Immunity from danger through four suburban stations had brought a delicious sense of calm, and as he leaned back he thought how nice it would be to live the life of an English nobleman, free from all sordid cares and humiliations. And if he could wake up at the end of a week and find that his entanglement was all a nightmare, or, at any rate, that Ziegler's bark was worse than his bite, and that Senator Sherman had safely deposited the bonds at the Bank—well, in that improved state of things what was to prevent his asking Leonie to share his new-found privileges?
Then, suddenly, the icy finger touched his heart again. As the blue wreaths of cigarette smoke in which he had conjured up this alluring vision rolled away he became conscious that his gaze, hitherto absorbed and preoccupied with day-dreams, was in reality riveted on a material object under the opposite seat. A very material object indeed—no less than the heel of a man's boot.
At sight of this disturbing element Beaumanoir's sensations were of a mixed order. First of all, he could see so little of the boot that he could not be sure that there was a man attached to it, though the presumption was in favor of that supposition, for he was quite certain that it had not been there long, or he would have noticed it before. He guessed, so alert had his mind become under stress of emergencies, that the wearer of the boot had got into the compartment on the off side while he himself had been looking out of the window in Elstree station.
But if so, and the man had invaded his privacy with sinister design, why should he have plunged at once into a position of utter impotence? No one flattened out under the low seat of a first-class railway carriage is capable of active violence without a preliminary struggle to free himself, during which he would be at the mercy of his intended victim. The only design that Beaumanoir could attribute to him was that he would presently wriggle to the front and use a pistol.
He sat and eyed the motionless boot, and then an impulse, swift and irresistible, seized him.
"Come out of that, you beggar!" he cried; and, stooping down, he gripped the boot, wondering whether he was to be rewarded with a haul or whether he would have to laugh at himself for grabbing someone's discarded footgear. But the first touch told him that here was no empty boot, and, his fingers closing on it like a vise, he put forth all his strength and dragged its wearer, snarling and spluttering, out on to the open floor. There was no sign of a pistol, but as a measure of precaution Beaumanoir pulled out his own Smith and Wesson.
"Get up and sit in that corner," he said sternly, eyeing the puny form of the invader with curiosity. Open violence at any rate was not to be apprehended from the stunted little figure of a man who coweringly obeyed his order.
But as his captive turned round and showed his sullen face the Duke knew that this was no mere impecunious vagabond, sneaking a cheap railway journey. His fellow passenger was part and parcel of the peril that menaced him—had, in fact, been a fellow-passenger of his before. For the wizened, mean-looking face was the face of the spy Marker, who had been pointed out to him by Leonie on board the St. Paul, and who had afterwards shadowed him to the Hotel Cecil on landing.
"So we meet again, Mr. Marker," said the Duke with pleasant irony. "I should have thought that your friend Mr. Ziegler could have provided you with a railway fare rather than let you travel like a broken racing sharp—under the seat."
The fellow blinked his ferret eyes viciously, but began a futile attempt at prevarication. "My name, I guess, ain't Marker, and I never heard of anyone called Ziegler," he whined.