The Forger E-Book

Edgar Wallace

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

THE BIG consulting–room at 903, Harley Street differed as much from its kind as Mr. Cheyne Wells differed from the average consultant.
It was something between a drawing–room and the kind of a library which a lover of good books gathers together piecemeal as opportunity presents. There was comfort in the worn, but not too worn, furniture, in the deep, leather–covered settee drawn up before the red fire. Two walls were filled with shelves wedged with oddly bound, oddly sized volumes; there were books on the table, a newspaper dropped by a careless hand on the floor, but nothing of the apparatus of medicine—not so much as a microscope or test tube.
In one corner of the room, near the window where yellow sunlight was pouring in, was a polished door; beyond that a white–tiled bathroom without a bath but with many glass shelves and glass–topped table. You could have your fill of queer mechanisms there, and your nostrils offended by pungent antiseptics. There were cupboards, carefully locked, with rows and rows of bottles, and steel and glass cabinets full of little culture dishes. But though Peter Clifton had been a constant visitor for years, he had never seen that door opened.

Leseprobe

The Forger

Edgar Wallace

© 2023 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782385741808

Chapter I

THE BIG consulting–room at 903, Harley Street differed as much from its kind as Mr. Cheyne Wells differed from the average consultant.

It was something between a drawing–room and the kind of a library which a lover of good books gathers together piecemeal as opportunity presents. There was comfort in the worn, but not too worn, furniture, in the deep, leather–covered settee drawn up before the red fire. Two walls were filled with shelves wedged with oddly bound, oddly sized volumes; there were books on the table, a newspaper dropped by a careless hand on the floor, but nothing of the apparatus of medicine—not so much as a microscope or test tube.

In one corner of the room, near the window where yellow sunlight was pouring in, was a polished door; beyond that a white–tiled bathroom without a bath but with many glass shelves and glass–topped table. You could have your fill of queer mechanisms there, and your nostrils offended by pungent antiseptics. There were cupboards, carefully locked, with rows and rows of bottles, and steel and glass cabinets full of little culture dishes. But though Peter Clifton had been a constant visitor for years, he had never seen that door opened.

He was sitting now on an arm of one of the big chairs, his fine head screwed round so that he could see the street, though he had no interest in the big car which stood at the kerb, or the upper floors of the houses on the opposite side of the road which filled his vision. But he was a sensitive man, with a horror of emotional display, and just then he did not wish any man—even Cheyne Wells—to see his face.

Presently he jerked back his head and met the dark eyes of the man who straddled before the fireplace, a cigarette drooping from his lips.

Mr. Wells was rather thin, and this gave the illusion of height which his inches did not justify. The dark, saturnine face with its neat black moustache was almost sinister in repose: when he smiled, the whole character of his face changed, and he was smiling now.

Peter heaved a deep sigh and stretched his six feet of bone and muscle.

"It was a good day for me when I mistook you for a dentist!" he said.

There was a nervous tension in his laugh which Mr. Donald Cheyne Wells did not fail to note.

"My good chap"—he shook his head—"it was a double–sided benefit, for you have been the most foolishly generous patient I have ever had. And I bless the telephone authorities that they made 903, Harley Street the habitation of a gentleman who left the week before I moved in."

Again the other laughed.

"You even cured the old molar!" he said.

The smile left the surgeon's face.

"I have cured nothing else—except your misgivings. The real assurance on which your faith must rest is Sir William Clewers's. I would not have dared to be so definite as he; even now I tell you that although the big danger is wiped out you are liable to the attacks I spoke about. I did not think it was worth while discussing that possibility with Sir William, but you may have another consultation if you wish?"

Peter shook his head emphatically.

"In future I am making long detours to avoid Harley Street," he said, and added hastily: "That's pretty ungracious–"

But the surgeon waved his agreement.

"You'd be a fool if you didn't," he said, and then, turning the subject abruptly: "What time is this interesting ceremony?"

He saw a frown gather for an instant on the broad forehead of his patient. It was a surprising expression to observe on the face of a very rich and a very good–looking young man who was to marry the most beautiful girl Cheyne Wells had seen in his life, yet the consultant was not wholly surprised.

"Er—twelve–thirty. You'll be there, of course? The reception is at the Ritz and we go on to Longford Manor. I thought Jane would have preferred the Continent—but she seems rather keen on Longford."

There was no sound for a little while except the soft tick of the Swiss clock on the mantelpiece. Then: "Why the frown?" asked Wells, watching his patient's face intently.

