The Yellow Face

by Fred M. White

"Not much occasion to trouble about that, I am thinking," Jack said. "This man is evidently a tool or accomplice of Anstruther's. I am certain we shall see him in Panton Square sooner or later. As to the man Redgrave they were speaking about just now, I happen to know all about him. He used to be in Anstruther's employ as a kind of secretary--a clever, well-educated fellow, whose weakness was drink. Ha, here comes another one."

Surely enough, another figure crept into the forecourt. Nostalgo, if he it was, paid no heed to the stranger for a moment or two. In a half-timid fashion the man who had just entered the forecourt bowed to his misshapen companion and intimated that he awaited his pleasure. Nostalgo turned upon him with a snarl.

"So they have sent you, after all," he said. His clear, ringing voice vibrated with contempt. "Is this the best thing Anstruther can do at a critical moment like this? I want a man, not a miserable coward like you. Besides, I don't trust you; I never shall trust you again. And, unless I am greatly mistaken, you have been drinking."

"We are in luck again," Jack whispered. "This is the very man I spoke about, Redgrave in the flesh. Are we going to learn anything, I wonder?"

The newcomer protested whiningly that not one drop of ardent liquor had passed his lips that day.

"You miserable, prevaricating hound!" Nostalgo cried. "Go back to Anstruther, and say that I will have none of you. Tell your master that my time is short, and that an hour from now will make all the difference. He knows that I dare not stay; he knows what hideous disaster even the slightest delay may produce, and yet he sends you of all men to help me in this crisis."

"But Anstruther cannot possibly do anything else," Redgrave whined. "It is absolutely imperative that he should be at Carrington's by midnight. Carrington is not to be trusted; he wants watching as carefully as a cat watches a mouse. You will have to put up with me, sir."

Nostalgo paced up and down the dreary forecourt with the air of a man who is deep in thought. His limp and straggling gait was by no means lost upon the watchers overhead. He came to a halt at length and sat on the edge of the broken fountain, his head upon his hands, deeply immersed in thought. He might have been a graven statue, so rigid and still was his figure.

The effect of this upon the cowering, watching Redgrave was peculiar. There was something of the cat in his own movements as he came inch by inch nearer to Nostalgo. It was as if a child was timidly making overtures to a dog of uncertain temper. Near and nearer Redgrave came, till he was standing directly over the bent figure of his companion. He might have been miles away for all the heed that Nostalgo gave him.

Then quick as thought, and with a snarling, savage cry that echoed strangely between the four walls of the forecourt, Redgrave fell furiously and with headlong impetuosity upon the doubled-up figure of his prey.