"If you would care to smoke, permit me to offer you one of the same brand of cigarettes of which you expressed your approval in Naples,"

said Pharos, producing from his pocket a silver case, which he handed to me. I took one of the delicacies it contained and lit it. Then we pa.s.sed out of the hall to Pharos's own carriage, which was waiting in the street for us. "We will now return to pick up Valerie, after which we will drive to Amersham House, where I have no doubt we shall meet many of those whom we have seen here to-night."

We found Valerie awaiting us in the drawing-room. She was dressed for the ball, and, superb as I thought she looked on the evening she had been presented to the Emperor in Prague, I had to confess to myself that she was even more beautiful now. Her face was flushed with excitement, and her lovely eyes sparkled like twin stars. I hastened to congratulate her on her altered appearance, and had scarcely done so before the butler announced that the carriage was at the door, whereupon we departed for Carlton House Terrace.

On the subject of the ball itself it is not my intention to say very much; let it suffice that, possibly by reason of what followed later, it is talked of to this day. The arrangements were of the most sumptuous and extravagant description; princes of the blood and their wives were present, Cabinet Ministers jostled burly country squires upon the staircase, fair but haughty aristocrats rubbed shoulders with the daughters of American millionaires, whose money had been made goodness knows where or how; half the celebrities of England nodded to the other half; but in all that distinguished company there was no woman to eclipse Valerie in beauty, and, as another side of the picture, no man who could equal Pharos in ugliness. Much to my astonishment the latter seemed to have no lack of acquaintances, and I noticed also that everyone with whom he talked, though they paid the most servile attention to his remarks while he was with them, invariably heaved a sigh of relief when he took his departure.

At two o'clock Valerie was tired, and we accordingly decided to leave.

But I soon found that it was not to return home. Having placed my darling in her carriage, Pharos directed the coachman to drive to Park Lane, declaring that we preferred to walk.

It was a beautiful night, cool and fresh, with a few clouds in the southwest, but brilliant starlight overhead. Leaving Carlton House Terrace, we pa.s.sed into Waterloo Place, ascended it as far as Piccadilly, and then hailed a cab.

"Our evening is not completed yet," said Pharos. "I have still some places to show you. It is necessary that you should see them, in order that you may appreciate what is to follow. The first will be a fancy dress ball at Covent Garden, where yet another side of London life is to be found."

If such a thing could possibly have had any effect, I should have objected; but so completely did his will dominate mine, that I had no option but to consent to anything he proposed. We accordingly stepped into the cab and were driven off to the place indicated. From the sounds which issued from the great building as we entered it, it was plain that the ball was proceeding with its accustomed vigour, a surmise on our part which proved to be correct when we reached the box Pharos had bespoken. A floor had been laid over the stalls and pit, and upon this upwards of fifteen hundred dancers, in every style of fancy dress the ingenuity of man could contrive, were slowly revolving to the music of a military band. It was a curious sight, and at any other time would have caused me considerable amus.e.m.e.nt. Now, however, with the fiendish face of Pharos continually at my elbow, and his carping criticisms sounding without ceasing in my ear, mocking at the people below us, finding evil in everything, and hinting always at the doom which was hanging over London, it reminded me more of Dante's Inferno than anything else to which I could liken it. For upwards of an hour we remained spectators of it. Then, with a final sneer, Pharos gave the signal for departure.

"We have seen the finest club in Europe," he said, as we emerged into the cool air of Bow Street, "the most fashionable social event of the season, and a fancy dress ball at Covent Garden. We must now descend a grade lower, and, if you have no objection, we will go in search of it on foot?"

I had nothing to urge against this suggestion, so, turning into Long Acre, we pa.s.sed through a number of squalid streets, with all of which Pharos seemed to be as intimately acquainted as he was in the West-end, and finally approached the region of Seven Dials--that delectable neighbourhood bordered on the one side by Shaftesbury Avenue, and on the other by Drury Lane. Here, though it was by this time close upon three o'clock, no one seemed to have begun to think of bed. In one narrow alley through which we were compelled to pa.s.s at least thirty people were a.s.sembled, more than half of which number were intoxicated.

A woman was screaming for a.s.sistance from a house across the way, and a couple of men were fighting at the further end of an adjoining court. In this particular locality the police seemed as extinct as the dodo. At any other time, and in any other company, I should have felt some doubt as to the wisdom of being in such a place at such an hour. But with my present companion beside me I felt no fear.

We had walked some distance before we reached the house Pharos desired to visit. From its outward appearance it might have been a small drinking-shop in the daytime; now, however, every window was closely shuttered, and not a ray of light showed through c.h.i.n.k or cranny.

