THE MORNING AFTER
RAY BENNETT woke with a groan. His temples were splitting, his tongue was parched and dry. When he tried to lift his aching head from the pillow he groaned again, but with an effort of will succeeded in dragging himself from the bed and staggering to the window. He pushed open a leaded casement and looked out upon the green of Hyde Park, and all the time his temples throbbed painfully.
Pouring a glass of water from a carafe, he drank greedily, and, sitting down on the edge of the bed, his head between his hands, he tried to think. Only dimly did he recall the events of the night before, but he was conscious that something dreadful had happened. Slowly his mind started to sort out his experiences, and with a sinking heart he remembered he had struck his father! He shuddered at the recollection, and then began a frantic mental search for justification. The vanity of youth does not readily reject excuses for its own excesses, and Ray was no exception. By the time he had had his bath and was in the first stages of dressing, he had come to the conclusion that he had been very badly treated. It was unpardonable in him to strike his father—he must write to him expressing his sorrow and urging his condition as a reason for the act. It would not be a crawling letter (he told himself) but something dignified and a little distant. After all, these quarrels occurred in every family. Parents were temporarily estranged from their children, and were eventually reconciled. Some day he would go to his father a rich man. . . .
He pursed his lips uneasily. A rich man? He was well off now. He had an expensive flat. Every week crisp new banknotes came by registered post. He had the loan of a car—how long would this state of affairs continue?
He was no fool. Not perhaps as clever as he thought he was, but no fool. Why should the Japanese or any other Government pay him for information they could get from any handbook available to all and purchasable for a few shillings at most booksellers?
He dismissed the thought—he had the gift of putting out of his mind those matters which troubled him. Opening the door which led into his dining-room, he stood stock-still, paralysed with astonishment.
Ella was sitting at the open window, her elbow on the ledge, her chin in her hand. She looked pale, and there were heavy shadows under her eyes.
“Why, Ella, what on earth are you doing here?” he asked. “How did you get in?”
“The porter opened the door with his pass-key when I told him I was your sister,” she said listlessly. “I came early this morning. Oh, Ray—aren’t you . . . aren’t you ashamed?”
He scowled.
“Why should I be?” he asked loudly. “Father ought to have known better than tackle me when I was lit up! Of course, it was an awful thing to do, but I wasn’t responsible for my actions at the time. What did he say?” he asked uncomfortably.
“Nothing—he said nothing. I wish he had. Won’t you go to Horsham and see him, Ray?”
“No—let it blow over for a day or two,” he said hastily. He most assuredly had no anxiety to meet his father. “If . . . if he forgives me he’ll only want me to come back and chuck this life. He had no right to make me look little before all those people. I suppose you’ve been to see your friend Gordon?” he sneered.
“No,” she said simply, “I have been nowhere but here. I came up by the workmen’s train. Would it be a dreadful sacrifice, Ray, to give up this?”
He made an impatient gesture.
“It isn’t—this, my dear Ella, if by ‘this’ you mean the flat. It is my work that you and father want me to give up. I have to live up to my position.”
“What is your work?” she asked.
“You wouldn’t understand,” he said loftily, and her lips twitched.
“It would have to be very extraordinary if I could not understand it,” she said. “Is it Secret Service work?”
Ray went red.
“I suppose Gordon has been talking to you,” he complained bitterly. “If that fellow sticks his nose into my affairs he is going to have it pulled!”
“Why shouldn’t he?” she asked.
This was a new tone in her, and one that made him stare at her. Ella had always been the indulgent, approving, excusing sister. The buffer who stood between him and his father’s reproof.
“Why shouldn’t he?” she repeated. “Mr. Gordon should know something of Secret Service work—he himself is an officer of the law. You are either working lawfully, in which case it doesn’t matter what he knows, or unlawfully, and the fact that he knows should make a difference to you.”
He looked at her searchingly.
“Why are you so interested in Gordon—are you in love with him?” he asked.
Her steady eyes did not waver, and only the faintest tinge of pink came to the skin that sleeplessness had paled.
“That is the kind of question that a gentleman does not ask in such a tone,” she said quietly, “not even of his sister. Ray, you are coming back to daddy, aren’t you—to-day?”
He shook his head.
“No. I’m not. I’m going to write to him. I admit I did wrong. I shall tell him so in my letter. I can’t do more than that.”
There came a discreet knock on the door.
“Come in,” growled Ray. It was his servant, a man who came by the day.
“Will you see Miss Bassano and Mr. Brady, sir?” he asked in a hoarse whisper, and glanced significantly at Ella.
“Of course he’ll see me,” said a voice outside. “Why all this formality—oh, I see.”
Lola Bassano’s eyes fell upon the girl seated by the window.
“This is my sister—Ella, this is Miss Bassano and Mr. Brady.”
Ella looked at the petite figure in the doorway, and, looking, could only admire. It was the first time they had met face to face, and she thought Lola was lovely.
“Glad to meet you, Miss Bennett. I suppose you’ve come up to roast this brother of yours for his disgraceful conduct last night. Boy, you were certainly mad! It was your father, Miss Bennett?”
Ella nodded, and heard with gratitude the sympathetic click of Lew Brady’s lips.
“If I’d been near you, Ray, I’d have beaten you. Too bad, Miss Bennett.”
A strange coldness came suddenly to the girl—and a second before she had glowed to their sympathy. It was the suspicion of their insincerity that chilled her. Their kindness was just a little too glib and too ready. Brady’s just a little too overpowering.
“Do you like your brother’s flat?” asked Lola, sitting down and stretching her silk-covered legs to a patch of sunlight.
“It is very—handsome,” said Ella. “He will find Horsham rather dull when he comes back.”
“Will he go back?” Lola flashed a smile at the youth as she asked the question.
“Not much I won’t,” said Ray energetically. “I’ve been trying to make Ella understand that my business is too important to leave.”
Lola nodded, and now the antagonism which Ella in her charity was holding back came with a rush.
“What is the business?” she asked.
He went on to give her a vague and cautious exposition of his work, and she listened without comment.
“So if you think that I’m doing anything crooked, or have friends that aren’t as straight as you and father are, get the idea out of your head. I’m not afraid of Gordon or Elk or any of that lot. Don’t think I am. Nor is Brady, nor Miss Bassano. Gordon is one of those cheap detectives who has got his ideas out of books.”
“That’s perfectly true, Miss Bennett,” said Lew virtuously. “Gordon is just a bit too clever. He’s got the idea that everybody but himself is crook. Why, he sent Elk down to cross-examine your own father! Believe me, I’m not scared of Gordon, or any——”
Tap . . . tap . . . tappity . . . tap.
The taps were on the door, slow, deliberate, unmistakable. The effect on Lew Brady was remarkable. His big body seemed to shrink, his puffed face grew suddenly hollow.
Tap . . . tap . . . tappity . . . tap.
The hand that went up to Brady’s mouth was trembling. Ella looked from the man to Lola, and she saw, to her amazement, that Lola had grown pale under her rouge. Brady stumbled to the door, and the sound of his heavy breathing sounded loud in the silence.
“Come in,” he muttered, and flung the door wide open.
It was Dick Gordon who entered.
He looked from one to the other, laughter in his eyes.
“The old Frog tap seems to frighten some of you,” he said pleasantly.