Peter threw out his arms in a gesture of uncertainty. "The Lord knows—really. Only…it has been such a queer courtship…with this thing hanging over my head. And sometimes Jane is rather—how shall I put it?—'cold' isn't exactly the word—neither is 'indifferent.’ ‘Impregnable’—that's the word. One can't get into her mind. She becomes a stranger, and that terrifies me. The whole thing started on the wrong note—we haven't kept step. I'll go on mixing my metaphors till I can get a little lucid." The smile was twitching the corner of Cheyne Wells's lips.

"I introduced you—here beginneth the first wrong note!" he said. "And—"

"Don't be a silly ass—that was the rightest thing you ever did. Donald, I adore Jane! There is nothing in the world I wouldn't do for her. She terrifies me because I feel that way and because I know she doesn't. And there is no reason why she should—that's my bit of comfort. I sort of burst into that quiet home and made myself an infernal nuisance—I almost bullied her into an engagement that wasn't an engagement—"

His teeth came together, and again that strained, worried look.

"Donald, I bought her," he said quietly, and this time the consultant laughed aloud.

"You're too imaginative, my friend—how could you buy her? Stuff!"

But Peter shook his head.

"Of course, I didn't say, 'I want your daughter—I'll give a hundred thousand pounds for her'; I'd have been chucked out if I had. But when, like a blundering left–handed oaf, I cornered Leith in his study and blurted out that I would settle that sum if I married…and I'd only seen Jane twice! I have an idea that broke down opposition…I'm not sure…I feel rather rotten about it. Do you know that I've never kissed Jane?"

"I should start today," said the other dryly. "A girl who is going to be married the day after tomorrow expects some sort of demonstration."

Peter ran his fingers through his untidy brown hair.

"It's wrong, isn't it?" he asked. "It is my fault, of course…once I got panic–stricken—I wondered if she had heard something about me. You know what I mean. Or whether there was some arrangement which I upset—Hale, for example."

"Why should she—"

There was a soft tap on the door of the consulting–room.

"That is my wife," said Wells. "Do you mind her coming in, or do you want to talk?"

"I've talked enough," said Peter ruefully.

He went towards the slim, youthful woman who came in. Marjorie Wells was thirty–five and looked ten years younger, though darker than her husband.

"They told me you were here," she said with a quick flash of teeth. "Hail to the bridegroom! And, by the way, I saw the bride this morning, looking conventionally radiant—with the wrong man!"

If she saw the quick sidelong glance her husband shot in her direction, she gave no evidence. There was a thread of malice—in the most innocent of Marjorie's comments; this was a veritable rope.

He it was who took up the challenge.

"The wrong man—not Basil Hale by any chance?"

He saw Peter's grey, questioning eyes turned in Marjorie's direction. He winced rather easily, did this young man who had once been deputy sheriff of Gwelo and had hanged L'chwe, the rebel chief, out of hand.

"It was Basil, of course—poor old Basil! I'm sure he feels rotten—"

"Why should he?"

When Cheyne Wells used a voice that had the hard tinkle of metal in it, his wife became meek and penitent.

"I am a mischievous gossip, aren't I? I'm so sorry, Peter."

He was taking up his hat and was smiling as at some secret joke.

"Yes—you are," he said grimly. "You give me more heart jumps than any woman I know. Come and dine tomorrow night, Wells."

The surgeon nodded. "It will have to be a bachelor dinner," he said significantly. "I can't have you made miserable the night before your wedding."

He walked with Peter to the door and stood on the top step until the Rolls had disappeared into Wigmore Street. Then he came back to the consulting–room.

"What's the matter with Peter really?—he looks healthy enough."

She asked the question off–handedly, as though the repetition of Peter's visits had only just dawned on her.

"I have told you half a dozen times, Marjorie, that I do not discuss my patients—even in my sleep. And, Marjorie," as, with a petulant twist of one shoulder, she turned towards the door, "don't be—er—difficult about Peter—do you understand…Well, what is it?"

A maid was at the open door. A small sealed envelope lay on the silver plate she carried. It was unaddressed, but he broke the flap and took out a card. This he studied.

"All right, show Mr. Rouper in, please. You can clear." This to his wife. "I'll talk to you later about Peter—and other things."

She was out of the room before he had finished.

The man who was ushered in was tall and broad–shouldered; what hair he had was grey, but he carried himself like a soldier. Cheyne Wells shut the door and pointed the visitor to a chair.

