Edgar Wallace - The Angel of Terror

"Then you have six thousand reasons why you should keep on good terms with me," said Jean smiling cheerfully.

"That cave man stuff?" he asked, and shook his head. "She'd raise Cain."

Jean was laughing inside herself, but she did not show her merriment.

"You can but try," she said. "I've already told you how it can be done."

"I'll try to-morrow," he said after a thought. "By heavens, I'll try to-morrow!"

It was on the tip of her tongue to say "Not to-morrow," but she checked herself.

Mordon came round with the car to pick her up soon after. Mordon! Her little chin jerked up with a gesture of annoyance, which she seldom permitted herself. And yet she felt unusually cheered. Her meeting with the Moor was a milestone in her life from which memory she could draw both encouragement and comfort.

"You met Muley?" said Lydia. "How thrilling! What is he like, Jean? Was he a blackamoor?"

"No, he wasn't a blackamoor," said the girl quietly. "He was an unusually intelligent man."

"H'm," grunted her father. "How did you come to meet him, my dear?"

"I picked him up on the beach," said Jean coolly, "as any flapper would pick up any nut."

Mr. Briggerland choked.

"I hate to hear you talking like that, Jean. Who introduced him?"

"I told you," she said complacently. "I introduced myself. I talked to him on the beach and he talked to me, and we sat down and played with the sand and discussed one another's lives."

"But how enterprising of you, Jean," said the admiring Lydia.

Mr. Briggerland was going to say something, but thought better of it.

There was a concert at the theatre that night and the whole party went. They had a box, and the interval had come before Lydia saw somebody ushered into a box on the other side of the house with such evidence of deference that she would have known who he was even if she had not seen the scarlet fez and the white robe.

"It is your Muley," she whispered.

Jean looked round.

Muley Hafiz was looking across at her; his eyes immediately sought the girl's, and he bowed slightly.

"What the devil is he bowing at?" grumbled Mr. Briggerland. "You didn't take any notice of him, did you, Jean?"

"I bowed to him," said his daughter, not troubling to look round. "Don't be silly, father; anyway, if he weren't nice, it would be quite the right thing to do. I'm the most distinguished woman in the house because I know Muley Hafiz, and he has bowed to me! Don't you realise the social value of a lion's recognition?"

Lydia could not see him distinctly. She had an impression of a white face, two large black spaces where his eyes were and a black beard. He sat all the time in the shadow of a curtain.

Jean looked round to see if Marcus Stepney was present, hoping that he had witnessed the exchange of courtesies, but Marcus at that moment was watching little bundles of twelve thousand franc notes raked across to the croupier's end of the table—which is the business end of Monte Carlo.

Jean was the last to leave the car when it set them down at the Villa Casa. Mordon called her respectfully.

"Excuse me, mademoiselle," he said, "I wish you would come to the garage and see the new tyres that have arrived. I don't like them."

It was a code which she had agreed he should use when he wanted her.

"Very good, Mordon, I will come to the garage later," she said carelessly.

"What does Mordon want you for?" asked her father, with a frown.

"You heard him. He doesn't approve of some new tyres that have been bought for the car," she said coolly. "And don't ask me questions. I've got a headache and I'm dying for a cup of chocolate."

"If that fellow gives you any trouble he'll be sorry," said Briggerland. "And let me tell you this, Jean, that marriage idea of yours——"

She only looked at him, but he knew the look and wilted.

"I don't want to interfere with your private affairs," he mumbled, "but the very thought of it gets me crazy."

The garage was a brick building erected by the side of the carriage drive, built much nearer the house than is usually the case.

Jean waited a reasonable time before she slipped away. Mordon was waiting for her before the open doors of the garage. The place was in darkness; she did not see him standing in the entrance until she was within a few paces of the man.

"Come up to my room," he said briskly.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"I want to speak to you and this is not the place."

"This is the only place where I am prepared to speak to you at the moment, François," she said reproachfully. "Don't you realise that my father is within hearing, and at any moment Madame Meredith may come out? How would I explain my presence in your room?"

He did not answer for the moment, then:

"Jean, I am worried," he said, in a troubled voice. "I cannot understand your plans—they are too clever for me, and I have known men and women of great attainment. The great Bersac——"

"The great Bersac is dead," she said coldly. "He was a man of such great attainments that he came to the knife. Besides, it is not necessary that you should understand my plans, François."

She knew quite well what was troubling him, but she waited.

"I cannot understand the letter which I wrote for you," said Mordon. "The letter in which I say Madame Meredith loved me. I have thought this matter out, Jean, and it seems to me that I am compromised."

She laughed softly.

"Poor François," she said mockingly. "With whom could you be compromised but with your future wife? If I desire you to write that letter, what else matters?"

Again he was silent.

"I cannot speak here," he said almost roughly. "You must come to my room."

She hesitated. There was something in his voice she did not like.

"Very well," she said, and followed him up the steep stairs.

Chapter XXXIII

"Now explain." His words were a command, his tone peremptory.

Jean, who knew men, and read them without error, realised that this was not a moment to temporise.

"I will explain to you, François, but I do not like the way you speak," she said. "It is not you I wish to compromise, but Madame Meredith."

"In this letter I wrote for you I said I was going away. I confessed to you that I had forged a cheque for five million francs. That is a very serious document, mademoiselle, to be in the possession of anybody but myself." He looked at her straight in the eyes and she met his gaze unflinchingly.

"The thing will be made very clear to you to-morrow, François," she said softly, "and really there is no reason to worry. I wish to end this unhappy state of affairs."

"With me?" he asked quickly.

"No, with Madame Meredith," she answered. "I, too, am tired of waiting for marriage and I intend asking my father's permission for the wedding to take place next week. Indeed, François," she lowered her eyes modestly, "I have already written to the British Consul at Nice, asking him to arrange for the ceremony to be performed."

The sallow face of the chauffeur flushed a dull red.

"Do you mean that?" he said eagerly. "Jean, you are not deceiving me?"

She shook her head.

"No, François," she said in that low plaintive voice of hers, "I could not deceive you in a matter so important to myself."

He stood watching her, his breast heaving, his burning eyes devouring her, then:

"You will give me back that letter I wrote, Jean?" he said.

"I will give it to you to-morrow."

"To-night," he said, and took both her hands in his. "I am sure I am right. It is too dangerous a letter to be in existence, Jean, dangerous for you and for me—you will let me have it to-night?"

She hesitated.

"It is in my room," she said, an unnecessary statement, and, in the circumstances, a dangerous one, for his eyes dropped to the bag that hung at her wrist.