CHAPTER II
My nerves are under pretty good control, but I must confess that I jumped a little at this unexpected interruption. Wheeling round, I found myself face to face with a tall, broad-shouldered man in evening dress, which was half concealed by a long fawn-coloured overcoat. For a moment his features seemed strangely familiar, and I stared at him, wondering where I had seen them last. Then suddenly the truth hit me fair and square.
"Good Lord!" I said, "are you a looking-glass?"
Except for his clothes, the man was the exact image of myself.
He smiled—a curious smile that ended with his lips, and had no effect at all on the cold, steady blue eyes that were taking in every detail of my appearance.
"A most remarkable likeness," he observed quietly. "I never thought I was so good-looking."
I bowed. "And I never realised how well-dressed I was," I returned in the same half-mocking tone.
It was his turn to start, though the motion was almost imperceptible.
"Even our voices!" he muttered. "Who was the fool who said that miracles don't happen?"
I shook my head. "The likeness," I said, "appears to extend to our ignorance."
There was a short silence, during which we still looked each other up and down with the same frank interest. Then he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a slim, gold card-case.
"My name," he said, "is Stuart Northcote. You may have heard of it." He held out a card.
I don't think I showed my surprise, though goodness knows I felt it. Like most people in London, I had certainly heard of Stuart Northcote. Indeed, I could hardly have avoided doing so, considering that the Society papers had been full of little else but his doings and his wealth ever since he appeared mysteriously from nowhere at the beginning of the season, and rented Lord Lammersfield's house in Park Lane.
However, I accepted his card without comment, as though a meeting with a millionaire double were an everyday event in my own existence.
"My own name," I said, "is John Burton. I am afraid that a card-case is outside my present scheme of things."
He bowed. "Well, Mr. Burton," he began deliberately, "since chance has thrown us together in this fashion, it seems a pity not to improve our acquaintance. If you are in no hurry, perhaps you would give me the pleasure of your society at supper?"
I don't know what it was—something in his voice, perhaps—but, anyhow, I had a curious instinct that he was extremely anxious I should accept. I thought I would test him.
"It's very kind of you," I said, with a smile, "but, as a matter of fact, I have just finished dinner."
He waved aside the objection. "Well, well, a bottle of wine, then. After all, one doesn't meet one's double every day."
There was a four-wheeler trundling slowly up the Embankment, and without waiting for any further reply from me, he raised his hand and beckoned to the driver.
As the man drew up, a tattered figure that had been lounging on one of the seats a little farther down shambled hastily forward as though to open the door. My eyes happened to be on Northcote at the moment, and I was amazed at the sudden change that came over him. He looked like a man in the presence of some imminent danger. Like a flash, his right hand travelled to his side pocket with a gesture that it was impossible to misunderstand.
"Stand back," he said harshly.
The loafer, astonished at his tone, stopped abruptly in the circle of white light cast by the electric lamp.
"Beg pardon, guv'nor," he whined; "on'y goin' to open the door for yer, guv'nor."
Northcote's cold blue eyes scrutinised him keenly for a moment. "That's all right, my man," he said, in a rather different voice. "Here you are!"
He flung a silver coin—a half-crown it looked like—on to the pavement, and with a gasp of amazement the man dived to pick it up. As he did so, Northcote, still watching him, stepped forward to the cab and flung open the door.
"You get in, Mr. Burton, will you?" he said; and then, as I climbed into the cab, he turned to the driver. "The Milan," he said curtly, and then, following me, slammed the door.
As we drove away, I saw the white face of the loafer, who had apparently recovered his coin, staring after us out of the lamplight.
Northcote must have guessed that I had noticed his agitation, for he laughed in a rather forced manner. "I dislike those fellows," he said. "It's foolish, of course,—one ought to pity the poor devils,—but somehow or other I can't stand their coming anywhere near me."
His words were easy and natural enough, but they did not convince me in the least. I have seen too many men in danger of their lives to mistake the symptoms.
However, the matter being essentially his business and not mine, I refrained from offering any comments. Indeed, I thought it more tactful to change the conversation.
"I'm afraid I'm hardly dressed for the Milan," I said. "I don't know whether it matters."
He shrugged his shoulders. "We will have a private room in any case," he replied. "It is more comfortable."
He spoke as though the Milan were some sort of Soho pot-house!
I was just thinking what a pity it was I had wasted such an excellent appetite on Parelli's when the cab turned the corner into the Strand. Putting his head out of the window, Northcote gave some instructions to the driver, which I was unable to catch. Their nature, however, was obvious a moment later, for, turning to the right just before we reached the flaring courtyard of the famous restaurant, the man drew up at a small side entrance.
We got out, and Northcote, after paying the fare, led the way into the hall, where a bland and very respectful head waiter came forward to meet us.
"I want a private room, and a little light supper of some kind," said Northcote.
"Certainly, sir, certainly," replied the other. "Will you come this way, sir."
He guided us down a long, brilliantly lit corridor, stopping at the end door on the left, which he opened.
We found ourselves in a small but luxuriously furnished room, with a table already laid for supper, and delightfully decorated with flowers.
"This room was engaged to-night by one of the Russian nobility," explained our conductor suavely. "The order has just been cancelled by telephone, so, if it will suit you, sir—"
"It will do excellently," broke in Northcote.
Another waiter who had followed us into the apartment came forward, prepared to take our coats and hats. Northcote stopped him with a gesture.