"Sit down, Inspector."

Chief Inspector Moses Rouper put his Derby hat carefully on the table, peeled his brown leather gloves and felt anxiously in the inside pocket of his greatcoat. When he had brought to light a fat leather wallet he seated himself.

"Sorry to bother you, Doctor," he began. "I know that you're a busy man, but I had to see you."

Mr. Wells waited, expectant but wondering.

"Here we are." The inspector fished out a folded white paper and spread it on the table. "A fifty–pound note. We shouldn't have been able to trace it only your name is stamped on the back." He fixed pince–nez and read: "'D. Cheyne Wells, MRCS, 903, Harley Street.’”

He passed the note to the consultant, who turned it over and saw the faded purple stamp mark.

"Yes," he said, "that is my stamp—I use it for a variety of purposes, though I can't remember stamping this note."

"Do you remember passing the note—or where it came from?"

Cheyne Wells was thinking.

"Yes—fifties are an unusual denomination—I had that from a patient, Mr Peter Clifton. I passed it at Kempton Park races—I like to bet occasionally, and I hate bookmakers' accounts,"

The detective smiled genially. "And you lost it?"

Mr. Wells shook his head with a laugh. "As a matter of fact, I won—a couple of hundred." Rouper was writing rapidly on the back of an envelope. "Mr. Peter Clifton. I think I know the gentleman," he said. "He's got a flat in Carlton House Terrace."

"But what is the mystery?" asked Wells, and added good humouredly: "You're not suggesting that he stole it?"

The inspector finished his writing before he spoke. "No, sir. But that note is a forgery. It's the Clever One's worst job! The paper gave him away."

There was no need to seek information about the Clever One. For five years his unauthorized intrusions into the currency field had agitated a world of bankers. So long had he been active that nobody quite remembered who had named him so. (In point of fact it had been a police constable in the course of his evidence against one of the Clever One's agents.)

"He's never tackled English notes before," said Rouper. "He started on the Bank of Africa, then he switched off to the Swiss Federal, then he had a cut at the US hundred–dollar bills, then he came back to the Bank of France. We thought he was taking up the United States again—we traced one bill in Paris, and it was a bit of a startler to find he'd gone all unpatriotic!" He laughed wheezily and coughed.

"You haven't lost your money," he assured the worried surgeon. "The Bank has met the note, and now I want to meet the man who forged it!"

Wells opened a small wall safe and took out a book. "I'll make absolutely sure," he said, and turned the leaves quickly. After a while he stopped. "Here it is—Mr. Peter Clifton, £52 10s.—cash. He never paid me by cheque."

"Number?"

Mr. Wells shook his head. "No, I didn't take the number. I never do. It would be rather like hard work. Most of the people who consult me pay in cash."

The detective ran his eye down the page. "That would be about the date," he nodded, and, drawing a small brown book from his pocket, thumbed the leaves. "Yes, Kempton was the same day. Thank you. Doctor." Him also Cheyne Wells saw to the door. When he came back there was a thoughtful frown on his face—and it was not the forgery which concerned him. If there was one thing more certain than another, it was that he had not stamped his name on the back of that note. Who had? And what was the object?

Chapter 2

"HAVE YOU seen Peter today?"

John Leith looked up from his evening newspaper as the question followed on chance thought.

"No, Daddy."

Mr. Leith resumed his study of the day's news. He was a hearty man, with a long beard that had once been golden and now was completely grey.

The walls of the lofty room in which they sat would have proclaimed his calling even had not the long windows said “studio.” Every inch of wall space was covered with his landscapes, his studies, his copies of the great masters. It was his wont to confess plaintively that comfortable circumstances had ruined him as an artist. After a while he put down his paper and came to this favourite topic of his.

"Without the spur of poverty a man is just a loafer after his fancies. It is when a man has to paint what the public wants that he growls himself to greatness. All the masters did their best work to order—Murillo, Leonardo, Bellini, Michaelangelo—chapel–hacks every one of 'em! Greuze painting like the devil to keep his extravagant virago of a wife supplied with money; Morland and his public–house signs; Gainsborough with his duchesses—when an artist can afford to choose his own subjects he's finished!"

But she was not interested in artists. Her legs doubled under her, she reclined over the bulbous end of a settee, her face in her hands, her grave eyes fixed on the one being in the world she loved without reservations.

"We are awfully well off, aren't we, Daddy?"

He pursed his bearded lips.

