“But what is he like, this young man?”
“Not a bad sort, something like a Jameson raider, a merry, upstanding fellow—”
“It was he who was at the grave with her!” whispered Van Hupfeldt to himself, while his eyes seemed to see a ghost. “And you told him all, all! It was he, no other. What name did you give him as that of the husband on the marriage-lines? Did he ask that, too? Did you tell him?” With a kind of crazy secrecy he asked it at her ear, panting for the answer.
“I didn’t remember the husband’s name,” she answered. “I told him it wasn’t Strauss, but van or von Something. And don’t lean against me in that way. People will think you are full.”
“Van? You told him that? And what did he say then?”
“He asked if it wasn’t van Something, I forget what, Van Hup—something. I have an awful bad memory for names, and, look here, don’t come worrying me with your troubles, for I’ve got my own to look after.”
Van Hupfeldt’s finger-nails were pressed into the flesh of his palms. This new occupier of the flat, then, even knew his name, even suspected the identity of Strauss with Van Hupfeldt. How could he know it, except from Violet? To the pains of panic in Van Hupfeldt was added a stab of jealousy. That Violet knew this young man he no longer doubted, nor doubted that the meeting at the grave was by appointment. Perhaps Violet, eager to find suspected papers of her sister’s, had even put this man into the flat, just as he, Van Hupfeldt, had once put Miss L’Estrange there. At all events, here was a man in the flat having some interest or other in Violet and in Gwendoline’s papers, with the name Van Hupfeldt on his lips, and a suspicion that Van Hupfeldt was Strauss, the evil genius of Gwendoline!
“But there must be no meddling in my life!” Van Hupfeldt whispered to himself, with an evil eye that meant no good to David.
When the cab drew up before Miss L’Estrange’s dwelling, she said: “You can’t come up, you know; it is much too late. And there isn’t any need. I will let Jenny go to you as early as you like in the morning if you give me your address, or you can come yourself to-morrow—”