The Secret House Read Online

They are just two imaginative foreigners. I suppose they want you to advance their fare?"

    "That is exactly what they do ask," said Poltavo.

    The man at the desk laughed uneasily behind his veil and rose.

    "It's the Spanish prison trick," he said; "surely you are not deceived by that sort of stuff?"

    Poltavo shrugged his shoulders.

    "Speaking as one who has also languished in a Spanish prison," he smiled, "and who has also sent out invitations to the generous people of England to release him from his sad position—a release which could only be made by generous payments—I thoroughly understand the delicate workings of that particular fraud; but we robbers of Spain, dear colleague, do not write in our native language, we write in good, or bad, English. We write not in vilely spelt Italian because we know that the recipient of our letter will not take the trouble to get it translated. No, this is no Spanish prison trick. This is genuine."

    "May I see the letter?"

    Poltavo handed it across the table, and the man turning his back for a moment upon his assistant lifted his veil and read. He folded the letter and put it in his pocket.

    "I will think about it," he said gruffly.

    "Another privilege I would crave from you in addition to the purely nominal privilege of receiving more salary," said Poltavo.

    "What is it?"

    The Pole spread out his hands in a gesture of self-depreciation.

    "It is weak of me, I admit," he said, "but I am anxious—foolishly anxious—to return to the society of well-clothed men and pretty women. I pine for social life. It is a weakness of mine," he added apologetically. "I want to meet stockbrokers, financiers, politicians and other chevaliers d'industrie on equal terms, to wear the grande habit, to listen to soft music, to drink good wine."

    "Well?" asked the other suspiciously. "What am I to do?"

    "Introduce me to society," said Poltavo sweetly—"most particularly do I desire to meet that merchant prince of whose operations I read in the newspapers, Mr. how-do-you-call-him?—Farrington."

    The veiled man sat in silence for a good minute, and then he rose, opened the cupboard and put in his hand. There was a click and the cupboard with its interior swung back, revealing another room which was in point of fact an adjoining suite of offices, also rented by Mr. Brown. He stood silently in the opening, his chin on his breast, his hands behind him, then:

    "You are very clever, Poltavo," he said, and passed through and the cupboard swung back in its place.

    "Assassin!"

    This was the cry which rang out in the stillness of the night, and aroused the interest of one inhabitant of Brakely Square who was awake. Mr. Gregory Farrington, a victim of insomnia, heard the sound, and put down the book he was reading, with a frown. He rose from his easy chair, pulled his velvet dressing gown lightly round his rotund form and shuffled to the window. His blinds were lowered, but these were of the ordinary type, and he stuck two fingers between two of the laths.

    There was a moist film on the window through which the street lamps showed blurred and indistinct, and he rubbed the pane clear with the tips of his fingers (he described every action to T. B. Smith afterwards).

    Two men stood outside the house. They occupied the centre of the deserted pavement, and they were talking excitedly. Through the closed window Mr. Farrington could hear the staccato rattle of their voices, and by the gesticulations, familiar to one who had lived for many years in a Latin country, he gathered that they were of that breed.

    He saw one raise his hand to strike the other and caught the flash of a pistol-barrel excitedly flourished.

    "Humph!" said Mr. Farrington.

    He was alone in his beautiful house in Brakely Square. His butler, the cook, and one sewing maid and the chauffeur were attending the servants' ball which the Manley-Potters were giving. Louder grew the voices on the pavement.

    "Thief!" shrilled a voice in French, "Am I to be robbed of——" and the rest was indistinguishable.

    There was a policeman on point duty at the other side of the square. Mr. Farrington's fingers rubbed the glass with greater energy, and his anxious eyes looked left and right for the custodian of the law.

    He crept down the stairs, opened the metal flap of the letter-box and listened. It was not difficult to hear all they said, though they had dropped their voices, for they stood at the foot of the steps.

    "What is the use?" said one in French. "There is a reward large enough for two—but for him—my faith! there is money to be made, sufficient for twenty.