第8章 A DELICATE MISSION(1)

Aynesworth was back in less than an hour. He carried under his arm a brown paper parcel, the strings of which he commenced at once to untie. Wingrave, who had been engrossed in the contents of his deed box, watched him with immovable face.

"The tailor will be here at two-thirty," he announced, "and the other fellows will follow on at half an hour's interval. The manicurist and the barber are coming at six o'clock."Wingrave nodded.

"What have you there?" he asked, pointing to the parcel.

"Cigars and cigarettes, and jolly good ones, too," Aynesworth answered, opening a flat tin box, and smelling the contents appreciatively. "Try one of these! The finest Turkish tobacco grown!""I don't smoke," Wingrave answered.

"Oh! You've got out of it, but you must pick it up again," Aynesworth declared. "Best thing out for the nerves--sort of humanizes one, you know!""Humanizes one, does it?" Wingrave remarked softly. "Well, I'll try!"He took a cigarette from the box, curtly inviting Aynesworth to do the same.

"What about lunch?" the latter asked. "Would you care to come round with me to the Cannibal Club? Rather a Bohemian set, but there are always some good fellows there.""I am much obliged," Wingrave answered. "If you will ask me again in a few days' time, I shall be very pleased. I do not wish to leave the hotel just at present.""Do you want me?" Aynesworth asked.

"Not until five o'clock," Wingrave answered. "I should be glad if you would leave me now, and return at that hour. In the meantime, I have a commission for you.""Good!" Aynesworth declared. "What is it?"

"You will go," Wingrave directed, "to No. 13, Cadogan Street, and you will enquire for Lady Ruth Barrington. If she should be out, ascertain the time of her return, and wait for her.""If she is out of town?"

"She is in London," Wingrave answered. "I have seen her from the window this morning. You will give her a message. Say that you come from me, and that Idesire to see her tomorrow. The time and place she can fix, but I should prefer not to go to her house."Aynesworth stooped down to relight his cigarette. He felt that Wingrave was watching him, and he wished to keep his face hidden.

"I am unknown to Lady Ruth," he remarked. "Supposing she should refuse to see me?"Wingrave looked at him coldly.

"I have told you what I wish done," he said. "The task does not seem to be a difficult one. Please see to it that I have an answer by five o'clock-----"Aynesworth lunched with a few of his particular friends at the club. They heard of his new adventure with somewhat doubtful approbation.

"You'll never stand the routine, old chap!"

"And what about your own work!"

"What will the Daily Scribbler people say?"

Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't imagine it will last very long," he answered, "and I shall get a fair amount of time to myself. The work I do on the Daily Scribbler doesn't amount to anything. It was a chance I simply couldn't refuse."The editor of a well-known London paper leaned back in his chair, and pinched a cigar carefully.

"You'll probably find the whole thing a sell," he remarked. "The story, as Lovell told it, sounded dramatic enough, and if the man were to come back to life again, fresh and vigorous, things might happen, provided, of course, that Lovell was right in his suppositions. But ten or twelve years' solitary confinement, although it mayn't sound much on paper, is enough to crush all the life and energy out of a man."Aynesworth shook his head.

"You haven't seen him," he said. "I have!"

"What's he like, Walter?" another man asked.

"I can't describe him," Aynesworth answered. "I shouldn't like to try. I'll bring him here some day. You fellows shall see him for yourselves. I find him interesting enough.""The whole thing," the editor declared, "will fizzle out. You see if it doesn't? A man who's just spent ten or twelve years in prison isn't likely to run any risk of going there again. There will be no tragedy; more likely reconciliation.""Perhaps," Aynesworth said imperturbably. "But it wasn't only the possibility of anything of that sort happening, you know, which attracted me. It was the tragedy of the man himself, with his numbed, helpless life, set down here in the midst of us, with a great, blank chasm between him and his past. What is there left to drive the wheels? The events of one day are simple and monotonous enough to us, because they lean up against the events of yesterday, and the yesterdays before! How do they seem, I wonder, to a man whose yesterday was more than a decade of years ago!"The editor nodded.

"It must be a grim sensation," he admitted, "but I am afraid with you, my dear Walter, it is an affair of shop. You wish to cull from your interesting employer the material for that every-becoming novel of yours. Let's go upstairs! I've time for one pool.""I haven't," Aynesworth answered. "I've a commission to do."He left the club and walked westwards, humming softly to himself, but thinking all the time intently. His errand disturbed him. He was to be the means of bringing together again these two people who had played the principal parts in Lovell's drama--his new employer and the woman who had ruined his life. What was the object of it? What manner of vengeance did he mean to deal out to her?

Lovell's words of premonition returned to him just then with curious insistence--he was so certain that Wingrave's reappearance would lead to tragical happenings. Aynesworth himself never doubted it. His brief interview with the man into whose service he had almost forced himself had impressed him wonderfully. Yet, what weapon was there, save the crude one of physical force, with which Wingrave could strike?"He rang the bell at No. 13, Cadogan Street, and sent in his card by the footman. The man accepted it doubtfully.

"Her ladyship has only just got up from luncheon, sir, and she is not receiving this afternoon," he announced.

Aynesworth took back his card, and scribbled upon it the name of the newspaper for which he still occasionally worked.