The AvengerOppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
General
The Avenger
Oppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
Mystery fiction
Wrayson introduced his friends with perfect gravity. Chairs were found,
and coffee and liqueurs ordered. Wrayson contrived to sit on the outside,
and next to his copper-haired friend.
"Now for our little talk," he said. "Will you have a cigarette? You'll
find these all right."
She threw a sidelong glance at him and sighed. What an exceedingly
earnest young man this was!
"Well," she said, "I know you'll give me no peace till I've told you.
There may be nothing in it. That's for you to find out. I think myself
there is. It was last Thursday night in the promenade at the Alhambra
that I saw her!"
"Saw whom?" Wrayson interrupted.
"I'm coming to that," she declared. "Let me tell you my own way. I was
talking to a friend, and I overheard all that she said. She was quietly
dressed, and she looked frightened; a poor, pale-faced little thing she
was anyway, and she was walking up and down like a stage-doll, peering
round corners and looking everywhere, as though she'd lost somebody.
Presently she went up to one of the attendants, and I heard her ask him
if he knew a Mr. Augustus Howard who came there often. The man shook his
head, and then she tried to describe him. It was a bit flattering, but
an idea jumped into my head all of a sudden that it was Barnes she was
looking for."
"By Jove!" Wrayson muttered, under his breath. "Did you speak to her?"
She nodded.
"I waited till she was alone, and then I made her sit down with me and
describe him all over again. By the time she'd finished, I was jolly well
sure that it was Barnes she was after."
"Did you tell her?" Wrayson asked.
"Not I!" she answered. "I didn't want a scene there, and besides, it's
your little show, not mine. I told her that I felt sure I recognized him,
and that if she would be in the same place at nine o'clock a week from
that night, I could send some one whom I thought would be able to tell
her about her friend. That was last Thursday. You want to be just outside
the refreshment-room at nine o'clock to-morrow night, and you can't
mistake her. She looks as though she'd blown in from an A B C shop."
Wrayson possessed himself of her hand for a moment in an impulse of
apparent gallantry. Something which rustled pleasantly was instantly and
safely transferred to the metal purse which hung from her waistband.
"You will allow me?" he murmured.
"Rather," she answered, with a little laugh. "What a stroke of luck it
was meeting you here! Flo and I were both stony. We hadn't a sovereign
between us when we'd paid for our tickets."
"Have you seen anything of Barnes' brother?" he asked.
"Once or twice at the Alhambra," she answered.
"He was wearing his brother's clothes, but he looked pretty dicky."
"You didn't mention this young woman to him, I suppose?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"Not I! You're the only person I've told. Hope it brings you luck."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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