"Tolerably, my dear—"

"Then, why must I marry Peter? I know that he is hideously rich—and I really think I am fond of him, though there is a look on his face sometimes that scares me…and I do think I could be much fonder of him, if—well, if there wasn't such a violent hurry."

He reached over lazily and caught her hand. "My dear—I wish it. I want to see you settled."

She looked at him, startled. "You're not ill. Daddy—?"

His loud laugh was a reassuring answer. "No, I'm not ill," he said good naturedly. "I'm keeping nothing from you. Only I want to see you married. He's a good fellow, and, as you say, enormously rich."

"Where did he make his money?" She had asked this question before. "He never speaks about his relations—he couldn't inherit an enormous fortune unless everybody knew about it. Basil says—"

"Basil says a lot that Basil shouldn't say." Mr. Leith's voice was quiet, but she gathered that at the moment Basil was unpopular. "You haven't heard from Peter, eh?"

"Yes—I've heard from him. He telephoned. Some police officer has been to his house about a fifty–pound note that was forged, and it had Donald Wells's name stamped on it, and Peter was quite agitated—you know how his voice goes, all funny and high?"

"A forged fifty–pound note—there's some reference here to the fellow they call the Clever One." Mr. Leith had returned to his journal. He both read aloud and pursued his private thoughts. "Rascal! They'll catch him…um, about Peter. Clever chap, Peter. He's cursed with money, too—he might be as great as Zohn. Really, Peter's etchings are marvellous. Do you remember those beauties he did for you—"

"And which you lost," she accused, and he grumbled, in his middle–aged way, about his failing memory..

"Where the deuce I left them I can't think—I was going somewhere and I put them in my pocket—left them in the train, I'll swear."

She let him go on, her interest being completely self–centred.

"And, talking of things one loses," she nodded, "Daddy, don't you realize that I shall be married in forty–eight hours! And I don't want to be a bit—isn't it awful?"

The bearded man put down his newspaper and, leaning over, nicked open a cigar box and took the first cigar that came. He bit off the end and lit it almost simultaneously. "There are nine and seventy cardinal illusions of youth." He pulled strongly at the cigar. "Maybe there are two or three more. But an important one is that all brides–to–be are deliriously happy and impatient for the last forty–eight hours to pass. That all brides are confident of the future, that no brides, or only a miserable few, have any serious misgivings about the future."

He was looking at her over his glasses.

"They do, my dear—the nice ones. The young people who love each other with equal desperation are the exceptions."

"In fact the position is horribly normal?" She nodded agreement to this possibility. "Well, it—it isn't pleasant. I have a feeling that I ought to say something—tabulate my emotions and inhibitions and have them witnessed before a commissioner of oaths. In other words, I want to be fair to Peter, and I'm not being."

She looked round as the door handle turned, and slid down to a more graceful pose. Mr. Leith raised his head to stare at the visitor.

"I want to see you, Basil," he said.

"Sounds like a row—what have I done?"

There were times when Jane decided that she loathed Basil: usually, such is the contrariness of women, these were the occasions when Basil Hale made a very special effort to please her. He had a round, fresh face; his hair was reddish and he smiled all the time. There was a period in their acquaintance when his assurance was a source of irritation to Jane Leith, an irritation in which was a spice of uneasiness. Instinctively she knew that there were no boundaries to his audacity, that he was cast in the mould of the brigand who takes what he wants, asks no man's permission and fears no man's resentment. He was as unlike her mental picture of a Lothario as any man could be. Handsome he was not; he was inclined to chubbiness; but his vitality was immeasurable. He drew something from every man and woman who fell under its spell, and left them at the end inert and exhausted.

He stood now by the door, a delighted grin on his glowing face, in no wise abashed by the ominous note in her father's voice or the disapproval in her eye. From his burnished head to the tip of his shiny shoes he was resplendent. There was a glittering diamond point in the onyx buttons of his white waistcoat, two larger scintillations from his shirt; even the gardenia in the buttonhole of his dress coat had an ultra–exotic quality.

"What's the trouble and why the chilliness? I'm going to the Arts' Dance. What about it, Jane?"

"Jane is not going to any dance, artistic or otherwise. I want a few words with you, Basil."

Leith got up from his chair and nodded to his study, which opened from the studio.

"O Lord! You're not going to rag me, are you?" Basil had a gurgling little giggle of a laugh. "Stop him, Jane! I'll stand anything if you'll come and dance. Dash up and climb into something simple an' expensive. Jane, you look divine tonight—you do, by Heaven! It's a desecration marrying that dull monument of virtue—"

"Hale!"

