At last, however, he saw Sir William Gurdon’s big motor-car coming up the street, and a few moments later it stopped at the door of the club, and Cecil Jones got out, shook hands with Sir William, and went into the building.
The motor-car drove away, and Gerard remained on the watch. Not for more than half an hour, for at the end of that time Cecil Jones came out of the club building, and hailing a hansom, got in and drove off, giving a direction to the cabman which Gerard could not hear.
But he was far too much interested in what became of Jones to let the matter rest like that. So he hailed a hansom in his turn, told the driver to follow the vehicle before him, and continued the chase until Jones’ hansom stopped in one of the streets off Charing Cross Road. Here Cecil Jones got out, paid the cabman, and disappeared from sight most mysteriously.
Although Gerard was watching keenly, he was unable to tell exactly at what point his quarry had disappeared. The street was rather dark at this point, and there was a court, as well as the openings into doorways, to be examined.
Cecil Jones’ hansom drove away, and Gerard paid his own cabman and got down to continue his pursuit on foot, but in vain. Jones had disappeared as completely as if the earth had swallowed him up.
Gerard looked upon this circumstance as not merely suspicious, but as confirming his own belief that Jones, instead of being the innocent and mild-eyed victim of expert gamesters that he had pretended to be, was really a confederate of these Americans, if they were swindlers, or a swindler who intended, in the future, to make money out of the boastful Denver, and who began by posing as a harmless dupe or beginner, in order to take the American off his guard.
Gerard did not think the Van Santens were cheats; their father being a man of good repute, as well as of great wealth, it was scarcely likely, even if his sons had turned out loose-principled, that they would take to dubious courses which would endanger their position in society. The sons of such a woman as the gentle Mrs. Van Santen, too, were scarcely the sort of persons to be accused of deliberate fraud.
But that the younger made money by his card-playing, and that he boasted of the fact was obvious; and Gerard thought that such a man might very easily become the prey of a clever card-sharper, who might begin by passing himself off as a bungling novice, and end by making considerable sums out of the swaggering American.
This was the view he was most inclined to take. Not for one moment did he believe that the mild-eyed Jones was really a victim: he was confident that he had been with Miss Davison on the occasion of the shop-lifting, and he began now to ask himself whether he were not the very man to whom he had seen her handing the flashing ornament on the night of Lord Chislehurst’s ball.
Perhaps they were both under the influence of the man in the white mustache. Or perhaps—but this he scarcely believed possible—Cecil Jones was no other than the military-looking man under a disguise.