Corner House — Chapter XXXVIII, Maitrank Strikes; Chapter XXXIX, Lawrence Shows His Hand; Chapter XL, Another Coil
CHAPTER XXXVIII. MAITRANK STRIKES.
Meanwhile the brilliant society season was drawing to a close.
Few smart functions remained, but there would be no more dashing affair than the forthcoming ball at Lytton Avenue.
The supper was coming from Paris, the decorations were unique, the flowers were to cost upwards of a thousand pounds.
The society papers had more or less veracious paragraphs, a score of lady journalists were making copy of the affair.
Thus Maitrank chuckled over his invitation.
He was going to take his vengeance for the trick played on him in his own good time.
He had purposely kept out of the way of the Countess.
He set the cables in motion, and after a due response or two he was closeted with the head of a smart firm of lawyers in Ely Place.
"You are quite sure of my position?"
he croaked.
"Quite, sir," the lawyer responded.
"According to the papers drawn up at the time, you can take possession and demand your money at any moment.
You are in the same position as a landlord distraining for rent.
If you want us to act----" "I do," Maitrank snapped.
"I wish you to act at eleven o'clock tomorrow night.
No need to stare at me like that, sir.
I know what I am doing.
And I am prepared to pay you handsomely for your services."
The lawyer bowed his strange client out.
He had only to obey instructions.
He went back to his desk pondering on the sensation that society was going to get shortly.
Maitrank went straight away to Lawrence.
"I have done what you asked," he said curtly.
"You are a wonderful man, you novelist; see you at our dear friend the Countess's tomorrow.
Good night."
By the time that Maitrank had bowed with humility over the hand of his hostess the following evening nearly all fashionable London had gathered in those spacious suites of rooms.
The decorations were superb, unique; there was no better music to be obtained in Europe.
Folk were talking with bated breath of the great chef who had come from Paris to superintend his supper.
It was the crowning glory of a wonderful woman's career.
She stood smiling before her guests in a dress that had cost Worth a sleepless night.
A duke was just congratulating her upon her good taste.
A
couple of gorgeous footmen were casting back the curtains of the supper room.
Down below in the hall something like an altercation seemed to be going on.
"It's a man, my lady," a blushing footman stammered.
"He declines to go away.
I called in a policeman, and he showed him a paper, after which the police went, saying it seemed all right and legal or something like that.
The fellow says he must see you."
Perhaps a creditor beyond all patience and in desperate need of money.
Leona Lalage sailed out of the room into the hall, where two seedy-looking men awaited her.
"Well, what is it you want tonight?"
she demanded, haughtily.
A long slip of paper was thrust into her hand.
Her quick brain grasped the significance.
Maitrank had struck, and struck hard.
These men were in possession for nearly £100,000--vulgar bailiffs such as come and sell the goods of poor people who cannot pay their rent.
Leona Lalage remembered now the conditions under which she had borrowed money from Maitrank.
He had her in his power.
It seemed a vile thing to do when she had put him off with the very jewels from about her neck.
And she was powerless--she could not have these men turned into the street.
Most of her guests would understand sooner or later.
Tomorrow this would be public property.
Once the tongue of rumour started the crash was bound to follow.
Leona Lalage looked round her helplessly for the first time in her life.
Maitrank stood there grinning like a hideous mask enjoying her confusion.
He had come to enjoy this where a more sensitive man would have stayed away.
Revenge to him was nothing unless he could feast his eyes upon it.
"You scoundrel, you cur!"
she hissed.
"If I had a weapon in my hand, I would kill you and die happy.
Why have you done this thing?"
"Why do you foist me off with paste jewels?"
Maitrank asked, coolly.
"Ah you may stare with amazement!
You are a very clever actress, madam."
"Paste?"
Lalage gasped.
"Paste!
Why for their sake--impossible!"
"I will sell them to you for the price of your bouquet," said Maitrank.
"It is my turn now.
Won't you have your guests in to supper?"
The Countess looked round her helplessly.
The sound of the music, the ripple of laughter, the murmur of voices maddened her.
She knew that the crash must come some time, but she had not dreamt of a humiliation like this.
Lawrence came sauntering down the steps.
She flew to him.
Could he help her.
She was in great trouble, and she knew that she could trust him.
She owed Maitrank a lot of money; he had chosen to humiliate her by actually putting these vulgar bailiffs in tonight, of all times.
Those pleading eyes would have melted a heart of stone.
Lawrence seemed to be greatly distressed.
"I fancy I can see a way out of the difficulty," he said.
"I do not wish to pry into your affairs, but in a novelist's business one gets to know things.
And I, too, am in a great quandary.
Do you recollect the flower farm near Ajaccio?"
"I am going mad," Leona whispered.
"To allude to that tonight!
Well, I have got on in the world like other people.
No need to allude to that.
What can it possibly have to do with the matter?"
"One never knows," said Lawrence.
"But I see you remember.
You also remember the marvellous secret of the tuberose scent.
For my own purposes I require a little of it, my story demands it.
I am talking business now.
Give me the little bottle from the Antoinette cabinet in your boudoir, and I will get rid of those men for you."
