The Red Symbol. Ironside John

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СКАЧАТЬ open the ragged shirt, and stared aghast at the sight that met my eyes. The emaciated chest was seamed and knotted with curious scars. I had seen similar scars before, and knew there was but one weapon in the world—the knout—capable of making them. The man was a Russian then, and had been grievously handled; some time back as I judged, for the scars were old.

      I dashed water on his face and breast, and poured some of the whiskey down his throat. He gasped, gurgled, opened his eyes and stared at me. He looked like a touzled old vulture that has been badly scared.

      “Buck up, daddy,” I said cheerfully, forgetting he wouldn’t understand me. I helped him to his feet, and felt in my trouser pocket for a coin. It was food he wanted, but I had none to give him, except some crackers, and I had wasted enough time over him already. If I didn’t get a hustle on, I should be late for my appointment with Anne.

      He clutched at the half-crown, and bent his trembling old body again, invoking, as I opined, a string of blessings on my unworthy head. Something slipped from among his garments and fell with a tinkle at my feet. I stooped to pick it up and saw it was an oval piece of tin, in shape and size like an old-fashioned miniature, containing a portrait. He had evidently been wearing it round his neck, amulet fashion, for a thin red cord dangled from it, that I had probably snapped in my haste.

      He reached for it with a quick cry, but I held on to it, for I recognized the face instantly.

      It was a photograph of Anne Pendennis—badly printed, as if by an amateur—but an excellent likeness.

      Underneath were scrawled in red ink the initials “A. P.” and two or three words that I could not decipher, together with a curious hieroglyphic, that looked like a tiny five-petalled flower, drawn and filled in with the red ink.

      How on earth did this forlorn old alien have Anne’s portrait in his possession?

      He was cute enough to read my expression, for he clutched my arm, and, pointing to the portrait, began speaking earnestly, not in the patois, but in low Russian.

      My Russian is poor enough, but his was execrable. Still, I gathered that he knew “the gracious lady,” and had come a long way in search of her. There was something I could not grasp, some allusion to danger that threatened Anne, for each time he used the word he pointed at the portrait with agonized emphasis.

      His excitement was so pitiable, and seemed so genuine, that I determined to get right to the root of the mystery if possible.

      I seized his arm, marched him into my flat, and sat him in a chair, emptying the tin of crackers before him, and bidding him eat. He started crunching the crackers with avidity, eyeing me furtively all the time as I stood at the telephone.

      I must let Anne know at once that I was detained.

      I could not get on to the Cayley’s number, of course. Things always happen that way! Well, I would have to explain my conduct later.

      But I failed to elicit much by the cross-examination to which I subjected my man. For one thing, neither of us understood half that the other said.

      I told him I knew his “gracious lady;” and he grovelled on the floor, clawing at my shoes with his skinny hands.

      I asked him who he was and where he came from, but could make nothing of his replies. He seemed in mortal fear of some “Selinski”—or a name that sounded like that; and I did discover one point, that by Selinski he meant Cassavetti. When he found he had given that much away, he was so scared that I thought he was going to collapse again, as he did on the staircase.

      And yet he had been entrusted with a pass-key to Cassavetti’s rooms!

      Only two items seemed perfectly clear. That his “gracious lady” was in danger,—I put that question to him time after time, and his answer never varied,—and that he had come to warn her, to save her if possible.

      I could not ascertain the nature of the danger. When I asked him he simply shook his head, and appeared more scared than ever; but I gathered that he would be able to tell “the gracious lady,” and that she would understand, if he could only have speech with her. But when I pressed him on this idea of danger he did a curious thing. He picked up Cassavetti’s key, flattened the bit of red stuff on the palm of his hand, and held it towards me, pointing at it as if to indicate that here was the clue that he dare not give in words.

      I looked at the thing with interest. A tawdry artificial flower, with five petals, and in a flash I understood that the hieroglyphic on the portrait represented the same thing,—a red geranium. But what did they mean, anyhow, and what connection was there between them? I could not imagine.

      Finally I made him understand—or I thought I did—that he must come to me next day, in the morning; and meanwhile I would try and arrange that he should meet his “gracious lady.”

      He grovelled again, and shuffled off, turning at every few steps to make a genuflection.

      I half expected him to go up the stairs to Cassavetti’s rooms, but he did not. He went down. I followed two minutes later, but saw nothing of him, either on the staircase or the street. He had vanished as suddenly and mysteriously as he had appeared.

      I whistled for a hansom, and, as the cab turned up Whitehall, Big Ben chimed a quarter to eight.

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

THE SAVAGE CLUB DINNER

       Table of Contents

      Dinner was served by the time I reached the Cecil, and, as I entered the salon, and made my way towards the table where our seats were, I saw that my fears were realized. Anne was angry, and would not lightly forgive me for what she evidently considered an all but unpardonable breach of good manners.

      I know Mary had arranged that Anne and I should sit together, but now the chair reserved for me was on Mary’s left. Her husband sat at her right, and next him was Anne, deep in conversation with her further neighbor, who, as I recognized with a queer feeling of apprehension, was none other than Cassavetti himself!

      Mary greeted me with a comical expression of dismay on her pretty little face.

      “I’m sorry, Maurice,” she whispered. “Anne would sit there. She’s very angry. Where have you been, and why didn’t you telephone? We gave you ten minutes’ grace, and then came on, all together. It wasn’t what you might call lively, for Jim had to sit bodkin between us, and Anne never spoke a word the whole way!”

      Jim said nothing, but looked up from his soup and favored me with a grin and a wink. He evidently imagined the situation to be funny. I did not.

      “I’ll explain later, Mary,” I said, and moved to the back of Anne’s chair.

      “Will you forgive me, Miss Pendennis?” I said humbly. “I was detained at the last moment by an accident. I rang you up, but failed to get an answer.”

      She turned her head and looked up at me, with a charming smile, in which I thought I detected a trace of contrition for her hasty СКАЧАТЬ