The Yellow Snake (20 page)

    "Why, surely, Mr Narth," she said, a little amused.

    "Go there first," said Stephen, still looking past her. "If she hasn't got what you want you needn't buy it. I've half promised I'd send you there, and it will be good for me too, though the business is a flourishing one."

    He wrote the address on a card and pushed it across the table to her.

    "Don't think because it's a poor-looking place that she hasn't got the dresses you want," he continued. "And Joan, I'm rather fussy about little things. Don't keep cabs waiting, my dear; they eat up money, and dressmakers keep you a long time. Always pay off the cabman when you go into a dressmaker's, Joan; you can generally get another without any trouble. No, no, don't count the money, it doesn't matter. If you want more you must ask and I will let you have it. Goodbye."

    His face was as white as death, his eyes held an apprehension which almost terrified her. She took the cold, clammy hand and shook it, but he stopped her thanks brusquely.

    "Go to Madame Ferroni's first, won't you? I promised her you would."

    The door closed on her and he gave her time to get out of the building, and then he walked to the door and locked it. As he did so, the second door which led to the boardroom opened slowly and Fing-Su came in. Stephen Narth turned, a glare of hate in his eyes.

    "Well, I've done it," he jerked. "If any harm comes to that girl, Fing-Su——"

    Fing-Su smiled broadly and flicked a speck of invisible dust from his well-fitting morning coat.

    "No harm will come to her, my dear man," he said in his soft, suave way. "It is merely a move in the great game. A tactical point gained, that the strategical plan may be brought to complete success."

    Narth was fingering the telephone.

    "I've a good mind to stop her," he said huskily. "I could call Lynne and he would get there first."

    Fing-Su smiled again, and his eye did not leave the telephone and the nervous hand that played with the receiver.

    "That would be a catastrophe for you, Mr Narth," he said. "You owe us fifty thousand pounds which you can never repay."

    "Never repay?" snarled the other. "You seem to forget that I'm the heir of Joe Bray."

    The Chinaman showed his white teeth in a humorous grin.

    "An heirship is not of very much value until the testator dies," he said.

    "But Joe Bray is dead!" gasped the other.

    "Joe Bray," said Fing-Su coolly, as he tapped a cigarette upon a golden box he had taken from his waistcoat pocket, "is very much alive. In fact, I heard him with my own ears last night!"

    With no other thought save one of perplexity at Stephen Narth's changed appearance, Joan went forth on a mission which would have been dear to any woman but was especially pleasing to her in the circumstances. She counted the money as she sat in the taxi: there was £320—an enormous sum to one who had never owned more than ten pounds in her life.

    Madame Ferroni's address she had given to the driver, and for the next ten minutes she was interested in the skill with which he threaded his way through the traffic, worked round the blocks at every busy street crossing, till he reached the comparative freedom of the Euston Road.

    Fitzroy Square has a peculiar character of its own; its proximity to the West End trading centres has saved it from the indignity which has befallen so many of the obscure squares of London and has converted fine old Queen Anne houses into tenements. It boasted a restaurant of some reputation, a dancing club or two, and numerous business offices.

    The doorpost of No. 704 was almost entirely covered with brass plates announcing the variegated professions and trades which were carried on behind its open doorway. Painted at the top were the words: "Madame Ferroni, Modiste, 3rd floor back." The paint, she noticed, was still wet.

    She had dismissed the cabman to satisfy the frugal views of her relation, and mounting the stairs she came at last, a little out of breath but elated with the exhilarating character of her visit, to a door on which, also newly painted, was the dressmaker's name. She knocked, and was immediately admitted. The woman who opened the door to her was dark-faced and forbidding. She was dressed in black, and this emphasized her sallow complexion. Hers was a complexion distinct from the normal darkness of European races; there were faint, livid shadows under her eyes; her lips were thick, her nose a little squat. She was unquestionably a half caste. The slant eyes, the yellow tinge to her skin, marked her unmistakably to a student of ethnology—but Joan was not such a student.

