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

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      “Quite well,” he answered, “but it is a subject to which I prefer that you do not allude.”

      “I will be careful,” she answered. “I only spoke of it for this reason. Before you left, when we were sitting together, you sketched out the career which you proposed for yourself. In many respects, I suppose, you have been highly successful, but I wonder if it has ever occurred to you that your work has not proceeded upon the lines which you first indicated?”

      He nodded.

      “I think I know what you mean,” he said. “Go on.”

      “That night,” she murmured softly, “you spoke as a hunted man; you spoke as one at war with Society; you spoke as one who proposes almost a campaign against it. When you took your rooms here and called yourself Peter Ruff, it was rather in your mind to aid the criminal than to detect the crime. Fate seems to have decreed otherwise. Why, I wonder?”

      “Things have gone that way,” Peter Ruff remarked.

      “I will tell you why,” she continued. “It is because, at the bottom of your heart, there lurks a strong and unconquerable desire for respectability. In your heart you are on the side of the law and established things. You do not like crime; you do not like criminals. You do not like the idea of associating with them. You prefer the company of law-abiding people, even though their ways be narrow. It was part of that sentiment, Peter, which led you to fall in love with a coal-merchant’s daughter. I can see that you will end your days in the halo of respectability.”

      Peter Ruff was a little thoughtful. He scratched his chin and contemplated the tip of his faultless patent boot. Self-analysis interested him, and he recognized the truth of the girl’s words.

      “You know, I am rather like that,” he admitted. “When I see a family party, I envy them. When I hear of a man who has brothers and sisters and aunts and cousins, and gives family dinner-parties to family friends, I envy him. I do not care about the loose ends of life. I do not care about restaurant life, and ladies who transfer their regards with the same facility that they change their toilettes. You have very admirable powers of observation, Violet. You see me, I believe, as I really am.”

      “That being so,” she remarked, “what are you going to say to Sir Richard Dyson?”

      Peter Ruff was frank.

      “Upon my soul,” he answered, “I don’t know!”

      “You’ll have to make up your mind very soon,” she reminded him. “He is coming here at twelve o’clock.”

      Peter Ruff nodded.

      “I shall wait until I hear what he has to say,” he remarked.

      “His letter gave you a pretty clear hint,” Violet said, “that it was something outside the law.”

      “The law has many outposts,” Peter Ruff said. “One can thread one’s way in and out, if one knows the ropes. I don’t like the man, but he introduced me to his tailor. I have never had any clothes like those he has made me.”

      She sighed.

      “You are a vain little person,” she said.

      “You are an impertinent young woman!” he answered. “Get back to your work. Don’t you hear the lift stop?”

      She rose reluctantly, and resumed her place in front of her desk.

      “If it’s risky,” she whispered, leaning round towards him, “don’t you take it on. I’ve heard one or two things about Sir Richard lately.”

      Peter Ruff nodded. He, too, quitted his easy-chair, and took up a bundle of papers which lay upon his desk. There was a sharp tap at the door.

      “Come in!” he said.

      Sir Richard Dyson entered. He was dressed quietly, but with the perfect taste which was obviously an instinct with him, and he wore a big bunch of violets in his buttonhole. Nevertheless, the spring sunshine seemed to find out the lines in his face. His eyes were baggy—he had aged even within the last few months.

      “Well, Mr. Ruff,” he said, shaking hands, “how goes it?”

      “I am very well, Sir Richard,” Peter Ruff answered. “Please take a chair.”

      Sir Richard took the easy-chair, and discovering a box of cigarettes upon the table, helped himself. Then his eyes fell upon Miss Brown.

      “Can’t do without your secretary?” he remarked.

      “Impossible!” Peter Ruff answered. “As I told you before, I am her guarantee that what you say to me, or before her, is spoken as though to the dead.”

      Sir Richard nodded.

      “Just as well,” he remarked, “for I am going to talk about a man who I wish were dead!”

      “There are few of us,” Peter Ruff said, “who have not our enemies.”

      “Have you any experience of blackmailers?” Sir Richard asked.

      “In my profession,” Peter Ruff answered, “I have come across such persons.”

      “I have come to see you about one,” Sir Richard proceeded. “Many years ago, there was a fellow in my regiment who went to the bad—never mind his name. He passes to-day as Ted Jones—that name will do as well as another. I am not,” Sir Richard continued, “a good-natured man, but some devilish impulse prompted me to help that fellow. I gave him money three or four times. Somehow, I don’t think it’s a very good thing to give a man money. He doesn’t value it—it comes too easily. He spends it and wants more.”

      “There’s a good deal of truth in what you say, Sir Richard,” Peter Ruff admitted.

      “Our friend, for instance, wanted more,” Sir Richard continued. “He came to me for it almost as a matter of course. I refused. He came again; I lost my temper and punched his head. Then his little game began.”

      Peter Ruff nodded.

      “He had something to work upon, I suppose?” he remarked.

      “Most certainly he had,” Sir Richard admitted. “If ever I achieved sufficient distinction in any branch of life to make it necessary that my biography should be written, I promise you that you would find it in many places a little highly colored. In other words, Mr. Ruff, I have not always adhered to the paths of righteousness.”

      A faint smile flickered across Peter Ruff’s face.

      “Sir Richard,” he said, “your candor is admirable.”

      “There was one time,” Sir Richard continued, “when I was really on my last legs. It was just before I came into the baronetcy. I had borrowed every penny I could borrow. I was even hard put to it for a meal. I went to Paris, and I called myself by another man’s name. I got introduced to a somewhat exclusive club there. My assumed name was a good one—it was the name, in fact, of a relative whom I somewhat resembled. I was accepted without question. I played cards, and I lost somewhere about eighteen СКАЧАТЬ