Approaching the door he knocked four times upon it, whereupon it was opened on a chain for a few inches. A face looked through the aperture thus created, and Pharos, moving a little closer, said something in a whisper to it.

"Beg pardon, sir," said the woman, for a woman I soon discovered it was.

"I didn't know as it was you. I'll undo the chain. Is the gentleman with you safe?"

"Quite safe," Pharos replied. "You need have no fear of him. He is my friend."

"In you come, then," said the woman to me, my character being thus vouched for, and accordingly in I stepped.

Dirty as were the streets outside, the house in which we now stood more than equalled them. The home of Captain Wisemann in Hamburg, which I had up to that time thought the filthiest I had ever seen, was nothing to it. Taking the candle in her hand, the old woman led us along the pa.s.sage toward another door. Before this she paused and rang a bell, the handle of which was cleverly concealed in the woodwork. Almost instantly it was opened, and we entered a room the like of which I had never seen or dreamt of before. Its length was fully thirty feet, its width possibly fifteen. On the wall above the fireplace was a gas bracket, from the burner of which a large flame was issuing with a hissing noise.

In the center of the room was a table, and seated round it were at least twenty men and women, who, at the moment of our entering, were engaged upon a game the elements of which I did not understand. On seeing us the players sprang to their feet with one accord, and a scramble ensued for the money upon the table. A scene of general excitement followed, which might very well have ended in the gas being turned out and our finding ourselves upon the floor with knives between our ribs, had not the old woman who had introduced us called out that there was no need for alarm, and added, with an oath--what might in Pharos's case possibly have been true, but in mine was certainly not--that we had been there hundreds of times before, and were proper sort o' gents. Thereupon Pharos contributed a sovereign to be spent in liquid refreshment, and when our healths had been drunk with a variety of toasts intended to be complimentary, our presence was forgotten, and the game once more proceeded. One thing was self-evident: there was no lack of money among those present, and when a member of the company had not the wherewithal to continue the gamble, he in most cases produced a gold watch, a ring, or some other valuable from his pocket, and handed it to a burly ruffian at the head of the table, who advanced him an amount upon it which nine times out of ten failed to meet with his approval.

"Seeing you have not been here before," said Pharos, "I might explain that this is the most typical thieves' gambling h.e.l.l in London. There is not a man or woman in this room at the present moment who is not a hardened criminal in every sense of the word. The fellow at the end narrowly escaped the gallows, the man on his right has but lately emerged from seven years' penal servitude for burglary. The three sitting together next the banker are at the present moment badly wanted by the police, while the old woman who admitted us, and who was once not only a celebrated variety actress, but an exceedingly beautiful woman, is the mother of that sickly youth drinking gin beside the fireplace, who a.s.sisted in the murder of an old man in Shaftesbury Avenue a fortnight or so ago, and will certainly be captured and brought within measurable distance of the gallows before many more weeks have pa.s.sed over his head. Have you seen enough of this to satisfy you?"

"More than enough," I answered truthfully.

"Then let us leave. It will soon be daylight, and there are still many places for us to visit before we return home."

We accordingly bade the occupants of the room good-night, and, when we had been escorted to the door by the old woman who had admitted us, left the house.

From the neighbourhood of Seven Dials Pharos carried me off to other equally sad and disreputable quarters of the city. We visited Salvation Army Shelters, the cheapest of cheap lodging-houses, doss-houses in comparison to which a workhouse would be a palace; dark railway arches, where we found homeless men, women, and children endeavouring to s.n.a.t.c.h intervals of rest between the visits of patrolling policemen; the public parks, where the gra.s.s was dotted with rec.u.mbent forms, and every seat was occupied; and then, turning homewards, reached Park Lane just as the clocks were striking seven, as far as I was concerned sick to the heart, not only of the sorrow and the sin of London, but of the callous indifference to it displayed by Pharos.

CHAPTER XX.

When I woke next morning the feeling I had had in my heart the evening before, that something terrible was about to happen, had not left me.

With a shudder of intense disgust I recalled the events of the previous night. Never, since I had known him, with the exception of that one occasion on the Embankment, had Pharos appeared so loathsome to me. I remembered the mocking voice in which he had pointed out to me the follies and frailties of our great city, the cruel look in his eyes as he watched those about him in the different places we had visited. For the life of me I could not comprehend what his object had been in taking me to them. While I dressed I debated the subject with myself, but though I had a very shrewd suspicion that the vengeance to which he alluded, and which he had declared to be so imminent, was the plague, yet I could not see how he was able to speak with such authority upon the subject. On the other hand, I had to remember that I had never yet known him fail, either in what he had predicted, or anything he had set himself to do. Having got so far in my calculations I stopped, as another thought occurred to me, and with my brushes still in either hand stared at the wall before me. From the fact that he had informed me of the existence of the plague in London it was certain that he knew of it, though the authorities did not. Could it be possible, therefore, that he had simply crossed from the Continent to London in order to be able to gloat over the misery that was to come?

