“You went to the Ranee of Butilata’s last night,” said Grace quietly, and Dora looked round startled.
“Yes,” she confessed, “I did. How do you know?”
Miss Drew laughed, a quiet little laugh that might have meant anything or nothing.
“She’s been through on the ’phone this morning apologizing for her rudeness to you. Was she very rude, by the way?”
Briefly the girl related what had happened to her on the previous night, and Grace Drew listened with interest.
“She’s a queer woman,” she said, when the other had finished. “A little mad, I think.”
“Have you ever seen her?” asked Dora with interest.
Miss Drew shook her head.
“She is usually veiled or else speaks to me through a curtain,” she said. “Mr. Martin thinks that there is some deformity of face.”
Dora nodded.
“It was dreadful, wasn’t it?” she said.
“What was dreadful?” asked Miss Drew, puffing out a cloud of smoke and watching its flight ceilingward.
“She was an English girl,” said Dora, “and was trapped into a marriage with an Indian.”
“Who told you that?” asked Miss Drew quickly, and Dora laughed.
“I don’t know it for certain,” she said. “I do know she married the Indian, and somehow I have a feeling that she was trapped.”
“I don’t know that I should be sorry for her,” said Miss Drew, after a pause; “she has plenty of money.”
“Money is not the only thing,” said Dora quietly. “I think you’ve got rather a wrong view of things, Grace.”
“Maybe I have,” said the other, turning to her work. “Anyway, you’ll have to explain to Mr. Covent why you went to Newbury last night. I shall have to tell him because it was a message to him.”
Dora shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t know that I shall tell him anything,” she said. “I simply went…” she hesitated, “on instructions.”
“On instructions from Mr. Camberley, I presume?” said Grace, without raising her eyes.
The girl made no reply.
Miss Drew opened a little ledger on her desk and ran through the pages with deft touch. It impressed Dora that she was doing this more or less mechanically and that her object was to gain time.
“The Ranee is coming up today,” she said.
“To the office?”
Miss Drew nodded.
“She generally comes up once a month,” she said. “Oh no, she never comes actually into the office, but poor I have to go out and interview her in her car. Would you like to meet her?”
Dora shuddered.
“No, thank you,” she said promptly, and Grace Drew laughed.
Tom Camberley and his partner arrived at the office almost simultaneously, and Tom went straight to his room with no more than a brief nod to his secretary. Through the glass partition she saw him come out again after a few minutes and go into his partner’s room. Grace Drew was also watching, it seemed, for a little smile was playing about the corner of her mouth.
“I don’t think there will be any need for me to make my report,” she said, without stopping her work, and her surmise was justified.
Tom Camberley walked into Martin’s room and closed the door behind him.
“Hello,” said Covent, “what’s the trouble?”
Tom drew up a chair to the big desk and sat down.
“Martin,” he said, “I’m going to be perfectly frank with you.”
“That’s a failing of yours,” replied the other, with a suggestion of sarcasm.
“Last night,” Tom went on, ignoring the interruption, “I was worried about this Rumanian oil deal of yours and particularly in reference to your scheme for applying clients’ money.”
“Are we going to have that all over again?” demanded Martin Covent wearily.
“Wait,” said the other, “I haven’t finished. I wasn’t quite satisfied that you were playing the game with the Ranee of Butilata and I sent Miss Mead to Newbury——”
“The devil you did!” said Martin, flushing angrily. “That’s a pretty low game to play, Camberley!”
“If you come to a question of ethics,” said Tom, “I think the balance of righteousness is on my side. I tell you I sent Miss Mead to Newbury to interview the Ranee, and she was most disgracefully treated.”
Martin was on his feet, red and lowering.
“I don’t care a damn what happened to Miss Mead,” he said. “What I want to know is what do you mean by sending a servant of the firm to spy on me and give me away? You must have taken the girl Mead into your confidence, or she would not have known what enquiries to make. The most disgraceful thing I’ve ever heard!”
“I dare say you’ll hear worse,” replied Tom coolly. “But that also is beside the question. I want to see the Ranee’s account.”
Neither man heard the gentle tap at the door, nor saw it open to admit Grace Drew.
“You want to see the Ranee’s account, do you?” snarled Martin. “Well, it’s open to you any time you want. And I guess you’d better see all the accounts, Camberley, because I’m not going to carry on this business on the present basis much longer.”
“In other words, you would like to dissolve the partnership?” said Tom quietly.
“I should,” was the emphatic reply, and Tom nodded.
“Very well then,” he said. “We can’t do much better than call in a chartered accountant to straighten things out and see where we stand. I am not going to be a party to these queer business methods of yours.”
“What do you mean by queer business methods?”
“You told me yesterday,” said Tom, “that the firm was built up on the suffering you brought to an innocent girl. You boasted of the fact that the firm of Covent Brothers took up slavery as a side-line.”
