And mademoiselle draped her eyes with their long, dark lashes, as though her maiden modesty quailed before the reminiscence.

As for Nugent, he did not disguise the fact that the information had for him the keenest interest. Rising from his chair, he lit a cigarette and began to pace the room.

"Really, I am greatly indebted to you for this information," he said.

"The knowledge of Miss Maynard's infatuation for a man so utterly unworthy of her will alter my plans, or rather, hurry them to a crisis.

I am, as perhaps you are aware, mademoiselle, a friend of Mr. Montague Maynard. I have, therefore, now a double incitement to bring Chermside to justice--that of saving my friend's daughter from a horrible mesalliance, and of securing for you the satisfaction which you so justly desire."

"Mr. Chermside is very rich, is he not?" asked Louise, her cunning but unequal brain beginning to weave an entirely new web, in which she was ultimately to entangle herself.

Travers Nugent shot a glance at her as she toyed with the stem of her wine-gla.s.s. For the moment her question caused him a trifling embarra.s.sment. He would have liked to have answered it differently, but he reflected that it would be dangerous to do so, for this woman was by no means a fool. He was credited, rightly, with the introduction at Ottermouth of Leslie Chermside as a man of wealth. His letter to the secretary of the club would be on file to prove it, and by that he must abide--for the present.

"Mr. Chermside has the command of vast resources," was his guarded answer. "But I do not think that he will need to plead that argument with a girl of Miss Maynard's character. His worldly position will not weigh with her for an instant if she loves him. She is rich enough for two, you see."

But apparently mademoiselle did not see. Just then she had lost the thread of that newly-woven web on which her busy wits had set to work, and she was staring at one of the long windows. Travers Nugent was something of an artist by temperament, and on sitting down to dinner he had had the blinds left up so as to enjoy the dying after-glow in the western sky.

"The eyes! The peering eyes!" Louise exclaimed in a tense whisper.

Following the direction of her gaze, Nugent in four rapid strides reached the window, and, flinging it open, dragged into the well-lit room the lithe and sinewy form of a man dressed in blue jean. It was the French onion-seller whom Aunt Sarah Dymmock had driven from the precincts of the Manor House at the point of her sunshade. Louise uttered a suppressed shriek as Nugent released his grip on the Frenchman's collar and carefully closed the window.

"_Mon Dieu!_ it is Pierre Legros," she cried, looking from one to the other of the two men in sheer bewilderment, in which there was a trace of fear.

"Yes, it is I--Pierre," said the onion-seller in his native tongue, scowling at his fair compatriot. "Is it that you have acquired the habit of supping alone with gentlemen above your station, as well as of meeting them in the lonely places of the country? You have sadly changed, Louise, since we played barefoot together among the rocks of Dicamp."

In the dawn of her new ambition the reminder of her humble origin goaded the girl to a fury that dispelled her temporary fear. "Barefoot!" she shrilled. "Miserable one, you know quite well that I was never so, and that if you had the presumption to worship me it was from down below--as a pig may gaze at the stars. I came to this English gentleman to help me punish the murderer of my dear friend Monsieur Levison."

There was malice in every spitting syllable of the tirade, and more than malice in the baleful look she cast at the sullen Frenchman. Travers Nugent glanced at her a little anxiously, and hastened to intervene. It would not suit his book at all for Louise to revert, out of petty spite, to her original suspicion--to the prejudice of the later one he had been at such pains to inspire.

"What mademoiselle a.s.serts is absolutely true," he said in French, fixing Pierre's fierce eyes in a hypnotic stare. "She is greatly concerned to catch the murderer, and I hope to hand over to justice the English rascal who committed the crime on the marsh. And just a word of advice to you, Legros. You had better keep a civil tongue in your head, or you may find yourself in trouble. Mademoiselle Aubin and I, of course, know that you had nothing to do with the matter, but the police might think differently if they got wind of your jealous ravings."

Pondering on, and impressed by, the slight emphasis put on the word English, the onion-seller hung his head, muttering to himself. Nugent took the opportunity to touch the bell, and having done so turned to Louise.

"I think that we have concluded our affairs for this evening, mademoiselle," he said with a cool politeness, the purport of which the clever Frenchwoman was quick to appreciate. "You shall be kept informed of the latest developments, and now my servant shall escort you to the road, for I must have a private word with Legros. Sinnett," to the silent henchman who had appeared, "accompany this lady down the drive, please."

Sinnett understood by the ocular signal that his master flashed at him that Mademoiselle Aubin's departure from the premises was to be accomplished without witnesses, and he gravely followed the somewhat mystified visitor out. Neither by look or gesture did he express the slightest surprise at seeing an unkempt and none too clean foreigner in the room. Ten years in the service of Mr. Travers Nugent had killed the faculty of astonishment, or, at any rate, had taught him that the outward and visible signs thereof were inadvisable.

Directly the door was shut on them Nugent's manner underwent a rapid transformation. All the suave polish was gone. He became the brute and the bully--the man with the whip-hand. He was not in the least handicapped by having to express himself in French, because he spoke all European languages as fluently as his own. He showered every vile epithet he could think of on the onion-seller, calling him fool, dolt, and everything by turn, and then, when he had pulverized the still scowling but crest-fallen sailor into abject humiliation he demanded--

"Why, in the name of all that is idiotic, did you disregard my instructions and come here to the house? I told you that nothing but the last extremity would warrant any intercourse between us."

Pierre Legros raised his bloodshot eyes in half-defiant remonstrance. "I came because I thought it was what you call the last extremity," he said. "There has been some one on the quay at Exmouth to-day asking questions of me. He also go on board our vessel and speak with my captain."

"You think he was a detective?"