Slowly Leona Lalage took the speaker in from head to foot.
Her face had grown deadly pale.
But she could make nothing of Lawrence's face.
All the same, it was quite evident that he meant every word that he said.
"You shall have it," she said suddenly.
"How you got to know so much of my history you shall tell me presently.
But the tuberose is yours."
She flashed along the hall.
Directly she was gone Lawrence signalled to Maitrank, who stood in the background.
The latter produced a letter which he handed to the foremost of the two intruders.
"As you see, this is from the solicitor who employs you," he said.
"If I like to change my mind, and ask you to go you are to obey.
I ask you to go.
Say nothing of this, and I will see you are suitably rewarded in the morning."
The man looked and nodded.
He winked at his companion, and together they strode out of the house.
With a silent laugh Maitrank crept up the stairs.
"I trust you," he croaked.
"You promised me a better vengeance than I could get for myself.
See that I get it."
"More for the sake of others you shall get it," Lawrence cried.
"It's flattering to the vanity of a novelist to have a millionaire for one of his puppets."
The Countess came sweeping back again with one tiny phial in her hand.
Lawrence did not need to look to see that it was the right one.
Unknown to the Countess, he had had it in his possession before.
"There!"
she cried.
"And now to keep your part of the compact.
If you have got round Maitrank you are a genius.
Where are the men?"
"Gone!"
said Lawrence.
"I waved my hand and they have departed.
Nobody but us three has any knowledge of the truth."
A quiet sigh escaped from the listener.
She smiled again.
"It is a debt I can never repay," she said.
"Will you stay after the others have gone and tell me how you learnt my early history?"
"That is just what I should like to do," Lawrence said coolly.
CHAPTER XXXIX. LAWRENCE SHOWS HIS HAND.
The last guest had departed, the strains of music had died away.
The lights were out, and the flowers were wilting on the walls.
Leona Lalage had discarded her dress for a fascinating wrap, and was seated in her boudoir making a cigarette and trying to read something from the expression of Lawrence's face.
"And now what does it all mean?"
she asked gaily.
"In the first place, tell me how you got your influence over Maitrank."
"Knowledge is power," said Lawrence, "so long as you keep it to yourself.
Why did you tell me that you had never heard of the tuberose perfume?"
"That is easy.
I had no desire to speak of my humble past.
I was brought up near that flower farm where Mme.
Lalage made that marvellous perfume.
I am passionately fond of it, the more so that you cannot get it now.
I use it sometimes in the evening after the others have gone to bed.
But how did you know----" "Never mind that.
Years ago I got a whiff of it in Vienna, and it appealed to my imagination.
I saw a way of bringing it into fiction, much as it was done in the case of the play called 'Dora.'
I am going to do so."
"But how did you know that I had it?"
"I noticed it one night, very faintly I admit, but there it was.
You denied the fact to me, and I had to force your hand.
It sounds very clever, but commonplace enough when you once see how the trick is done."
The Countess stirred uneasily in her chair.
She felt there was more to follow.
"I have to my hand," Lawrence went on, "the materials for a magnificent romance.
Let us go back a little while.
Some week or two ago here we discussed the Corner House.
I said it would make the scene of a capital romance.
I went further and said I had already sketched the story out.
You recollect that?"
The Countess nodded.
Her lips were narrow and drawn in tightly.
"Strange to say," Lawrence proceeded, "almost immediately there was a tragedy at the Corner House, just on the lines of my story--the story that I said I should probably never write.
Now that was very strange."
"Very strange indeed," the Countess said hoarsely.
"The more I thought it over the more certain I became that my brain had been picked, and that my plot was being used by some designing person to bring trouble and disgrace upon a man who is destined to be related to me.
I waited for a little time to see how matters were developing, and then decided to refresh my memory from the skeleton plot of that unwritten story.
When I looked in my desk I could not find the plot.
Why?
Because it had been stolen.
"I was quite certain of the fact when I looked for it.
And all the time this Corner House tragedy was being enacted exactly as I should have written it.
There were other complications, of course, but the plot was the same."
"It sounds incredible," the Countess said.
"Not to me," Lawrence replied meaningly.
"The person who stole my plot did not know that I had it thoroughly by heart.
And when my young friend Bruce went to the Corner House and got into all that trouble, I was in a position beforehand to tell him all that had happened.
The scheme over those notes was also mine.
I know perfectly well how the whole thing was worked so as to make an innocent man appear guilty.
I
knew before I heard Bruce's story all about the old German and the picture.
"Perhaps you knew also the culprit," the Countess suggested.
Lawrence did not appear to hear the question, so he proceeded.
"There were other notes as well mentioned in that fateful letter.
But what had become of the other notes?
Nobody seemed to know or care about that.
But the numbers were known, and strangely enough, eventually they turned up in this very house.
They were paid over the gambling table that night that Isidore gave a cheque to the Marchioness.
The question is, who paid those notes over, who was it who first brought them into the room that night?"
"A question that can never be solved," the Countess gasped.
"You are mistaken," Lawrence said quietly, "I have handled those notes, and I have solved the problem.
They were produced in the first instance by you."