“Innocent!” laughed the other harshly. “A chorus girl!”
“So far as you and I know, that girl was as straight and as pure as any,” said Tom sternly, “but if she were the worst woman in the world I should still regard the transaction as beastly.”
“Remember that you are talking about my father,” stormed Martin.
“I am talking about the firm of Covent Brothers,” said Tom Camberley, “and I repeat that you have done enough harm to this unfortunate woman without risking her money in your wild-cat schemes.”
Martin Covent was pacing the room in a fury, and now he turned suddenly and for the first time saw Miss Drew standing by the door. There were few secrets which he did not share with this girl, and possibly her presence was an incentive to his fury.
“I tell you, Camberley,” he said, “that you have gone far enough. This woman—this Ranee—was business. I don’t care a curse whether she was happy or unhappy, she saved the firm from going to pot. And I tell you too that if the same opportunity occurred to me as occurred to my father, and I could save the firm by sacrificing a thousand chorus girls, I should do so.”
Tom Camberley shrugged his shoulders, and amusement and disgust were blended in his face.
“That is your code, Covent,” he said, “but it is not mine, and the sooner you bring in your chartered accountants the better.”
Turning, he left the room. There was a silence which the girl broke.
“I don’t think so,” she said.
“Don’t think what?” asked Covent, in a surprisingly mild tone.
“I don’t think we’ll call in the chartered accountants,” said the girl coolly, and helped herself to a cigarette from the open silver box.
He stared gloomily through the window and followed the girl’s example, lighting his cigarette from the glowing end of hers.
“If this had only happened in three m
onths’ time,” he said, “when Rumanian Oils——”
She laughed.
“Rumanian Oils will be bound to get you out of your trouble, Martin,” she said.
He sat at his desk, looking up at her from under his lowered brows.
“You know a great deal about the business of this firm,” he said.
“I know enough to make it extremely unpleasant for you if you do not keep your promise to me,” said the girl. “I know that you have been raiding your clients’ accounts, and that the last person in the world you want to see in this office is a representative from a firm of chartered accountants.”
“The firm is solvent,” he growled.
She nodded.
“It may be solvent, and yet it would be very awkward if the accounts were examined.”
She puffed a ring of smoke into the air, a trick of hers, and then asked:
“Why not offer Mr. Camberley a lump sum to get out?”
“What good would that do?” he asked.
“It would save an examination of the accounts,” she repeated patiently, “and I rather fancy Mr. Camberley would accept if the sum were big enough. At any rate, you cannot push him off until the half-yearly audit.”
“That’s an idea,” he said thoughtfully. “If the worst came to the worst, I know a pretty little villa in an Argentine town and a pretty little girl——” He reached out his hand for hers and caught it, but she made no response.
“I think there’s an idea in what you say,” he went on. “At any rate, I’ll see Camberley and try to get him out for a fixed sum—I can raise the money.”
“I wonder,” said the girl.
“You wonder what?” he asked quickly.
“Oh, I wasn’t thinking about the money, but I was wondering whether you meant what you said, that you would sacrifice any woman for the firm’s interest?”
“Any woman but you, darling,” he said and, rising, kissed her. “Now be a good girl and help me all you can. Someday you shall be Mrs. Covent, and who knows, Lady Covent?”
“Someday,” she repeated.
IV
The Hand at the Window
Tom Camberley went back to his office and rang for Dora Mead.
“I’m leaving the firm,” he said.
“Have you quarrelled?” she asked anxiously.
“Yes, we’ve quarrelled all right,” said Tom grimly.
“Did he say anything about——?”
He shook his head.
“No, I didn’t go very deeply into the question of your unfortunate adventure at Newbury,” he said, “and I am as much in the dark today as I was last night. Why on earth did the Ranee treat you so badly?”
He followed the new train of thought musingly.
“I’ve been wondering too,” said the girl. “I was telling Grace Drew and she said that the Ranee was a little mad.”
Tom nodded.
“There’s something in that, but it isn’t a nice thought that the firm has a lunatic for a client.”
He laughed.
“However, I shan’t be a member of the firm much longer,” he said.
He dictated some letters, but he was not in a good mood for business, and the rest of the morning was idled away in speculation. Once he walked to the window and, looking down into the busy street, saw a car drawn up before the main door. It was a beautiful car, and from the angle at which he surveyed it, he saw that the windows were heavily curtained. He was wondering who the owner was when Dora came quickly into the office.
“The Ranee is here,” she said. “I wonder if she has come to complain——”
“The Ranee,” he repeated quickly, “I should like to see that lady.”
He put on his hat, walked out of his office and down the broad stairs to the main entrance. As he reached the pavement the car was moving away. Miss Drew, bare-headed, was nodding her farewell to the occupant. Tom had a glimpse of a slight figure in black behind the curtain, and then a hand came out to pull up the window. It was a curious hand, and Tom looking at it, gasped.
