The Seven Conundrums

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

Then I stopped short. It was a difficult position. There was my contract with Leonard to be borne in mind.

"To remember what?" she asked, looking at me more naturally.

"The things of which your heart assures you," I answered. "I am only human. If I fail to-night, the fault will not be wholly mine."

After that there was a change in Rose's demeanour, and once, when our eyes met, she smiled. Naida, however, still played her part of sorceress. She seemed impatient of every word she was forced to speak to others. She whispered often in my ear. Even her fingers sought mine. It was just at this stage that for the first time I noticed the somewhat singular appearance of a man who was watching us from the few seats upstairs reserved for guests of the hotel who were not in evening dress. As though he sought concealment, he had found a chair in the most remote corner and was half hidden by a slight projection of the wall. He had a mass of black hair, a heavy, sallow face, from which one formed the idea that he had recently removed a beard, and dark staring eyes. He was untidily dressed for his surroundings, amongst which he seemed curiously out of place. An impulse prompted me to point him out to Naida. She glanced in the direction I indicated but merely shrugged her shoulders.

"Dear friend," she whispered, "you forget that I am a famous person, more so abroad than in your little island. There are many who watch me with thoughts in their heart which they will never dare to utter. There are many who would give a share of their possessions to be seated where you are seated, to be treated as I am treating you."

"The man is a foreigner, without a doubt," I remarked.

"And foreigners," she answered, with a stabbing little glance, "are quicker to feel and understand than Englishmen."

We kept the party going until long past closing time, and then an adjournment of our diminished numbers was made to Naida's suite. Here she distributed signed photographs to her remaining guests, accompanied by a wave of the hand which meant dismissal. Rose and Leonard were amongst the first to leave, Rose with a look in her eyes which might have meant anything. I stepped quickly forward. Naida looked at me warningly. Now that we had left the lounge, it seemed to me that her demeanour had to some extent changed.

"For your impatience, Monsieur Maurice," she said, "you will be the last. Offer the cigarettes, if you please. And your friend Mr. Cotton, will he not take a whisky and soda before he goes?"

One by one they drifted away. Rose and Leonard were driven home by one of the former's new admirers. The time came when we were alone. Naida listened to the closing of the door and to the clanging of the lift gate. Then with her back to the table against which she was leaning, she looked across at me with an odd little smile upon her lips.