"Listen!" I whispered fiercely into her ear. "Listen one moment. You surely won't give me away? Listen to what I have to tell you.

Do--I--implore you," I said. "I am no thief! I will tell you everything--and ask your advice. No harm has been done. Your pearls are here."

"Yes," she said, turning back upon me. "But you--the man I liked and trusted--are a common thief!"

"I admit it," I said hoa.r.s.ely as I dragged her back to her room, her dress being torn in the struggle. "I have been forced against my will into robbing you, as I will explain."

Back in her bedroom she a.s.sumed a very serious att.i.tude. She invited me to sit down, after I had handed back her jewel-case, and then, also seating herself in an arm-chair, she said in determination:

"Now look here, George Hargreave ... you see, I know your real name. I know your game. By a word I can have you arrested, while, on the other hand, my silence would give you your liberty."

"You will remain silent, Lady Lydbrook--I beg of you! I know that I have committed an unpardonable crime for which there is no excuse." I thought of that strange midnight scene I had witnessed and it was on the tip of my tongue to mention it. But would it further infuriate her? So I refrained from alluding to it.

Her att.i.tude towards me had completely altered. She was hard-mouthed and indignant, which, after all, was but natural.

"My whole future is in your hands," I added.

She still hesitated. A word from her and not only would I be arrested, but Rayne would probably be exposed and arrested also. She seemed, I feared, to be aware of the whole organization, hence she was one of the last persons who should have been marked down as a victim. Rayne had evidently committed a fatal error.

"Well," she said at last, "I am open to remain silent, and the matter shall never be mentioned between us--but on one condition."

"And what is that?" I asked anxiously.

"I am in want of someone to help me. Will you do so?"

"I will do anything to serve you if you give me my liberty," I said, much ashamed.

"Very well, then. Listen," she said in a hard, strained voice. "If you resolve, in return for my silence, to a.s.sist me, you will be compelled to act at my orders without seeking for any motive, but in blind obedience."

"I quite understand," I replied. "I agree."

No doubt she desired me to act against her enemy--the young fellow who had extracted fifty pounds from her by threat.

"You must say nothing to a soul but meet me in secret in Paris. Stay at the Hotel Continental where I shall stay on the night of the twenty-fourth. That is next Wednesday. At ten o'clock I shall be on the terrace of the Cafe Vachette in the Boulevard St. Michel. Remember the day and hour, and meet me there. Then I will tell you what service I require of you. I shall leave here to-morrow, and I suppose you will leave also." And she opened her jewel-case to rea.s.sure herself that her pearls and other ornaments were safe.

So she forgave me, shook my hand, and I went out of the room with the cold perspiration still upon me.

I made no report of my failure to Rayne, but on the following Wednesday night, after taking a room at the Continental, in Paris, an hotel which I knew well, I crossed the Seine at about half-past nine, and at ten o'clock sauntered up the boulevard to the popular, and rather Bohemian, Cafe Vachette, where at a little table in the corner, set well back from the pavement, I found her seated alone. She was wearing the same dark cloth coat in which I had seen her when she met the mysterious stranger at night at Eastbourne.

"Well? So you've kept the appointment, Mr. Cottingham!" she laughed cheerily as I sank into a chair beside her. "You'll order a drink and pay for mine, eh?" she laughed.

Then when I had swallowed my liqueur, she suggested that we should stroll down the boulevard and talk.

This we did. The proposition which she made without much preliminary held me aghast.

"Though I like you very much, Mr. Cottingham," she said as we conversed in low voices, "I cannot conceal from myself that you are a thief. Well, now to be perfectly frank, I want a thief's help--and I know that, as we are friends, you will a.s.sist me. You know my inordinate love of jewels. Indeed, I wouldn't have married Owen if he had not given me my pearls. And you know the other ornaments I have--which I might very well never have seen again, eh?"

"I know," I said.

"Well, now, at the Continental there is at the present moment staying a Madame Rodanet, the widow of the millionaire chocolate manufacturer.