He turned to Miss Drew.
“That was the Ranee, Mr. Camberley. Have you ever seen her?” said the girl pleasantly.
“The Ranee, eh?” said Tom. “No, I have never seen her. I thought she was a young woman?”
“I think she is,” said Miss Drew. “She is rather a trying woman. But what makes you think she is not young?”
“I saw her hand,” said Tom, “and if that was the hand of a young Englishwoman then I am a Dutchman.”
The girl raised her eyebrows.
“I’ve never noticed her hands,” she said. “What was curious about it?”
Tom did not reply immediately.
“Have you ever seen a native’s fingernails?” he asked.
“I don’t remember,” said the girl.
“Well, have a good look at the next native’s you see. You will find a blue half-moon on each nail, and there was a blue half-moon on the nails of that hand that came to the window. I know that the girl who married the Rajah of Butilata has lived in India for some years, but I’ll swear that she has not lived there long enough to display that characteristic of the native.”
He left the girl standing in the street looking after the disappearing car.
Many things happened in the next six hours to make the day an eventful one for Tom Camberley. He received from his partner a formal offer of a very handsome sum on condition that the partnership was terminated then and there. At first he was for refusing this, and then, acting on impulse, he took a sheet of paper, wrote an acceptance and sent it by hand to Martin Covent’s office. He was impatient to be done with the business. There was something unwholesome in it all. A formal audit of the books would take weeks, and those would be weeks charged with impatience and annoyance. And the sum was a large one, larger, in fact, than he expected to get as his share. He walked into Dora’s office and found her alone.
“Miss Mead,” he said, “I’m going to make a suggestion to you and I wonder if you’ll be offended.”
She laughed up at him.
“I shall be very much offended if you ask me to go to Newbury again,” she said.
“Nothing so interesting as that,” said he. “I was going to suggest that you come and dine with me tonight,” and then at her quick glance of distrust (or was it merely embarrassment?) he added quickly, “I should hate you to bring a chaperone, but if you like you can. I want to tell you something of what has happened today. I am leaving the firm.”
“Leaving the firm?” she said in such frank dismay that a pleasant little glow went through him. “Oh no, Mr. Camberley, you don’t mean that!”
“I’ll tell you all about it. Will you dine with me?”
She nodded.
They dined modestly and well at the Trocadero, and Tom told all that had happened that day.
“Curiously enough,” he said, “the dissolution of our partnership is less interesting to me than my discovery this morning.”
“Your discovery?”
He nodded.
“You remember I went down to the street intending to have a word with the Ranee of Butilata. The car was just moving off as I arrived, and I could only catch a glimpse of the lady inside. But just as the window came abreast of me I saw a hand come out to grip the strap which raised the window. And it was not the hand of a refined Englishwoman or even of a woman who was not refined.”
“What do you mean?” asked the girl.
“It was the hand of a native,” said Tom emphatically, “and I should say a native of between forty and fifty. The hands were gnarled and veined, and very distinctly I saw upon the fingernails the little blue half-moon which betrays the Easterner.”
“But I thought the Ranee was——”
<
br /> “An English girl?” nodded Tom. “Yes. I thought so too. Now I’ve got an idea that there’s some queer work going on and that the so-called Ranee of Butilata is not the Ranee at all.”
“What is your theory?” she asked curiously.
“My theory,” said Tom, “is that the Ranee of Butilata is not in England. She is probably dead. Somebody is impersonating her for his or her own purpose. This afternoon I got her account and it is a curious one. She arrived in England two years ago and opened an account with us for six thousand pounds. I have very carefully checked the in-coming and out-going money, and it is clear to me that that six thousand pounds was expended on the house at Newbury and its furnishing. In fact, the lady only had a balance of a few pounds when, after the account had been opened some six months, the second payment was made to her credit. Since then, however, she has been receiving money from India pretty regularly, and has now a very respectable balance.”
“But it’s impossible that she can be anything but English,” said Dora, shaking her head. “Miss Drew has often told me she has spoken to her and that her English is perfect.”
“But she has never seen her face?”
“No,” said the girl, after a moment’s thought. “I believe the Ranee is always veiled.”
“You are sure she always spoke good English,” insisted Tom with a puzzled frown. “I wish I could speak to Miss Drew.”
“Why not call on her?” asked the girl. “She has a little flat in Southampton Street.”
Tom looked at his watch.
“Nine o’clock,” he said. “I doubt whether she would be home.”
“She always spends her evenings at home,” said Dora. “She has often told me how dull she found time in London. I think she is studying accountancy in her spare time.”
Tom hesitated.
“Do you know the address?”
“Yes,” said the girl. “Kings Croft Mansions, number one hundred and twenty-three.”
The Big Book of Female Detectives Page 195