“What’s his name?”
“Don’t be so infernally inquisitive, Levi. Go to bed, I tell you,” he croaked with a commanding wave of the hand.
The servant never thwarted his master’s wishes. He knew Sam Statham too well. A strange smile played about the corners of his mouth, and he looked around to see that the whisky, syphons and glasses were on the side table. Then with a rather ill-grace said:
“Very well—good-night,” and, bowing, he retired.
When the door had closed the old millionaire ground his teeth, muttering:
“You must always poke your infernal long nose into my affairs. But this matter I’ll keep to myself just for once. I’m tired of your constant interference and advice. Ah!” he sighed. “How strange life is! Samuel Statham, millionaire, they call me. I saw it in the Pall Mall to-night. Rather Sam Statham, pauper—the Pauper of Park Lane! Ah! If the public only knew! If they only knew!” he gasped, halting suddenly and staring wildly about him. “What would be my future—what will it be when my enemies, like a pack of wolves, fall upon me and tear me limb from limb? Yes, yes, they’ll do that if I am unable to save myself.
“But why need I anticipate failure? What does the sacrifice of one woman matter when it will mean the assurance of my future—my salvation from ruin?” he went on, speaking to himself in a low, hoarse voice. “It’s a thing I cannot tell Levi. He must find it out. He will—one day—when the police inquiries give him the clue,” and he snapped his own white fingers nervously and glanced at the clock in apprehension.
He threw down his cigar, for it had gone out a long time ago. Sam Statham’s life had been made up of many crises, and one of these he was passing through on that hot, breathless night after the motor-’buses had ceased their roar in Park Lane and tinkling cab-bells were few and far between.
One o’clock, the sound of the gong arousing him. He switched off the light, and, walking to the window, raised one of the slats of the Venetian blinds and peered out upon the pavement where so recently he had first recognised that man from the grave—the man Jean Adam.
He stood behind the blue brocade curtains, watching eagerly. The passers-by were few—very few. Lower-class London was mostly at Margate and Ramsgate, while “the West-End” was totally absent, in Scotland or at the sea.