She possesses among her jewels the famous Dent du Chat--the Cat's Tooth Ruby. It is called so because it is a perfect stone and curiously pointed, the only one of its kind in the world. I want it, and you must get it for me--as the price of my silence regarding the affair at Eastbourne."

I held my breath.

Her suggestion appalled me. I was to commit a second theft as the price of the first! The pretty wife of the great Sheffield ironmaster was a thief herself at heart! Truly, the situation was a strange and bewildering one.

I protested, and pointed out the risk and difficulties, but she met all my arguments with remarkable cleverness.

"I know Madame," she said. "I will make your path smooth for you, and I myself will spirit the jewel out of France so that no possible suspicion can attach to you," was her reply. "Will you leave it all to me?"

We walked on down the well-lit boulevard, my brain a-whirl, until at last, pressed hard by her, I consented to act as she directed.

I found, in the course of the next three days, that Lady Lydbrook's whole life was centered upon the possession of jewels of great value, and I was amazed to discover how very cleverly she plotted the coup which I was to carry out.

One evening, after dinner, she introduced me casually to the rich widow, an ugly overdressed old woman who was wearing as a pendant the famous Dent du Chat. It was, to say the least, a wonderful gem. But I pa.s.sed as a person of no importance.

Next night with Lady Lydbrook's help I was, however, able to get into the old woman's bedroom and carry out my contract for the preservation of silence concerning the affair at Eastbourne.

I shall always recollect the moment when I slipped the pendant into Lady Lydbrook's soft hand as she stood in _deshabille_ at the half-opened door of her bedroom and her quick whispered words:

"I shall be away by the first train. Stay here to-morrow and cross to London the next day. _Au revoir!_ Let us meet again soon!" And she gripped my hand warmly in hers and closed her door noiselessly.

Ah! A week later I learned how, by Rayne's devilish cunning, I had been tricked. When I knew the truth, I bit my lips to the blood.

The widow Rodanet had, it appeared, been staying at the Palais, in Biarritz, when Duperre and I had been there. She had been marked down by Rayne as a victim, for the Dent du Chat was a stone of enormous value.

The planned robbery had, however, gone wrong and we had been compelled to return to London. Then Rayne had conceived the sinister idea of sending me to Lady Lydbrook--who was not Sir Owen's wife at all but one of his agents like myself, and whose real name was Betty Tressider--a girl-thief whose chief possession was a rope of imitation pearls.

I, alas! dropped into the trap, whereupon she, on her part, compelled me to steal old Madame Rodanet's wonderful ruby; and thus, though I confess it to my shame, I became an actual thief and one of Rudolph Rayne's active agents. What happened to me further I will now tell you.

CHAPTER IX

LOLA IS AGAIN SUSPICIOUS

The devilish cunning of Rudolph Rayne was indeed well ill.u.s.trated by the clever trap which he had set for me by the instrumentality of that pretty woman-thief, Betty Tressider, who called herself Lady Lydbrook.

I now realized by Rayne's overbearing att.i.tude that he had, by a ruse, succeeded in his object in compelling me to become an active accomplice of the gang.

When back again once more in Yorkshire, I was delighted to find that Lola had returned from her visit to Devonshire. She was just as sweet and charming as ever, but just a trifle too inquisitive regarding my visits to Eastbourne and Paris. I was much ashamed of the theft I had been forced to commit in order to preserve secrecy regarding my first downfall, hence rather awkwardly, I fear, I evaded all her questions.

Nevertheless, we were a great deal in each other's company, and had many confidential chats. I loved her, yet somehow I could not be frank and open. How could I without revealing the secret of her father?

One spring afternoon we had been playing tennis and were sitting together in the pretty arbor at the end of the well-kept lawn, both smoking cigarettes after a strenuous game, when suddenly she turned to me, saying:

"Do you know, Mr. Hargreave, I don't like the look of things at all!