"I shall measure your enjoyment by your secrecy, Mr. Confessor," she purred, with tilted head and raised forefinger. "You may tell my anxious warders just as much as you please, and the less you confide in them the more I shall flatter myself of your confidence in me. Now I leave you to your conscience."
She was standing in the doorway, her hand upon the bell, and I had turned back to the waiting taxicab, when a somber and respectable electric brougham turned the corner and drew slowly up to the curb. I recognized with an uncomfortable shock that the driver was no other than the Tabors' former chauffeur, the unworthy Thomas who had deserted Lady and myself at the crisis of our midnight adventure; and I thought that under his mask of the impassive servant he recognized me somewhat uncomfortably. I glanced back to see if Mrs. Tabor had seen him also. She was leaning against the door of the house, clutching at the handle as if for support, or in a desperate anxiety to enter; every line of her face and figure writhing and agonized with unmistakable terror. The bang of the brougham door behind me and the sound of a shrill precise voice that I remembered made me turn my eyes to the street—and as I did so the bang of the front door sounded behind me like an echo. Mrs. Tabor had disappeared into the house, the brougham was starting rapidly away, and there on the sidewalk stood the man whom Reid had twice brought secretly home.
CHAPTER XXI
CONCERNING THE IDENTITY OF THE MAN WITH THE HIGH VOICE
I had my first good look at him while he moved deliberately past me and up to the door of the house: A man past middle age, in frock-coat and silk hat in spite of the season, heavy without portliness, a figure of an elderly athlete. A shock of iron-gray hair brushed the back of his collar, and his face was a face to ponder over, a face at once square and aquiline, broad forehead, predatory nose, and the massive lips and jawbones of a conqueror, clear-cut under a skin of creamy ivory. He might have been a Roman emperor in time-worn marble. While I stood irresolute, wondering whether to follow, and on what pretext I should do so, the door swung open and he passed ponderously within; and the next instant Mrs. Tabor appeared at the ground-floor window, motioning to me frantically. I came forward, but she as frantically waved me back, and seemed to indicate by her gestures that I was to keep the taxicab where it was. A moment later she slipped out of the door like a fugitive, ran across the sidewalk, and fell in a heap inside the cab, crying: "Take me away, quickly! Oh, take me away!"
I directed the astonished driver to the Grand Central, and sprang in beside her. She was very pale and breathing in sobbing gasps; and remembering her weak heart, I was alarmed almost for her life. But she began to recover as soon as we were fairly in motion, and by the time we had gone a few blocks was apparently beyond the immediate danger of collapse. She was still, however, pitifully pale and shaken, clutching unconsciously at my arm, and whispering: "That man—that man—" like a frightened child.
"Whom do you mean?" I asked. "Not the chauffeur? He went the other way as soon as you were inside."
"Chauffeur? No, what chauffeur? I mean the old man that came in after me. He comes after me everywhere. I can't get away from him. Is he coming now?" She tried to look out of the window.
"There's no one coming," I said blindly. "He sent his car away, and he couldn't follow us if he tried. It's all right."