The Surakarta/Chapter 10
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MISS REGAN INQUIRES AFTER HER ESTATE
It was some fifteen minutes later, and Mr. Wade Hereford, with his cigar smoked down now to a short cold stub, was still leaning upon the window-sill, searching the street in the expectation that his ward would soon appear, when his man—usually the most austere and imperturbable of English manservants,—approached him timidly.
"I beg pardon, sir," the man said uneasily, "but will you be requiring me this evening?"
Hereford looked at the servant with understanding. The man was shifting his weight disturbedly from one foot to the other and foolishly flushing. Such disturbance of equanimity, Hereford had noted, had begun with the appearance of a bright-cheeked colleen in the service of the people across the hallway. It was probably about the hour, Hereford reckoned, for the second show to commence at some nearby nickel theatre.
"No; I intend to be in this evening," he dismissed the man. "I expect no one except Mr. McAdams."
Hereford wondered grimly, would his friends ever see in himself such strange, irrational disturbances? The man, upon his release, had taken himself away swiftly. Five minutes later Hereford heard the house telephone bell which was now ringing again. Going to the telephone, he found the doorman calling him.
"Miss Regan, sir, in the public reception room, wishes you to come down a moment to speak with her."
Hereford with a surprising mixture of irritation and pleasure, hurried immediately down.
"I have been forced by your stubbornness to change my plans, you see," she met him easily as he advanced to her.
"Yes?" he said, in doubt.
"I have sent my friends on. The matter immediately before us now is so entirely a conventional one between ward and trustee, that it was scarcely necessary to detain them. I was right in believing that you meant to spend the evening at home—I mean that you have no engagement?"
Hereford inclined his head. "You are correct. I was to be at home only for McAdams; he, of course, can wait when he comes." He studied her. The same cool, tantalising aloofness and unconcern over him which had characterized their first interview appeared to possess her again.
"Then it will not greatly trespass upon your time to take me to your office this evening. I presume you preserve there the documents concerning my estate."
"You mean your securities or your accounts?" Hereford asked.
"Both."
"The accounts are all there and many of the securities in my safe there also, though some are not."
"But those that are there are all accessible to you at any time?"
"Yes," Hereford admitted. "Of course, it would be far more convenient for myself—for both of us, I should imagine, to go over them in the morning."
"You are mistaken. It is far more important for me—in fact it is quite necessary for me to see them now, at once," the girl insisted.
"Very well," Hereford agreed. "Of course, I do not myself attend to all the details of your accounts. However, I believe I can probably reach one of my bookkeepers by telephone who will meet us at the office and make any point clear to you."
"That isn't necessary," Lorine protested. "I want to see only—the general securities," she said vaguely.
Hereford gazed at her. "I see," he nodded and telephoned to his rooms before he remembered his man had gone out. He himself went up for his hat and coat. Obviously, he reflected, no mere desire for an immediate view of her securities was at the bottom of Lorine's demand. What her real purpose was he could not determine to himself. Whether she imagined that he had the Surakarta in his safe or some other concealment in his office which he must expose to her if displaying her securities; whether she expected in some way to obtain the stone from him alone, should she succeed in finding it, he could only guess. Though, outwardly, she was the soul of coolness and unconcern as he rejoined her, he was conscious that constantly she betrayed, subtly, the sense of some covert purpose. During his absence, she had ordered a taxicab. Sitting beside him on their way through the city, she neither avoided nor tried to make small talk. She, indeed, seemed to be watching him to anticipate his next move as he was acutely aware he was watching her and knew she was aware of it.
A single elevator was still running in the building at the top of which he had his offices; they ascended swiftly and he unlocked his door. He switched on the lights and the strangeness of having her there with him in his office, where so large a part of his time had been spent in thought and worry over her and her affairs, was increased by her evening dress. But on her part, there was no sign of any feeling of unusualness in her business there. She seated herself at his request while he opened the vault at the side of the room and brought to the desk in the center several bundles of envelopes and a couple of ledgers.
"Here," he indicated, opening a page, "are the lists of securities and other property which came under my management at your father's death. Through these pages you may trace easily, I believe, the sale, transfer or funding at maturity of those securities not now held by me for you; here you may make out, I believe, the changes in investments or the additional investments made by me. These," he touched the packets of envelopes, "contain certain securities which I have occasion to keep here; the others kept elsewhere are listed on these pages. Do you wish me to go over them with you, item by item; or do you prefer to study them by yourself?"
