The Essential Edgar Wallace Collection. Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
"No," said Mr. Stepney pleasantly.
"May I tell her?"
"Of course."
"Mr. Stepney has been telling me about a wonderful racing coup to be made to-morrow. Isn't it rather thrilling, Jean? He says it will be quite possible for me to make five million francs without any risk at all."
"Except the risk of a million, I suppose," smiled Jean. "Well, are you going to do it?" Lydia shook her head.
"I haven't a million francs in France, for one thing," she said, "and I wouldn't risk it if I had."
And Jean smiled again at the discomfiture which Mr. Marcus Stepney strove manfully to hide.
Later she took his arm and led him into the garden.
"Marcus," she said when they were out of range of the house, "I think you are several kinds of a fool."
"Why?" asked the other, who was not in the best humour.
"It was so crude," she said scornfully, "so cheap and confidence-trickish. A miserable million francs--twenty thousand pounds. Apart from the fact that your name would be mud in London if it were known that you had robbed a girl----"
"There's no question of robbery," he said hotly, "I tell you Valdau is a certainty for the Prix."
"It would not be a certainty if her money were on," said Jean dryly. "It would finish an artistic second and you would be full of apologies, and poor Lydia would be a million francs to the bad. No, Marcus, that is cheap."
"I'm nearly broke," he said shortly.
He made no disguise of his profession, nor of his nefarious plan.
Between the two there was a queer kind of camaraderie. Though he may not have been privy to the more tremendous of her crimes, yet he seemed to accept her as one of those who lived on the frontiers of illegality.
"I was thinking about you, as you sat there telling her the story," said Jean thoughtfully. "Marcus, why don't you marry her?"
He stopped in his stride and looked down at the girl.
"Marry her, Jean; are you mad? She wouldn't marry me."
"Why not?" she asked. "Of course she'd marry you, you silly fool, if you went the right way about it."
He was silent.
"She is worth six hundred thousand pounds, and I happen to know that she has nearly two hundred thousand pounds in cash on deposit at the bank," said Jean.
"Why do you want me to marry her?" he asked significantly. "Is there a rake-off for you?"
"A big rake-off," she said. "The two hundred thousand on deposit should be easily get-at-able, Marcus, and she'd even give you more----"
"Why?" he asked.
"To agree to a separation," she said coolly. "I know you. No woman could live very long with you and preserve her reason."
He chuckled.
"And I'm to hand it all over to you?"
"Oh no," she corrected. "I'm not greedy. It is my experience that the greedy people get into bad trouble. The man or woman who 'wants it all' usually gets the dressing-case the 'all' was kept in. No, I'd like to take a half."
He sat down on a garden seat and she followed his example.
"What is there to be?" he asked. "An agreement between you and me? Something signed and sealed and delivered, eh?"
Her sad eyes caught his and held them.
"I trust you, Marcus," she said softly. "If I help you in this--and I will if you will do all that I tell you to do--I will trust you to give me my share."
Mr. Marcus Stepney fingered his collar a little importantly.
"I've never let a pal down in my life," he said with a cough. "I'm as straight as they make 'em, to people who play the game with me."
"And you are wise, so far as I am concerned," said the gentle Jean. "For if you double-crossed me, I should hand the police the name and address of your other wife who is still living."
His jaw dropped.
"Wha--what?" he stammered.
"Let us join the ladies," mocked Jean, as she rose and put her arm in his.
It pleased her immensely to feel this big man trembling.
Chapter XXI
It seemed to Lydia that she had been abroad for years, though in reality she had been three days in Cap Martin, when Mr. Marcus Stepney became a regular caller.
Even the most objectionable people improve on acquaintance, and give the lie to first impressions.
Mr. Stepney never bored her. He had an inexhaustible store of anecdotes and reminiscences, none of which was in the slightest degree offensive. He was something of a sportsman, too, and he called by arrangement the next morning, after his introduction to the Cap Martin household, and conducting her to a sheltered cove, containing two bathing huts, he introduced her to the exhilarating Mediterranean.
Sea bathing is not permitted in Monte Carlo until May, and the water was much colder than Lydia had expected. They swam out to a floating platform when Mr. Briggerland and Jean put in an appearance. Jean had come straight from the house in her bathing-gown, over which she wore a light wrap. Lydia watched her with amazement, for the girl was an expert swimmer. She could dive from almost any height and could remain under water an alarming time.
"I never thought you had so much energy and strength in your little body," said Lydia, as Jean, with a shriek of enjoyment, drew herself on the raft and wiped the water from her eyes.
"There's a man up there looking at us through glasses," said Briggerland suddenly. "I saw the flash of the sun on them."
He pointed to the rising ground beyond the seashore, but they could see nothing.
Presently there was a glitter of light amongst the green, and Lydia pointed.
"I thought that sort of thing was never done except in comic newspapers," she said, but Jean did not smile. Her eyes were focused on the point where the unseen observer lay or sat, and she shaded her eyes.
"Some visitor from Monte Carlo, I expect. People at Cap Martin are much too respectable to do anything so vulgar."
Mr. Briggerland, at a glance from his daughter, slipped into the water, and with strong heavy strokes, made his way to the shore.
"Father is going to investigate," said Jean, "and the water really is the warmest place," and with that she fell sideways into the blue sea like a seal, dived down into its depths, and presently Lydia saw her walking along the white floor of the ocean, her little hands keeping up an almost imperceptible motion. Presently she shot up again, shook her head and looked round, only to dive again.
In the meantime, though Lydia, who was fascinated by the manoeuvre of the girl, did not notice the fact, Mr. Briggerland had reached the shore, pulled on a pair of rubber shoes, and with his mackintosh buttoned over his bathing dress, had begun to climb through the underbrush towards the spot where the glasses had glistened. When Lydia looked up he had disappeared.
"Where is your father?" she asked the girl.
"He went into the bushes." Mr. Stepney volunteered the information. "I suppose he's looking for the Paul Pry."
Mr. Stepney had been unusually glum and silent, for he was piqued by the tactless appearance of the Briggerlands.