    This would not have alarmed the girl but for the fact that the room into which she was ushered was almost empty and the door that closed upon her was immediately locked. There was an inner door of baize, and this also the woman fastened.

    Joan looked round a room bare except for a big wardrobe, a settee and a tea table which had been laid, and the kettle on which was steaming. Of dresses there was none, unless they were in the wardrobe, which, she saw, was a fixture.

    "Please do not be alarmed, Miss Bray," said the sallow woman, with an effort at amiability which made her plain face even more unprepossessing. "I do not keep my dresses here; this is where I interview my clients."

    "Why did you fasten the door?" asked the girl, and although she summoned her reserves of courage to her aid, she felt the colour leaving her face.

    Madame Ferroni cringed double in her anxiety to preserve the confidence of her visitor.

    "I do not wish to be interrupted while I have a very important client, Miss Bray," she said. "You see, miss, your uncle, Mr Narth, put all his money into this business and I wish to please him. It is natural! I have the dresses at my shop in Savoy Street, and we will go there at once and you shall choose what you wish. But first I wanted to have a little talk with you—to obtain ideas of your requirements."

    She spoke with a certain precision, almost as though she were reciting passages which she had committed to memory.

    "You must join me in a cup of tea," she went on. "This tea habit is one which I have acquired since I came to this country."

    Joan was not especially interested in habits, except the habit of locked doors that remained fastened.

    "Madame Ferroni—I am afraid I cannot stay now. I will come back later."

    Joan pulled open the green baize, but the key had been taken from the lock of the outer door.

    "Certainly, if you wish," Madame Ferroni had a trick of shrugging one shoulder. "But you realize that if I do not please you I may lose my job?"

    She had the awkwardness of a foreigner making tea, and now poured forth the strong dark-brown liquid, treated it over-generously with milk, and handed the cup to the girl. She had need of stimulant, but would have welcomed a glass of water, for her mouth had gone dry with fear, and she found an increasing difficulty in speaking.

    One thought was at the back of her mind—she must not let the woman know she was afraid, or that she suspected there was anything unusual in this method of receiving a possible client. She stirred the tea and drank eagerly, as Madame took the key from the table and, walking slowly to the door, slipped it in the lock and turned it. She turned it twice, once to open and once to close it again, but of this fact Joan was unaware.

    "Now I will put on my hat and we will go," said Madame Ferroni, accompanying her words by lifting down a huge black hat from a peg on the wall. "I do not like Fitzroy Square; it is so dull. And as I told Mr Narth, clients will not climb three flights of stairs to try on pretty dresses..."

    The cup dropped from Joan's fingers and smashed to splinters. With the litheness of a tiger, Madame leapt suddenly across the room and, catching the dazed girl as she swayed, lowered her gently to the floor.

    As she did so there came a thunderous knock at the outer door, and Madame Ferroni's face went green.

    "Anybody here?"

    There was authority in the tone, and the woman stood trembling, her hand on the key.

    Again came the summons.

    "Open the door; I can see the key on the inside," said the voice.

    Turning swiftly, Madame opened the wall-wardrobe and lifted out the loose bottom. There were eight inches of space between the floor of the room and the baseboard of the cupboard, and, lifting the limp figure of Joan, she laid her in the dusty cavity. Replacing the loose bottom, she closed and locked the wardrobe, took the girl's tea cup and saucer, and, pushing open the window, flung them out into the little backyard. A swift glance round, and, walking to the door, she turned the key and flung it open.

    A man was standing on the landing. Madame's knowledge of the police was more than academical, and that this was a Scotland Yard man she knew. She had a tawny husband who had been snatched from her by such a man as this. She half recognized the caller but did not remember his name.

    "Hallo!" he asked. "Where is Miss Bray?"

    "Miss——?" The woman frowned as though she had not heard the name aright.

