will be fine,” said Mrs. Gertstein and allowed Sophie to lead her away.
Penelope picked up a book, although she was in little mood for reading. But she was apparently engrossed in its pages when Larry Hughes put his head in ten minutes later. He nodded without saying a word and stole quietly away.
An idea had taken root in his mind, and he was not the man to waste time in putting any project into execution. Mrs. Gertstein had barely had time to begin to repair the ravages of her toilet with the help of Sophie Lengholm ere he sent for her. She came into the room he called his study, a little defiantly, a little frightened. He motioned her to a chair.
“We’re too old friends to quarrel, Adèle,” he began in his silken modulated voice. “I want to apologise for the way in which I spoke to you just now. It was unforgivable.”
She stretched out a small shoe and contemplated it with a smile. One could almost have said that she was purring. “That’s all right, Larry. I was an ungrateful little fool. I was a little strung up.”
She looked sideways at him, and he stroked his lip with his hand to hide a smile. Even at this juncture in her affairs she could not resist the opportunity to attempt to flirt.
“That’s all right, then. So long as we’re friends again.” He leaned back in his chair. “The fact is, Adèle, that I’ve come to the point at which I want the advice and help of a woman of the world.”
“So.” She smiled languorously at him. “That’s a compliment. And yet you said a little while ago that you always admired my beauty rather than my brains.”
There was no sting in the reproof. He laughed lightly. “Did I say that? The brandy must have made me peevish. You don’t realise how highly I regard you in a thousand ways.”
“Did you call me down to make love to me?” she countered. “I thought you had got over that long ago.” Her face suddenly hardened. “At least you turned our affair to your financial advantage, didn’t you?”
A little puzzled frown appeared on his forehead. Larry Hughes would have made a great actor. “Financial advantage? I don’t get you, my dear girl.”
She stiffened a fraction. “According to that detective person, you were behind the man who was blackmailing me.”
“And you believed that? Good Lord!” He contrived to inflect into his voice just the right mixture of amusement and astonishment at her credulity. “If I were that kind of dirty skunk, why should I try to shelter behind someone else? Did I ever strike you, Adèle, as a man who would be afraid of coming out into the open in a case like that?”
“Do you mean that he invented that story?”
“Invented it. That’s one of the oldest tricks of the police detective. He wanted to embitter you against me. I give you my word of honour, Adèle. You’ll believe me, won’t you?”
“Do you know it never struck me in that way,” she said reflectively. She thrust out a hand towards him which he affected not to see. “Of course I believe you, Larry.”
“I am glad of that.” He gave a convincing sigh of relief. “Now, Adèle, I want you to help me. It’s about Penelope Noelson.”
“You’ve not fallen in love with her, have you?” she asked with a little laugh. “By the way, what is she doing here?”
He looked at her thoughtfully before replying. “Couldn’t you guess that?” he said steadily. “She is here because I intend to marry her.”
Adèle Gertstein drew herself bolt upright. “Marry her,” she repeated harshly. “You say she is going to marry you?”
“The same thing. I am going to marry her.”
Her face betrayed the complexities of emotions that were in her mind. A quarter of an hour before she would have dismissed from her mind as an absurdity the idea that she was still in love with Larry Hughes. But now her vanity was touched at his airy assumption that she would calmly accept the defection of the man she had once made a conquest. Had she lost all her attraction?
She burst into laughter—ironical bitter laughter. “That grey mouse,” she said. “You want to marry her! It is comic.”
“I wouldn’t have believed it possible,” he said gravely. “I believe you are doing me the honour to be jealous.”
“Of that doll,” she exclaimed. “Me jealous of Penelope Noelson. It struck me as funny, but otherwise it is a matter of complete indifference to me.”
Larry tried to follow the trend of her mind. He could not determine whether she was moved by pique, or whether she was actually a jealous woman. None knew better than he how difficult it was to probe the fluky and irresponsible motives which swayed her with every passing mood. If he was to enlist her for his purposes he must by some means or other overcome this unexpected antagonism.
He laughed easily. “I was joking, of course, Adèle. If you were a free woman—but it is no good thinking about that. To tell you the truth, Adèle, I am forced to this. Your safety as well as mine depends on closing the mouth of this girl. There are two ways. The one is marriage.”
She thrust forward a strained face. “And the other?”
“The other—” He beat his foot on the floor in a nervous tattoo. “I won’t consider the other, Adèle, till I have tried all other means. That will have to be the last thing. If I can induce her to marry me she cannot, even if she would, give evidence against us. As for falling in love with her”—he made a quick gesture of scorn—“that is the last thing on earth that I am likely to do. There has only been one woman with whom I have ever been in love. In any case this will be a marriage only in name.”
As he watched her he congratulated himself that he had struck the right note. Mrs. Gertstein sat with chin cupped in her hand thinking, or rather trying to think. It was a few moments before she spoke.
“Is Penelope willing to marry you?”
Larry smiled wrily. “I doubt it. But I think with a little persuasion you will be able to overcome her scruples. She will see that there is nothing else for it in time.”
“I don’t see why I should go out of my way to help you in this,” she said. “It’s your own business, Larry.”
There was indecision in her voice. The man shook his head as though with amused tolerance at the slow comprehension of a dull child. “My dear woman, it is the business of all of us—of you particularly. She knows much too much. Where will you be, if I am landed in the dock? We have all got to hang together or hang separately. I am not asking you to do me a favour. I am asking you to help save yourself. The prison doors are not far away from you, Adèle. You can take your choice.”
That threat clinched the matter as Larry Hughes expected it would. With all her futility of brain Mrs. Gertstein had a strong instinct for self-preservation. That alone would smother any lesser feelings she might have, even her hurt vanity or her sense of friendship for the girl who had been loyal to her. Her course was straight in front of her, and in taking it she reckoned nothing of the consequences to anyone but herself.
“You are right, Larry,” she said. “I’ll do all that I can to make her see reason.”
“Good girl.” He stood over her and patted her on the shoulder. “We’ll pull things off together yet. You had better go and find her and see what you can do.”
He laughed quietly to himself as she left the room. She was tied to him too closely now to deliberately play him false. And, he reflected, once he had safely steered his way out of danger from Scotland Yard there might be fat pickings to be made from old Gertstein if he played his cards aright.