When Mr. Leith called him by his surname, Basil seldom argued. As the study door closed on them, Jane heard the purr of the front door bell and crossed quickly to the large window. A big Rolls stood in Avenue Road before the door. Was it dismay she felt, apprehension? For some reason which was not to be analysed she was irritated. She could not allow herself to believe this—nor could she wholly hide from realization the devastating discovery. The man to whom she would be married in forty–eight hours bored her already!

She tried hard to simulate pleasure at seeing him, gave a warmth to her greeting that surprised and pleased him. She hated herself for the deception. He wore his shabbiest suit and was unusually nervous and tongue–tied. She had not sufficient self–conceit to realize that he had a palpable excuse.

When Cheyne Wells had said that she was the most beautiful woman in London, he had been daring rather than extravagant. She had all that regular features and a faultless skin could lend to natural charm of expression and grace of figure. But there was something that had neither form nor shape, an elusive glory which dwelt somewhere behind the grey eyes—a visible fragrance like a tropic dawn, like daffodils growing on a field sloping to the sea.

"I didn't expect you."

It sounded terribly trite.

"No"—he was a little hoarse. "I didn't expect to come. But I've been thinking out—things. You know the sort of thing—"

With Peter, tautology was the forerunner of incoherence.

"What things?"

"You, mostly. I'm afraid I've been rather a—what shall I say—you know—"

She knew, but would not help him. She found an ugly satisfaction in her cruelty.

"Well—you and everything. Whether it is the game to marry you when you aren't frantically keen I mean—well, you're not, are you?"

For one wild moment she was urged to tell him the truth, tempering the blow with protestations of her friendship.

"You haven't come to break it off, have you, Peter?"

What a liar she was! She was aghast at the duplicity of the concern in her voice.

"Er—no. I thought I'd like you to say—you know?"

"You'd like me to break it off?"

Then the danger of this drift came to her. In consternation she realized that the return of her father would precipitate this cloudy mixture of hint and half–dissolved intention into a definite separation.

"Don't be silly. Of course I wouldn't dream of doing anything so—" She paused here for a word, rejected “absurd” as ill–fitting. Happily he filled the gap. If a large, relieved sigh can fill a gap.

"Sorry—I'm rather worried tonight. A fellow from Scotland Yard has been to see me. I told you that. I have a sneaking admiration for Scotland Yard—I was in the Rhodesian Police when I was a kid."

"Did you find a gold mine in Rhodesia?"

She smiled the question, but there was purpose in it.

His confusion dumbfounded her.

"No. I—er—inherited it from—from my father."

She could have sworn that the hand that went up to his face was shaking; he seemed to realize that his agitation needed explaining.

"How abruptly you asked that question! You made me feel as if I had stolen the money!"

Her steady eyes were fixed on his.

"I didn't even ask you about money—I was joking! I don't even know whether one does find gold mines in Rhodesia."

She was lying at the rate of one every few seconds, she noted, through the awkward silence which followed.

He was the type of man (she decided) that would make most girls envious of her fortune. She would give him full points for his looks—ordinarily that kind of face fascinated her. The straight nose and firm chin and the big, rather deep–set eyes. A good figure too—an athlete of a man. If he would only talk! If he had the aplomb of Basil or the worldliness of Donald Wells!

There he sat, the most obviously ill–at–ease visitor that had ever come to the studios, literally twiddling his fingers and trying, in his disjointed way, to make conversation about the weather and etching.

John Leith led the way out of his study, and a somewhat chastened Basil followed. Not so chastened that he could not wink at Jane as he caught her eye. Nor completely squashed either.

"I say, honestly, Jane—what about this last spinster fling? Here's the Arts' Ball calling, and it won't take you a minute to dress. Old Peter won't mind. I'll bet he wants to talk business."

She looked expectantly at Peter. His brows had met: for the first time since their acquaintance began. That decided her.

"I think I'll go, Daddy," she said.

Mr. Leith shrugged his shoulders. When Jane came down, a beautiful, ethereal thing in green, Peter had gone.

Somehow she did not enjoy the evening.

Chapter 3

WHEN PETER stepped out of his car before St. George's he faced fifty cameras. A dozen urgent voices begged him to stand still—there was a fierce chattering of falling shutters.

"Thank you, Mr. Clifton," said a newspaper photographer.