Leona Lalage was on her feet in a moment.
Her face was pale as ashes.
"You are wrong," she cried.
"It could not have been so."
"It was so, because of the scent of them.
Every one of these notes was--and is--very slightly impregnated with the smell of tuberose."
There was a long, long silence, a silence that could be felt.
CHAPTER XL. ANOTHER COIL.
Lawrence stretched out his hand for a cigarette as if he had said the most natural thing in the world.
A less clever man would have shown something like triumph.
But Lawrence had thought this all out as carefully as if it were really a new melodrama he was writing.
The time had come when matters must be forced into the channel to suit himself.
Already he had laid the lines carefully.
This woman must be made to own that the missing notes had really come from her, or at least part of them.
Once this was done, the novelist felt pretty sure of his game.
But though he wanted to startle and alarm his companion, he didn't desire to expose his suspicions too far.
"A very singular circumstance, is it not?"
he asked, quietly.
Leona Lalage had recovered herself; she did not know that Lawrence had been purposely busy over his cigarette to give her an opportunity of so doing.
"Really, I ought to be indignant," she cried.
"Surely not," Lawrence murmured quietly.
"I have made no accusations.
In taking up the matter on behalf of Gordon Bruce, I have to make searching inquiries.
I naturally ask myself where are the rest of those notes.
By a strange fate they turn up here.
Isidore identifies the numbers and I identify the scent.
I am more or less able to prove that it was you who produced those notes the night of the card party.
You went to your room to get some cash which you changed into gold.
Therefore the notes were in your possession."
"But I'll swear to you," the Countess broke in vehemently.
"I'll swear----" "My dear friend, there is no occasion to do anything of the kind.
Am I making any kind of accusation against you?
Ridiculous!
Why, black as things look against my friend Bruce, I don't suspect him.
All I want you to do is to try and recollect whence you got those notes."
Leona Lalage kept her face half hidden behind her fan.
For the life of her she could not tell whether this man was playing with her or not.
Hitherto men had been her puppets, hitherto she had regarded all of them as fools.
Lawrence smoked calmly on, as if he were discussing the weather or something equally exciting.
"I'll try," she said, "but then I handle so much money.
I play cards, I bet on horses.
There are scores of ways.
But I'll try."
Lawrence rose and took his leave.
He dropped in at the nearest telephone call office and late as it was rang up Isidore.
The latter was waiting.
"It's all right," he said.
"I have had Balmayne here as you suggested.
And I have told him exactly as much as you desired him to know.
He's just gone off in a great hurry, for any money to Lytton Avenue."
As a matter of fact, Balmayne's cab passed Lawrence a minute or two later.
The latter smiled as if well pleased with himself.
"Splendid so far," he murmured.
"She'll walk into the trap, in fact they both will.
And now I think I have really earned a good night's rest."
Leona Lalage was raging up and down the room as Balmayne entered.
The first saffron streaks of dawn were making the electrics thin and yellow.
Evidently something had gone wrong.
Balmayne waited for his companion to speak.
"I came here with pretty bad news," he said, after a pause.
"I went off with Isidore to talk business, and he let out something that absolutely startled me."
"It can't be as bad as my news," Leona said, gloomily.
"They have traced the rest of the missing notes directly to my possession."
"What!"
Balmayne cried, "were you mad enough to----."
"I am afraid so.
It is no time for idle recrimination.
The gambling fever was on me the other night and I felt that I must play.
I tried to borrow money that evening, but not one of the wretches would trust me with a shilling.
I had those notes upstairs; they formed my rescue in case of a collapse.
It seemed to me that nobody would be any the wiser.
I brought them down, and gambled with them.
And beyond all doubt, Gilbert Lawrence has traced them to me."
"Will you be so good as to tell me how?"
Balmayne said.
In a few words the story was told.
Balmayne listened moodily.
With his further knowledge of facts he saw the danger.
"This is dreadful," he said.
"The man who died in the Corner House changed four hundred sovereigns into notes.
Part of them he put into a letter to send to a certain person who appears to have been nameless.
We know that he was going to send that money to his brother."
"Of course.
But, thank goodness, we are the only people who know that."
"Exactly where you are mistaken," said Balmayne, bitterly.
"They all know it.
Isidore let it out tonight.
The fellow Prout, who has the Corner House case in hand, by a piece of amazing luck has arrested a criminal on another charge.
In that criminal's possession were certain letters addressed to him by the--by Leona Lalage, in fact.
In other words the police have discovered the dead man's brother René!"
The Countess paused in her agitated walk.
She had been striding up and down the room impatiently.
She paused now with her hand to her head as if somebody had shot her in her stride, and collapsed into a chair.
"Say that again," she groaned, "say that again."
"My words were perfectly plain," Balmayne said, impatiently.
"René Lalage is in the hands of the police; they know he is brother to the murdered man by certain letters found in his possession.
Also we know that in their queer way those two rascals were very fond of one another.
There is not much suspicion yet, or Isidore would not have told me so much tonight.
But when ill-luck begins to dog one, it is amazing how far that ill-luck goes.
For instance----" "Well?
