Inside the envelope was a scrap of paper, on which were written these words:
"To-morrow morning at half-past eleven.
"M. K."
[CHAPTER III.]
VAN DUREN'S DREAM.
Max Van Duren's stay on the Continent, instead of lasting for four or five days only, extended itself to a fortnight. During the whole of that time, Jonas Pringle remained in charge of the premises in Spur Alley. At any other time, the sudden departure of Byrne and his daughter, taken in conjunction with what else Pringle either knew or suspected, would have formed food sufficient for many an hour's restless pondering, it being a matter of principle with Pringle to suspect everybody and everything. But at present his own affairs were quite enough to occupy his thoughts. He had been waiting patiently, week after week, for an occasion to arise which should call Van Duren from home, and so give him an opportunity of bringing to a climax a certain hidden scheme at which he had been patiently working for upwards of a year. The wished-for opportunity was now here, but the advantage he had intended to derive from it seemed as utterly beyond his reach as before. In other words, the key at which he had laboured so long and so patiently, and which, he had fondly hoped, needed but a few more touches of the file to bring it to perfection, still refused--obstinately and maliciously refused--to open the lock of Van Duren's safe. And rarely could there have been a more opportune time to open it than the present. There were notes and gold in it to the amount of two thousand pounds, as Pringle knew full well. If he could only have obtained possession of these notes and this gold within a few hours of Van Duren's departure for Paris, he would have had time to change the notes and get three or four days' clear start before the faintest suspicion that there was anything wrong could have got abroad. It was for this that he had been biding his time so long; it was for this that he had put up with Van Duren's hard words and starvation salary. He had promised himself all along that he would have a day of glorious revenge; that at one bold sweep he would make himself master of enough, if judiciously invested, to secure for himself a comfortable little income for life. But all his delicate manipulation with the file, all his added touches, had hitherto proved ineffective and of no avail. The wards of the lock that held the iron door stubbornly refused to be coaxed; the Open Sesame was not yet found. Pringle was terribly chagrined. Still he never allowed himself to altogether despair. He felt that success was only a matter of time; but he would not have cared for success to come at a moment when there might chance to be little or nothing to reward his labours: he was anxious that it should come now, when the reward would be great. But Van Duren could not stay away for ever, and one afternoon brought the long-expected telegram, announcing that he might be looked for in Spur Alley before bed-time next night.
"Curse him for coming back so soon!" said Pringle to himself, as he tore the telegram to shreds. "If he had only stayed away another day or two, I should have got my key to fit and open the lock. It may be months before he goes out of town again. It may be months before there's as much money in the safe again as there is now. But it's just like my luck!"
Mr. Van Duren reached home about ten o'clock next evening. Pringle was there to receive him, and while Mrs. Bakewell was getting supper ready, the two men went into the discussion of sundry business details. But not more than ten minutes had passed before Van Duren, changing the subject, suddenly said: "By-the-by, I have not made any inquiry after my lodgers. How is Mr. Byrne?--Better, I hope. And Miss Byrne, is she quite well?"
There was a deep longing in his heart to see Miriam again. She had promised to give him a definite yes or no immediately after his return, and he flattered himself that if he read the signs aright, he had little or nothing to fear. He had brought back with him several expensive presents for her. Never in his life before had he bought presents for anybody, his natural instincts being those of a miser; and it was not without a sharp pang that he had brought himself, even in the present instance, to part from his dearly-loved money. These presents had been in his thoughts all the way coming home. He would spread them out before Miriam, and watch her unfold them from their wrappers one by one; and in imagination he saw the sparkle in her eyes and the smile on her lips as she clasped the bracelet on her wrist, or posed before the glass while trying the effect of her new ear-rings. Then, before the freshness and surprise had time to evaporate, he would take her hand and press it passionately to his lips, and implore her to give him her answer once for all. If she condescended to accept his presents, how could he doubt what that answer would be? They would be married before summer was over; and when once Miriam was his wife, he would know how to bend her will to his--know how to teach her what was best for her comfort and his--from his own point of view.
His first look from the cab, when he got in sight of the house, had been to the windows of his lodgers' sitting-room. But all was dark there, and his heart had chilled a little at the sight. It was almost too early for them to have gone to bed: probably they had gone out somewhere to spend the evening. He had secretly flattered himself that Miriam would be there to welcome him--that the least she could do would be to open the door of her sitting-room, ready to greet him with a smile and a pressure of the hand as he went upstairs to his own part of the house. But no Miriam was there to-night, evidently; and then the thought struck him that perhaps no one had told her of his expected return. This thought was not without its consolation; so, hiding his impatience under his usual impassive demeanour, he went indoors as if nothing were amiss, and not till he and Pringle had been talking together for ten minutes did he seem to recollect the existence of any such persons as Mr. Byrne and his daughter.