“He was secretive, as I have already said,” answered the doctor. “Your poor father’s death was caused by embolism; I have suspected it for some time.”
While Roddy and Denton were speaking at the dead man’s side, Gordon Gray entered the tawdrily-decorated dancing-room of a certain disreputable night-club off Regent Street known as “The Gay Hundred”—a haunt of cocaine sellers and takers—and glanced eagerly around. He had driven up in his car a few doors away, and the doorkeeper had bowed to him and taken his coat and hat as he rushed in.
His quick eyes espied a table in the corner at which sat Freda Crisp, in a daring black-and-orange gown without sleeves, smoking a cigarette in an amber holder, laughing, and drinking champagne with two young men in evening clothes, while about them whirled many couples dancing, the women mostly with artificially fair hair and wearing deeply-cut gowns, while some of them smoked cigarettes as they danced to the wild strains of the blatant orchestra.
Freda’s eyes met those of her friend Gray, and she read in them a message. She was a woman of quick perception and astounding intuition. Her adventures had been many and constant, and if she could have recorded them in print the book would certainly have been amongst the “best sellers” of which the public hear so much.
The men with her were strangers to Gordon, therefore, assuming an instant carelessness, he lounged over, bowed, and greeted her. He did not know on what terms she was with the pair with whom she was drinking “bubbly,” whether, indeed, they were pigeons worth plucking. Therefore his attitude was one of extreme caution. Gordon Gray was far too clever ever to spoil “a good thing” in the course of being engineered by any of his accomplices of either sex.
“Oh! Good-evening, Mr Gray!” Freda exclaimed. “Fancy your being here to-night! I never suspected you of being a member of this place!”
“I’m not. A friend of mine has introduced me,” he said, and then, when the elegantly-dressed woman in the daring black-and-orange gown had introduced her companions, Gray sat down at the table and took a cigarette.
Presently she excused herself from her two friends, saying:
“You’ll forgive me if I have just this one dance with Mr Gray—won’t you?”
And both joined the fox-trot which was at that moment commencing.