"Thank you," said Peter mechanically. What on earth brought all these people here? Every pew filled; throughout the church the sickly perfume of flowers. Strangers, most of them—idle folk lured by curiosity to see two millions of money marry beauty. Idle, open–mouthed women staring at him and nudging one another—he saw his valet in one pew and his butler and wife in another. Forby smiled respectfully, in his face a look of sad uncertainty. Possibly he would not “suit”the new madame. It was rather dreadful to have so many lives dependent on one. Blossoms were massed along the chancel rail, and flowers on the altar, and lighted candles. His gloved hands twiddled with the rim of his hat.

"Have you got the ring?"

"Eh?"

He felt in his waistcoat pocket. Yes, it was there. Jane had begun by expressing her indifference to gold or platinum, and had finished by distinctly favouring platinum.

Marjorie Wells smiled at him from a favoured front pew. She looked unusually haggard, and there was no geniality in her smile. Perhaps she was continuing, mutely, her protest against Donald acting as best man. She had become a stickler for custom. It was unlucky to have a married best man; it was absurd. Surely Peter had a friend. His lawyer? Peter's lawyer was also a benedict—lawyers marry young.

Marjorie Cheyne Wells had been crying! He made the discovery when she turned full face to him, and it came as a shock. Marjorie was no sentimentalist.

"For Heaven's sake, how long do we wait?" he asked fretfully.

Donald Wells looked at his watch.

"You've been here just under fifty seconds. Nervous?"

"A bit, yes. I wish I had seen Jane yesterday—I was rather stuffy about her going out to dance with Hale—I wanted to apologize."

Wells's thin lips were pressed tighter. Jane should have been spanked, he thought. She had set the town talking—supping tete a tete with Basil Hale two nights before her marriage.

A stir and a craning of necks. The choir was waddling down to meet the bride. “Waddle”—that was the word for it, decided Peter. Like a double rank of white ducks…

She was here! The organ trembled, and one clear note led the sweet voices of boys. Now they were coming back with greater dignity. And here was Jane on her father's arm and mysteriously strange girls in white behind her. He hardly knew one of them—certainly did not recognize Jane, though he stared and stared till Wells caught his sleeve and placed him…

Kneeling was an aching business, though in Jane it seemed no effort. Would her hand be cold when he took it—no, it was blood–warm and soft: to touch it was to receive a caress.

She never looked at him once; her voice was clear when she answered the priest's demands—but she never looked at Peter—did not take his arm as they walked to the vestry. He was so dazed that he had to think before he signed the register—a full half minute he kept them waiting, the pen poised…

More snappings of cameras and a swaying mass of women surging up to the car door. A policeman stood on the step till they were clear of the crowd.

"Ghastly, wasn't it?" she said.

"Yes…rather…I don't realize."

They were alone, but no more alone than when he had driven her back from Lord's or a theatre. And there was no splendour in this very loneliness.

"I'll be awfully good to you," he blurted out.

It was just the banality he would utter. Jane drew into the corner of the car, for the first time in her life self–conscious.

Thank Heaven she had managed at the eleventh hour to change the venue of the reception from the hotel to the house in Avenue Road! It had involved the dispatch of hundreds of telegrams, and fewer people would come—which was an advantage.

In her own room she sat down to take stock. Mainly she was concerned about herself, but now and again a thought of Peter crossed her mind and her maid saw her face shadow.

"You ought to go down soon, madame."

Madame! She was Mrs. Peter Clifton. There was no time to reflect on the phenomenon.

"Porter, who did the flowers for the house, said Mr. Clifton paid him with a bad five–pound note, miss—ma'am. I told Porter it would be all right—"

"Bad five–pound note? A forgery?" Jane's first sensation was one of amusement.

"Yes, miss. He took it to the post office and they said: 'Where did you get it?' and all that—and Porter says he can't afford to lose all that money."

A bad five–pound note! How odd! And yesterday there was trouble about a fifty–pound note. Jane was not amused any longer.

She opened a drawer of her writing table, took out her bag and opened it.

"Here is another five pounds—tell Porter not to be silly—of course he will lose nothing. Mr. Clifton must have had these forgeries passed on him."

She went downstairs, so intent upon the forged note that she had to be shepherded to the studio. This was not a moment to discuss the matter with Peter. She found it very difficult to talk to him at all…

Free of everything at last, thank God—of white charmeuse and veil and the faint smelling bouquet, free of the slavery of greeting unimportant people with a smile that must approximate to happiness.