"No, monsieur; he was not of the police. I believe him to be a gentleman. He lives here in Ottermouth. I see him often when I sell my onions up the street--an old man with no hair on his face, dressed in fine clothes, and having eyes that pierce like needles. Though of so great age, he walks very quick and upright."

Nugent took a turn up the room, frowning and biting his lips. "So!" he murmured to himself. "Mr. Vernon Mallory has to be reckoned with as still on the active list, eh?" And coming back to where Legros was standing, he added aloud, in more conciliatory tones: "You did right in bringing me this news, my friend. The gentleman is meddlesome, but there is no reason why he should become dangerous if you are discreet."

"I was discreet, monsieur," rejoined Legros. "The grey-head _Anglais_ set springes as one sets them for birds, but I was wary, and walked all round. And Jules Epitaux, my captain, he make fool of the old man."

"I hope so," said Nugent drily. "But if it is a sample of your discretion that we have been having in this room to-night, my opinion of it is not high, Pierre Legros. You must learn to curb that insane jealousy of yours, or you will have Louise on to you like a wild cat.

Your conduct was base ingrat.i.tude, seeing that I stopped her from setting the police at you."

"I am sorry, monsieur; I was taken by surprise, and I did not understand," replied the onion-seller submissively, as he pa.s.sed out of the window which Nugent held significantly open.

But once outside in the darkness, setting out on the four-mile trudge back to his ship, he began to mutter to himself, and the refrain of the inaudible babble was always the same, recurring a hundred times as he stumbled along the moorland track--

"Louise goes to console herself, but not with Pierre. Poor Pierre! He will have to strike--always strike--if he is betrayed."

CHAPTER XII

THE _COBRA'S_ SAILING ORDERS

Nine o'clock in the morning was a busy time in a mild way at the Ottermouth Railway Station. The budding resort was served by only a branch line with a single set of rails, and at this hour the first two trains of the day in each direction pa.s.sed each other here.

Mr. Travers Nugent stood at the window of the booking office, waiting till the slide should be raised, and biting his long fair moustache in annoyance because out of the tail of his eye he had just discovered that the next intending pa.s.senger in the row behind him was Lieutenant Reginald Beauchamp. He had quite a poor opinion of the lieutenant's intelligence, but he was aware of his close acquaintance with the Mallorys, and there were reasons why he would have preferred to conceal his destination that day from the shrewd old civil servant.

However, the wooden slide was raised, and Nugent could not avoid asking for his ticket--a first-cla.s.s return to Weymouth. It was not till he had picked up his change and pa.s.sed on that he affected to notice his successor at the window.

"Ah, Beauchamp! Going my way I hope?" he said genially. "I am compelled to go to Weymouth for the day, to look up a sick relative. Beastly nuisance having to play the good Samaritan in such hot weather."

Reggie, before replying, planked down his money and asked for a return ticket to Plymouth. "No," he replied as he joined Nugent. "As you heard, I am going in the opposite direction. My little torpedo craft requires my attention."

"Sorry I'm not to have the pleasure of your company," said the elder man courteously. "Surely your leave isn't up yet?"

"No," Reggie replied. "I have another ten days to run, but I have to see about one or two little matters of shipping stores and ammunition. I hope to be back to-night or to-morrow morning."

On the platform the two separated, Reggie getting into the train which would take him to the western naval seaport, and Nugent crossing the line by the footbridge to the east-bound train.

"I trust that that nautical noodle will have forgotten all about our meeting by to-morrow," Nugent communed with himself as he chose a corner seat in an unoccupied compartment. "It would not be advisable for Mallory, with his wonderful faculty for piecing trifles together, to know that I had paid a flying visit to the port where Chermside's alleged yacht is fitting out."

He leaned back in his cushioned corner and further reflected that even if Mr. Mallory was informed by young Beauchamp that he had been to Weymouth no irremediable harm could come of it. It was even possible that the incident might be converted into an advantage. He had good reason not to despise Mr. Mallory's capabilities, but that astute old gentleman could not thwart his scheme without a fuller knowledge of it, and that could only be gained from Leslie Chermside, who in his present circ.u.mstance as Violet Maynard's accepted lover would probably prefer death to confession.

"My immediate policy must be to preserve the renegade's life at all hazards, while threatening it by means of the fair Louise," Nugent smiled contemptuously. "Though what Bhagwan Singh will do to him when he is delivered at Sindkhote is another matter," the arch plotter added under his breath as he unfolded his newspaper and resigned himself to the tedium of the journey.

He reached Weymouth at noon, and at once made his way into the old town, where he turned to the left down the one-sided street of shipping offices and public houses that faces the harbour. The brick and mortar side of the street had no interest for him. His gaze was always for the long row of vessels moored to the quay wall. He walked on, past the wharf where the red-funnelled Great Western boats lay, and came to a halt opposite a large 2,000 ton steam yacht. A handsomely appointed craft she was, with something of the snake in her long, low, graceful lines, and evidently built for speed as well as comfort. The heavy gilt lettering on her stern proclaimed to all and sundry that she was called the _Cobra_.

The gang plank was down, and Nugent stepped lightly across it on to the main deck, where his further progress was promptly barred by a bullet-headed ship's officer in a smart blue suit and a bra.s.s-banded cap.

"Here! you don't own the bally vessel," said this individual rudely.

"Not quite so fast, if you please. What's your business?"

"I am a friend of Captain Brant's; if he is on board and if you will kindly have my card taken to him I have no doubt that he will see me,"

replied Nugent with his usual suave politeness.

The officer called a seaman, and, having dispatched him with the card, became roughly apologetic. "That's a horse of another colour," he growled. "Strict orders against strangers on this ship. Couldn't let you on if you were the skipper's own brother, and the skipper's the devil."