IV
Clement decided that the next item of importance was to arrange for his talk with Heloise.
Although he was quite willing—so strong was his case—to say all that he meant to say in front of Méduse, and even Mr. Neuburg if necessary, he thought that a ten-minutes’ undistracted conversation with Heloise would give him a better chance of stating all the facts firmly and finally.
How to fix that up was the problem. As he was deciding whether he would risk telephoning to her room, his eye fell on his wrist watch. It was close to lunch time, and at once it came to him that not only did he want lunch himself, but that Heloise, being human as well as a goddess, would want hers.
He smiled suddenly as he saw how things might be managed, went down to the first floor where the great dining room was, and sat in a modestly remote seat in the lounge. Without being seen himself, he could watch everybody who came to or went from the dining room.
He had about twenty minutes to wait. Probably Heloise was telling the innocent Méduse that there had been a letter from her Sicamous agent at the Poste Restante, and that they had perhaps to stay a few days more in Quebec, and the reason why. But after that wait they both came.
From a safe distance Clement saw the captain of the waiters lead them to a table, noticed that the room was not full, and that there were plenty of places at the end. Satisfied about this, he went downstairs.
In the lobby he selected a form, wrote on it, tore it up. Wrote on another, and then, apparently, thought better of it. But whereas he threw the first into the waste basket, the second he folded rather cleverly under cover of that action, and kept it in his hand. Then having convinced all about him that he wasn’t sending a message, he waited until he saw a page go upstairs with a caller’s form, went up himself, and waited at the turn of the stairs for the boy’s return.
The boy returned alone, fortunately. Clement snapped him up.
“Want to earn a dollar?” he asked.
“Bettcher life,” said young Canada.
“Take this call form to Miss Méduse Smythe. She and another lady are sitting at the fifth table for two on the window side. Call her name, please, but that’s where she is. Give the form to her, and come away quick.”
“Yep,” said the page, grinning.
“And you don’t know where it came from to anybody—even the lady herself.”
“I gottcher,” said the page, grinning more expansively. He took the dollar and the call form. He went upstairs. Clement went after him. The page went into the dining room. Clement stepped back quietly and swiftly into a deep passage where the male diners deposited their coats. He heard the boy calling out, “Miss Smidt—Miss Medoose Smidt.”
In seventy-five seconds Miss Méduse Smythe came by the end of the coat passage at a great pace. Clement had thought she would be swift. What he had written on the call form, in anybody’s handwriting, was:
“Must see you for ten minutes. At once. Joe.”
The companion might have argued about that handwriting, but how was she to know that “Joe” did not have to disguise it. Clement had banked on that idea. And he had scored.
Miss Méduse Smythe was no sooner out of vision than he was in the dining room, alongside Heloise’s table, speaking to Heloise. “Miss Reys,” he said, “will you give me an opportunity to talk to you privately?...”
“Mr. Seadon!”
Heloise’s tone was affronted. Obviously she resented his speaking to her, but obviously, too, the extreme publicity of the place robbed her attitude of some of its effectiveness. It is to be feared that Clement had taken that into his calculations when he had decided on this plan.
“Miss Reys,” he said, “I want to speak to you—privately—for no more than ten minutes. And I want you to understand that it is only the urgency of the matter that makes me force myself upon you.” She hesitated, looking up at him, her vivid face showing the keenness of her emotions. “Do you remember saying that you believed I’d be honest even against my own interests?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I did say that, but——”
“I am honest now. Will you believe that?”
The girl looked at him quietly for a moment.
“I believe that,” she said.
“And will you give me that chance of speaking to you—alone?”
The girl bent her eyes to the table. She was thinking quickly. “To-morrow morning I will be in the writing room at half past nine. Will that do? It will not be easy to manage it before then.”
“It will do admirably. Thank you,” said Clement.
He left her, and went to the back of the room, where there were a number of empty tables.
As he sat and ate his lunch the companion, Méduse came in. She was flustered, she was even scared. Clement was amused, but he did not think it mattered very much. She would not, he thought, mention the reason for her leaving Heloise—though actually there was no reason. Neither did he think that Heloise would tell her of the appointment she had made. His insistence upon privacy, the way he had snatched at the chance to speak to her alone at her table, the way he had left her, would all tell Heloise that the companion Méduse was excluded from the secret.
And even if she did tell, it would matter very little. Clement would have his interview with Heloise no later than the next morning, for Heloise would see to it that it happened, and nothing very much could occur until that time. The rogues could not whisk her away against her will. They had to move delicately always.
And after he had spoken to Heloise, nothing at all could occur. He would have settled with Mr. Neuburg and his gang once and for all.
He finished his lunch after the two ladies, watched them out of the dining room, then he got his hat and stick and walked out through Quebec. He would take a look at this glue merchant’s in the Sault Algonquin. It was best to be “well-up” in every particular. Very cheerfully he walked through the Place d’Armes, and down the steep street of The Mountain to the huddled network of passageways—they can hardly be called roads—that crowded under the rocky scarp of the Grand Battery. He was feeling “good,” as the Canadians would say. Why not? Hadn’t he all the factors for victory surely in his grasp?
Possibly he would have felt less “good” if he had been aware of a little scene between the companion Méduse and the massive Mr. Neuburg that was even then taking place.