Basil Hale was almost the last to approach, and she saw an imp in his dancing eyes.

"I've got orders not to annoy or depress you," he said, and whilst he spoke he was shaking hands with Peter, at whom he did not look. "Happy life to you, Jane, and all that sort of thing, and come back soon and make matches for all your friends—ow!"

His hand was still resting in Peter's—Peter had given it a sudden and excruciating grip.

"Congratulate me!" he said coolly.

It was the first glimpse she had of another Peter.

"By Gad—you've got a grip on you!" complained Basil.

That was the one distinct memory she carried away from the babel and the white rosettes and silver confetti.

As the car went swiftly and noiselessly across Hampstead Heath she brushed the last silver anchor from her skirt and looked round at her husband. His arm was in the rest loop, his eyes fixed thoughtfully on the road ahead. She tried to ask him if he was happy, but she could not bring her tongue to this supreme hypocrisy. And then she remembered the five–pound note. She thought he hadn't heard her, and told him again.

"Porter? Yes, I gave him a fiver. Bad, was it? How careless!"

“Careless” was not exactly the word she expected. She discovered that she badly wanted him to talk—she was living for the present: the future was not to be contemplated sanely.

"Longford Manor was your idea, Jane," he said in surprise.

"Was it?" Jane could be very provocative.

"I thought Paris or—"

"Don't say 'Como,’” she breathed. She felt that if he said “Como” she would scream.

He went red.

"I don't know Como," he said, a little stiffly. "But whatever I should have said it would not have been Longford Manor. I thought you didn't like the place when you saw it."

"Is it your own house?" She evaded the challenge.

"No—I've hired it three months at a time when I got sick of town. The owner lives permanently abroad and one can always get it. The grounds are nice and its loneliness rather appealed to me."

"It shall appeal to me too," she said stoutly, and went on: "Don't mind if I'm rather nervy today—getting married is a nervy business. Did you see Marjorie? That woman is in love with you, Peter." He was too astonished to protest. "I know. She looked at me with a basilisk eye. Isn't that funny?"

"I'll swear you're mistaken," he said, almost violently.

"Perhaps I am—about you. But she loathes me."

"But why?"

Jane shook her head. They had traversed the mean streets of Tottenham and were on the Epping road. He returned to the question of honeymoon—she would rather have talked about Marjorie Cheyne Wells.

"We could go abroad after," he suggested. "New York—Long Island or somewhere. It is glorious on the Sound. I know quite a lot of people in the States. I went over there last year with Bourke—he's the big fellow at Scotland Yard."

He had been many times in America—pleasure trips to kill ennui really. She found herself wondering why Peter sought out detectives and made them his friends.

There was little more said on that wearisome journey. With a fluttering at her heart she saw from the crest of the hill above Newport the chimneys of Longford Manor in the distance. Before she could quite collect her thoughts and order them, the car had passed the lodge gates and was slowing before the door of the house.

The two menservants were waiting in the open doorway, deaf old men who had been in the owner's service for years. An ancient maid brought a cup of tea to Jane in her panelled sitting–room–boudoir would have been too pretty a name for this severe apartment.

Peter's room as well as her own opened from this chamber. He appeared at the door as she was sipping the hot liquid.

"You've not seen the garden and the rockery?" he asked her. She was childishly glad to get into the open air and the slanting sunlight, but when he took her arm she was so unresponsive that after a while he let it fall awkwardly.

Time did not pass. Every minute had to be lived through—she was wearing with the strain of it when she went up to dress for dinner with the help of the old maid. For one thought of Peter's she was grateful: Anna was under the impression that the honeymoon was in its decline.

"Mr. Clifton said he'd bring you here before you went to London, ma'am. This is a rare place for honeymoons. We often let for a month, but you're the first lady that's ever finished her honeymoon at Longford."

For which she thanked Peter rather prettily when they were at dinner.

"Anna doesn't read the newspapers or she'd know I was a liar," he said, and seemed in a hurry to change the subject.

They spent that interminable evening in the big library that formed one wing of the manor house. Once or twice he tried to say something, but the stream of thought ran into a sandy delta of incoherent words. More than once she had an inclination to fly from the house and find some sort of conveyance that would take her home. When he tried to talk of housekeeping or the future, she sat tense, holding herself in.

"…You'll sign what cheques you wish—a sort of joint account, Jane. Money is rather a horrid subject for a honeymoon, isn't it?"