The diabolical nature of the man, and his love of witnessing the sufferings of others, tallied exactly with the conclusion I had arrived at; and if my reasoning were correct, this would account for the expression of triumph I had seen upon his face. When I descended to the breakfast-room I found Valerie awaiting me there. She was looking quite her own self again by this time, and greeted me with a pretty exhibition of shyness upon her face, which I could understand when she handed me a number of letters she had received, congratulating her upon our engagement.

"You were late last night," she said. "Hour after hour I lay awake listening for your step, and it was broad daylight when I heard you ascend the stairs. I cannot tell you how frightened I was while you were away. I knew you were with him, and I imagined you exposed to a hundred dangers."

I told her where and with whom I had been.

"But why did he take you with him?" she inquired, when I had finished.

"I cannot understand that."

"I must confess that it has puzzled me also," I replied.

"The whole thing is very strange," she continued, "and I do not like the look of it. We have reason to know that he does nothing without a motive. But what can the motive have been in this particular instance?"

"That is more than I can say," I answered, and with that we changed the subject, and interested ourselves in our own and more particular concerns. So engrossing were they, and so pleasant were the thoughts they conjured up, that when breakfast was finished I remained in the dining-room, and did not open any of the morning papers which were lying in a heap upon the library table. At half-past ten I said good-bye to Valerie, who was practising in the drawing-room--Pharos I had not yet seen--and, putting on my hat, left the house. It was the first opportunity I had had since my return to London of visiting my studio, and I was exceedingly anxious to discover how things had been progressing there during my absence. It was a lovely morning for walking, the sky being without a cloud, and the streets in consequence filled with sunshine. In the Row a considerable number of men and women were enjoying their morning canter, and nurse-maids in white dresses were to be counted by the dozen in the streets leading to the Park. At the corner of Hamilton Place a voice I recognised called to me to stop, and on turning round I found my old friend, Sir George Legrath, hastening after me.

"My dear Cyril," he said, as he shook hands with me, "I am indeed glad to see you. I had no idea you had returned."

"I reached London yesterday morning," I answered, but in such a constrained voice that he must have been dense indeed if he did not see that something was amiss. "How did you know I had been away?"

"Why, my dear fellow," he answered, "have you forgotten that I sent you a certain address in Naples? and then I called at your studio the following morning, when your man told me you were abroad. But somehow you don't look well. I hope nothing is the matter?"

"Nothing, nothing," I replied, almost sharply, and for the first time in my life his presence was almost distasteful to me, though if I had been asked the reason I should have found it difficult to say why. "Sir George, when I called on you at the Museum that morning, you told me you would rather see me in my grave than connected in any way with Pharos."

"Well?" he inquired, looking up at me with a face that had suddenly lost its usual ruddy hue. "What makes you remind me of that now?"

"Because," I answered, "if it were not for one person's sake I could wish that that opportunity had been vouchsafed you. I have been two months with Pharos."

"Well?" he said again.

"What more do you expect me to say?" I continued. Then, sinking my voice a little, as if I were afraid Pharos might be within hearing distance, I added, "Sir George, if I were to tell you all I know about that man----"

"You must tell me nothing," he cried hastily. "I know too much already."

We walked for some distance in silence, and it was not until we were opposite Devonshire House that we spoke again.

Then Sir George said abruptly, and with a desire to change the subject that could not be disguised, "Of course you have heard the terrible news this morning?"

Following the direction of his eyes I saw what had put the notion into his head. A news-seller was standing in the gutter on the other side of the street, holding in his hand the usual placard setting forth the contents of the papers he had for sale. On this was printed in large letters--

TERRIBLE OUTBREAK OF THE PLAGUE IN LONDON.

"You refer to the plague, I presume?" I said, with an a.s.sumed calmness I was far from feeling. "From that headline it would seem to have made its appearance in London after all."

"It has, indeed," said Sir George, with a gloominess that was far from usual with him. "Can it be possible you have not seen the papers?"

"I have scarcely seen a paper since I left London," I replied. "I have been far too busy. Tell me about it. Is it so very bad?"