CLOWNS AND CRIMINALS - Complete Series (Thriller Classics). E. Phillips Oppenheim

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      “That coal-dealer’s girl from Streatham!” she murmured to herself….

      A few politely worded letters were exchanged. “M” declined to reveal her identity, but made an appointment to visit Mr. Ruff at his office. The morning she was expected, he wore an entirely new suit of clothes and was palpably nervous. Miss Brown, who had arrived a little late, sat with her back turned upon him, and ignored even his usual morning greeting. The atmosphere of the office was decidedly chilly! Fortunately, the expected visitor arrived early.

      Peter Ruff rose to receive his former sweetheart with an agitation perforce concealed, yet to him poignant indeed. For it was indeed Maud who entered the room and came towards him with carefully studied embarrassment and half doubtfully extended hand. He did not see the cheap millinery, the slightly more developed figure, the passing of that insipid prettiness which had once charmed him into the bloom of an over-early maturity. His eyes were blinded with that sort of masculine chivalry—the heritage only of fools and very clever men—which takes no note of such things. It was Miss Brown who, from her place in a corner of the room, ran over the cheap attractions of this unwelcome visitor with an expression of scornful wonder—who understood the tinsel of her jewellery, the cheap shoddiness of her ready-made gown; who appreciated, with merciless judgment, her mincing speech, her cheap, flirtatious method.

      Maud, with a diffidence not altogether assumed, had accepted the chair which Peter Ruff had placed for her, and sat fidgeting, for a moment, with the imitation gold purse which she was carrying.

      “I am sure, Mr. Ruff,” she said, looking demurely into her lap, “I ought not to have come here. I feel terribly guilty. It’s such an uncomfortable sort of position, too, isn’t it?”

      “I am sorry that you find it so,” Peter Ruff said. “If there is anything I can do—”

      “You are very kind,” she murmured, half raising her eyes to his and dropping them again, “but, you see, we are perfect strangers to one another. You don’t know me at all, do you? And I have only heard of you through the newspapers. You might think all sorts of things about my coming here to make enquiries about a gentleman.”

      “I can assure you,” Peter Ruff said, sincerely, “that you need have no fears—no fears at all. Just speak to me quite frankly. Mr. Fitzgerald was a friend of yours, was he not?”

      Maud simpered.

      “He was more than that,” she answered, looking down. “We were engaged to be married.”

      Peter Ruff sighed.

      “I knew all about it,” he declared. “Fitzgerald used to tell me everything.”

      “You were his friend?” she asked, looking him in the face.

      “I was,” Peter Ruff answered fervently, “his best friend! No one was more grieved than I about that—little mistake.”

      She sighed.

      “In some ways,” she remarked softly, “you remind me of him.”

      “You could scarcely say anything,” Peter Ruff murmured “which would give me more pleasure. I am flattered.”

      She shook her head.

      “It isn’t flattery,” she said, “it’s the truth. You may be a few years older, and Spencer had a very nice moustache, which you haven’t, but you are really not unlike. Mr. Ruff, do tell me where he is!”

      Peter Ruff coughed.

      “You must remember,” he said, “that Mr. Fitzgerald’s absence was caused by events of a somewhat unfortunate character.”

      “I know all about it,” she answered, with a little sigh.

      “You can appreciate the fact, therefore,” Peter Ruff continued, “that as his friend and well-wisher I can scarcely disclose his whereabouts without his permission. Will you tell me exactly why you want to meet him again?”

      She blushed—looked down and up again—betrayed, in fact, all the signs of confusion which might have been expected from her.

      “Must I tell you that?” she asked.

      “You are married, are you not?” Peter Ruff asked, looking down at her wedding ring.

      She bit her lip with vexation. What a fool she had been not to take it off!

      “Yes! Well, no—that is to say—”

      “Never mind,” Peter Ruff interrupted. “Please don’t think that I want to cross-examine you. I only asked these questions because I have a sincere regard for Fitzgerald. I know how fond he was of you, and I cannot see what there is to be gained, from his point of view, by reopening old wounds.”

      “I suppose, then,” she remarked, looking at him in such a manner that Miss Brown had to cover her mouth with her hands to prevent her screaming out—“I suppose you are one of those who think it a crime for a woman who is married even to want to see, for a few moments, an old sweetheart?”

      “On the contrary,” Peter Ruff answered, “as a bachelor, I have no convictions of any sort upon the subject.”

      She sighed.

      “I am glad of that,” she said.

      “I am to understand, then,” Peter Ruff remarked, “that your reason for wishing to meet Mr. Fitzgerald again is purely a sentimental one?”

      “I am afraid it is,” she murmured; “I have thought of him so often lately. He was such a dear!” she declared, with enthusiasm.

      “I have never been sufficiently thankful,” she continued, “that he got away that night. At the time, I was very angry, but often since then I have wished that I could have passed out with him into the fog and been lost—but I mustn’t talk like this! Please don’t misunderstand me, Mr. Ruff. I am happily married—quite happily married!”

      Peter Ruff sighed.

      “My friend Fitzgerald,” he remarked, “will be glad to hear that.”

      Maud fidgeted. It was not quite the effect she had intended to produce!

      “Of course,” she remarked, looking away with a pensive air, “one has regrets.”

      “Regrets!” Peter Ruff murmured.

      “Mr. Dory is not well off,” she continued, “and I am afraid that I am very fond of life and going about, and everything is so expensive nowadays. Then I don’t like his profession. I think it is hateful to be always trying to catch people and put them in prison—don’t you, Mr. Ruff?”

      Peter Ruff smiled.

      “Naturally,” he answered. “Your husband and I work from the opposite poles of life. He is always seeking to make criminals of the people whom I am always trying to prove worthy members of society.”

      “How noble!” Maud exclaimed, clasping her hands and looking up at him. “So much more remunerative, СКАЧАТЬ