"You've been awfully generous."

He was momentarily deceived into a deeper blundering.

"The settlement was nothing—the hundred thousand, I mean. Money is a ruthless sort of weapon—I wonder sometimes whether I haven't used it a little cruelly."

"It gives you what you want."

A little devil was in her: how could he guess that she was seeking a respite from her panic by the most obvious method?

"It gave me to you—I mean, it made possible—"

It needed that gaucherie of his and the arm that slipped a little awkwardly about her shoulders.

She was on her feet, looking down at him with smouldering eyes.

"It bought me—that is what you mean!"

"I meant nothing of the kind—"

"Yes, you did—money was the short cut—we comfortably placed people are inclined to be dazzled with sums that seemed fabulous. It was easier than—courting—that's a stupid old word, but it's expressive. You don't think I love you, do you?"

A white face above her shook from side to side. "No. I hoped. But I don't think so."

"Or that you have anything more in me than money can buy? A bargain's a bargain—I'll keep to mine. I'll be your wife. I am your wife. I'm not going to be a fool at this hour. But I don't love you. I hate being heroic, but you can't buy that. You can kiss me if you like, but I shall hate it—I'm sorry. I ought to have told you last night—when was it I saw you? If you are satisfied with that—here I am!"

He was looking down at her blankly, and his face had lost all expression.

"I see," he said at last. "Well—I don't want what I paid for. I want what you can give."

She shook her head. "That is nothing," she said.

He nodded at this. "Well, we've got—er—a month to fill in somehow," he said.

At that second came on the outer door a knock that reverberated thunderously through the bare stone hall. A shuffle of feet on the flags and the rattle of chains. Peter waited, his eyes on the door. Presently it opened.

It was Chief Inspector Rouper. "Sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Clifton."

He was terse to a point of brusqueness as he laid a small attaché–case on the library table and snapped it open. Jane was watching in amazement—almost forgotten was the unnerving five minutes through which she had just passed, though she was shaking from head to foot.

Rouper pulled out a bundle of banknotes and laid them on the table.

"They were found in a suitcase that you left at Victoria parcels office yesterday morning," he said quietly. "I should like some explanation, Mr. Clifton."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," said the detective, "that every one of those notes is a forgery."

Chapter 4

PETER CLIFTON looked from the detective to the neatly packed bundle of notes.

"I have never left a suitcase at Victoria," he said steadily.

"I am telling you—" began the inspector, raising his voice.

"Don't be aggressive, please." The authority in his voice made Jane open her eyes. "I have told you that I have never left a suitcase at Victoria."

"It had your label on," insisted Rouper, but in a milder tone.

Peter's lips parted in a ghost of a smile.

"One does not label bags containing forged notes and leave them in a public place—I would like to have your chief constable's views on that. And Superintendent Harvey's and a few other gentlemen's. The inference I am to draw is that I knew those notes were forged and that I was distributing them. The Bank of England will give you one million eight hundred thousand reasons why I should not do anything so stupid. Have you the suitcase?"

Rouper turned to one of the two men who stood outside the door and gave an order, and presently he brought in a brand–new cowhide case. To the handle dangled a printed label:

“Mr. Peter Clifton, 175, Carlton House Terrace”

"I have never seen it before," said Peter after one glance. "Would it be suggesting that you betray official secrets if I asked you how you knew the bag was at Victoria?"

"That is neither here nor there." Rouper, never an even–tempered man, was ruffled. "I've come down to inquire into the circumstances. And another thing—"

"I gave a man a forged fiver this morning, and a forged fifty was traced to me yesterday and—"

Peter put his hand in his pocket and took out a leather notecase. He opened this on the table and slowly extracted one by one its contents.

"That is a good twenty and so is that—this one"—he lifted the note to the light—"is forged. The watermark is bad—you'd better take charge of it. This note"—he fingered the fourth carefully—"is genuine, and this—but this is a forgery; I can feel without looking."

One by one he sorted the notes.

"Did you get these from your bank?"

"Some of them—I'm rather careless about money and keep my notes in a steel–lined drawer of my desk. When I want money I take the first that comes to hand. When I receive money in return for a cheque, I replenish the store."

"From the bank?" asked the detective quickly.

Peter shook his head. "I seldom go to the bank. No, from tradespeople—my tailor, for example, cashed a cheque last week for a hundred. Whoever's nearest."

Jane listened, puzzled, fascinated. Suppose—if he were guilty here was a complete and baffling explanation.