"You can leave them here," he said. Then, turning to the head waiter, he added curtly, "I shall be obliged if you will attend to us yourself."
The man bowed, and, signalling to his assistant to withdraw, presented the menu which the latter had brought in.
Northcote glanced at it, and then handed it across to me. "Is there anything particular that you would like?" he asked carelessly. "I fancy the resources of the Milan are fairly comprehensive."
I shrugged my shoulders. "I shall be more or less of a spectator in any case," I said. "You had better settle the question."
Northcote looked at the card again, and then ordered a couple of dishes, the names of which conveyed nothing to me. "And bring up a bottle of '93 Heidsieck," he added, "and some of that old liqueur brandy."
The man bowed, and after pulling out our chairs from the table, noiselessly left the room. I could not help wondering whether the extraordinary likeness between Northcote and myself had struck him; but if it had, he had betrayed no sign of having noticed it.
"I always think a really good head waiter," I observed, "is the most extraordinary work of art in the world."
"Yes," said Northcote, seating himself at the table, "and, in consequence, the most contemptible."
"That seems rather ungrateful," I remarked.
Northcote looked at me keenly. "Can you imagine any man who was not wholly contemptible deliberately moulding himself into a piece of servile machinery in order to get an easy living? I have infinitely more respect for a thief than a successful waiter."
I laughed. "I dare say you are right," I answered. "Anyway, I must admit that I would sooner be a thief if I had to choose."
"What are you?" asked Northcote abruptly.
The question took me by surprise, and for a moment I hesitated.
"I am not asking out of mere curiosity," he said.
"I didn't think you were," I returned pleasantly. "That was why I was doubtful about answering you."
He smiled, looking at me curiously, with the same disconcerting intentness.
"Let us be frank, then," he said suddenly. "It happens that you have the power to be of considerable service to me, Mr. Burton."
He paused.
"Indeed?" I said, lighting a cigarette.
"On the other hand," he went on, "there is certainly a chance that I might be of some use to you."
I thought of the reported extent of his income, and then of my beautiful Bolivian goldfield.
"It is quite possible," I admitted gravely.
He leaned forward with his hands on the table. I noticed that they were muscular and sunburned—the hands of a man who has done hard physical work.
"But I must know more about you," he said. "Who are you? Where do you come from? What do you want from life?"
As he asked the last question, the door of the room opened, and the waiter came in, carrying supper.
While the man was handing round the dishes and pouring out the wine—a delicious wine it was, too, by the way—Northcote talked away lightly and cleverly about several more or less topical subjects. I answered him occasionally, in the same careless strain; but my mind was almost wholly occupied with the mysterious suggestion that he had just let fall. I was wondering what on earth the service could be that I was capable of rendering him. That it had something to do with our amazing likeness to each other I felt convinced; but beyond that it was impossible to guess. The whole thing—our meeting on the Embankment, his invitation to supper, and the strange hint of an unknown purpose in his actions—had all been so sudden and bizarre that I felt as if I had been caught up into some modern version of the Arabian Nights.
Still, there could be no harm in making him more or less acquainted with my innocent past and my embarrassed present. I had nothing I wished to conceal, except the whereabouts of my goldfield; and it seemed quite on the cards that, in return for this unknown service that he wanted from me, I might be able to interest him in my scheme. In any case, curiosity alone would have made me go through with the matter now I had got so far. I instinctively felt that Mr. Northcote's proposals when they came would be of a decidedly interesting nature.
So, as soon as the waiter had withdrawn, I filled up my glass again, and looking across at my companion with a smile, began to satisfy his curiosity.
"There's not very much to tell you, after all," I said. "To start with, I'm thirty-four."
He gazed at me keenly. "You look five years older," he said.
"Yes," I retorted. "Perhaps, if you'd been knocking about South America for fifteen years, you'd show some fairly obvious signs of it."
A momentary flicker of surprise passed across his face. Then he laughed dryly.
"Oh!" he said. "What part of South America have you been in?"
"Most of it," I said, "but I know the Argentine best."
"What were you doing?" he asked.
"It would be shorter," I said, "to tell you what I wasn't. I've been a ranchman, a cattle-dealer, a store-keeper, a soldier, a prospector, and several other little things that happened to roll up. South America is a great place for teaching one to take a spacious view of the day's work."
"So I believe," he said. "And what brings you to England?"
"An incorrect idea of British enterprise," I answered. "My last achievement in South America was to strike gold—quite a lot of it, unless I'm pretty badly mistaken. I came over here to try and raise some capital."
"And you've failed?"
I laughed. "The British capitalist," I said, "is still as rich as he was when I landed."
He nodded his head. "What are your plans now?" he asked.
"I'm sailing for New York as soon as I can get a ship," I answered.
"Have you many friends in London?" he demanded.
"There's my landlady," I said. "She is friendly enough as long as I pay her bill, but that's about the full extent of my social circle."
There was a short silence. Then Northcote got up from his chair and, walking across the room, locked the door. I watched him with interest.
He seated himself again at the table, and lit a cigarette.
"Mr. Burton," he said, "what value do you put upon your life? I mean, for what sum would you be prepared to run a very considerable risk of losing it?"
He asked the question in such a business-like and unemotional manner that I could not repress a smile.
"I don't know," I said. "If I thought it was really valuable, I should be strongly inclined to put it up to auction."
He learned across the table and looked me full in the eyes.
"If you will do what I want," he said slowly, "I will give you ten thousand pounds."