    "Miss Bray. She came in here five minutes ago."

    Madame Ferroni smiled and shook her head.

    "You are mistaken," she said. "Nobody has been here but me."

    The detective walked into the room and looked around. He saw the table and the solitary cup.

    "What is in that cupboard?"

    "Nothing—would you like to see it?" asked Madame sarcastically, and added: "May I ask who you are?"

    "I am Detective-Sergeant Long of Scotland Yard," said the other. "You know who I am—I raided your house two years ago and pinched your Chinese husband for peddling dope. Open that cupboard."

    With her one-shouldered shrug 'Madame Ferroni' threw open the doors. The floorboard was in place; not for an instant did it occur to the detective to wonder what occupied the space between that and the floor.

    "Has she been and gone?" he asked. "Is that what you're telling me?"

    "I don't know of whom you speak."

    From his pocket he took a small card, bearing the address written in Stephen Narth's hand—he had followed the taxi to Fitzroy Square, had intercepted the driver and taken the card from him.

    "You call yourself Madame Ferroni now, don't you?"

    She nodded. And then came an inspiration.

    "There is another Madame Ferroni, on the top floor," she said. "It is very awkward having two names similar in the same building. That is why I am not staying."

    The detective looked at her sharply and hesitated.

    "I'll try the next floor," he said. "You wait here. If I find nothing upstairs, you'll go a little walk with me."

    She closed the door behind him. There was a small house telephone in a corner of the room. She lifted this, pushed the button and began speaking in a low, earnest tone. In the meantime the detective had reached the head of the stairs. He saw only one room, that immediately facing him, and he rapped at the door.

    A man's shrill voice said "Come in," and, unsuspecting, he pushed open the door and walked into the apartment.

    The thick derby hat he was wearing saved his life, for the heavy club that came down on his head would have killed him. He staggered under the blow; somebody hit him sideways with a bottle, and he went down to the floor like a log.

    Joan Bray came to consciousness with a sensation that something was hammering at regular and too frequent intervals on the crown of her head, and with every blow she winced. It was a long time before she realized that she was alone, and that the hammering came from within...

    There was a sort of earthenware sink in a corner of the room. No windows, but a skylight in the roof, through which she saw the dull light of a rainy day. Mostly she concentrated her mind upon the sink and the tarnished brass tap, from which ran a steady trickle of water.

    Dragging herself to her feet, she swayed and could hardly have maintained her balance but for the support of the wall; and now, with great labour and with her head throbbing at every step she took, she reached the tap, turned it and, first cupping her hands to catch the stream, she slaked her appalling thirst. Then she did what most women would have hesitated to do—she put her head under the cold stream, thankful that, in a moment of modernism, she had allowed herself to be shingled. Wringing the water from her hair, she stood upright. The pains in her head had diminished, and her immediate and prosaic requirement was a towel. She found one hanging on a roller, clean and new, and had a dim idea that it must have been put there specially for her use. By the time she had roughly dried herself, her mind was nearer normality. This room had been got ready specially for her. Near the old camp-bed on which she had been lying was a stool, on which was balanced a covered tray, a coffee-pot and a roll.

    What time was it? She looked at the watch on her wrist; the hands pointed to half-past four. It had been three o'clock when she went into Madame Ferroni's fateful room. In an hour and a half she had moved to—where?

    She sat down on the bed and tried to create, from her confused thoughts, some clear conspectus of her situation. There was a piece of soiled green sacking beneath the bed. From where she sat she could see three letters—'Maj ...' She pulled out the sacking. Major Spedwell, S & M Poona, was the faded inscription. Who was Major Spedwell? she wondered. She had met him somewhere...Of course, he was the third man present at the projected luncheon which Clifford Lynne had so rudely interrupted. Was she still in Fitzroy Square? And if she was not, how had they got her...wherever she was? The skylight was of frosted glass, but she could see the rain running down in little streams and could hear the sough of the wind outside.