Lorine drew her chair beside the desk. "Thank you, I believe I will be able to make out enough for myself."
"Very well," He left her alone at the desk. Busying himself with some letters on his secretary's table, he observed that Lorine, in settling herself before the books, was no less resolutely—and obviously—busying herself with them. He had left the doors of his vault standing open on purpose. She had not yet betrayed the least interest in that direction. He stepped from his office into the next and closed the door behind him. The partition was wood set with frosted glass through which it was not possible for him to see into his own office; but, from the position of the light over his desk, he knew he must see upon the frosted glass Lorine's shadow if she left the desk to move toward the vault. But she did not move.
Listening, while he waited, he heard a man's step pass in the hall outside. That, in itself, was not significant as a few of the other offices upon the floor often were used in the evening. Another step passed. In comparison with the other, it made clearer Hereford's suspicion of that first tread which had caught his attention. The second was the tread of a man hurrying home late from his office; the first had seemed more to simulate it. He continued to listen and heard it again—the step of the first man; and now this one seemed to slow his step as he passed the door. Had Lorine's plan depended upon her meeting at his office some aide of hers who was to come in at her signal?
Hereford hastily opened the door to the hall. Past him and going toward the elevators, he saw a tall man whose figure immediately struck him as familiar. Puzzling to place the man, he was uncertain until—just before the turn of the hallway took the man away—the other glanced back. Not his face—for Hereford could not see clearly whether the man was white or a Javanese—but the manner of his half turning about, instantly recalled to Hereford the tall man always keeping in the shadow whom he had studied in the street below his apartment half an hour before. Again, as when he saw him before, Hereford's impulse was to follow; but recalling Lorine in the next room, he hurried back.
Whether, in the moment during which the recognition of the figure in the hall had thrown him off guard, Lorine had improved the opportunity to look behind the doors of his vault, he could not know. He found her just as he left her, interestedly, half quizzically going over the items of the lists he put before her. So far from noticing any change in her, it was she who commented upon a disturbance in him.
"What is it?" she asked coolly. "Is anything wrong?"
He endeavored to match her manner. "I am sorry," he said, "if by my precipitateness I have frightened off your friend in the hall. I came here quite alone with you—entirely without making appointments with the police or others here—for the purpose of encouraging you to put into action any plan you had made. Believe me, I am sorry if I have prevented it going further."
She gazed at him fairly. "I don't understand you," she said.
He dismissed the matter. "What progress are you making with the books?" he inquired.
He saw her glance at the desk clock before she answered. "Rather good, I think."
"I see; so you will soon be through?"
"I believe so," she answered, applying herself again to her task. He stayed in the room with her now, again occupying himself at the other desk. Listening he could not make out the tread of the tall man in the hall. But there was now, in Lorine's manner, almost a noticeable tension. She questioned him now and then upon details of the accounts before her; but much more definitely than before,—she was waiting. He caught her glance again at the desk-clock. Something in her manner now started a different suspicion through him. He leaned forward and drew toward him the telephone. Lorine turned at his movement and observed him. He called the number of the telephone at his apartment.
"This is Mr. Hereford," he announced himself, as he got the connection. "Is that you, George?" he named his man. "Who is this?" he demanded.
The man at the other end, surely not George, was in great confusion. There were sounds of other men's voices and men moving about. "It's himself, Mr. Hereford, sergeant," Hereford made out the voice of the man who had answered, calling another.
"Hello! Hello! there, sor!" a voice in authority replaced the first at the other end of the wire. "Is that Mr. Hereford?"
"Yes," Hereford replied guardedly.
"Well, we've been looking for you the city over, sor! This is the police—Sergeant Lafferty. Your flat's just been robbed. Gone through, sor. The divil of a uptur-rnin' they've given it; and got away. We was looking for ye to notify ye, sor."
"Very well, I understand," Hereford returned; and hung up the receiver. So the purpose of Lorine's evening excursion was accomplished! She had taken him there to ensure the thorough search of his rooms! And, as he turned from the telephone, very readily she sensed it. She shut the books and arose.
"I am keeping you too long," she apologized. "You have been very patient. Now I will let you go."
"Thank you," he said dryly.
She drew her cloak closer about her; he opened the door and, almost without interchange of a word, they descended to the street.
"You wish to return to your hotel, I presume?" he questioned then.
"Please," she requested.
They drove a few blocks in silence.
"Good night," he bowed, formally as he left her before the hotel elevators.
"Good night," she acknowledged, as formally.