The Man Who Bought London by Edgar Wallace Page B

what time this beautiful creature of ‘suicidal tendencies’ would be hanging limply from –
    He looked round for a suitable hook and found a peg behind the door which bore his weight.
    That would be the place. Rapidly he made a noose at one end of the rope and held it in his hand behind him.
    He turned the handle of the door and walked into the dressing-room. She was sitting by the window and rose, startled.
    ‘What were you doing in my room?’ she demanded.
    ‘Stealing your jewels,’ he said with humour. But she was not appeased by his simulated playfulness.
    ‘How dare you go into my room?’ she cried. The fear of death was upon her, through her brain ran a criss-cross of plans for escape.
    ‘I want to talk things over,’ he said and reached out his hand to touch her. She shrank back.
    ‘What have you got behind your back?’ she asked in a terrified whisper.
    He sprang at her, flinging one arm about her so that he pinioned both arms. Then she saw his design as his other hand rose to close over her mouth. The coils slipped down on his arm and he shifted his left hand up to silence her.
    ‘Mercy!’ she gasped.
    He smiled in her face. He found the noose and slipped it over her head. Then –
    ‘Kerry knows – Kerry knows!’ said her muffled voice. ‘I wrote to him. There is a detective watching this house day and night – ah!’
    The loop had touched her neck.
    ‘You wrote?’
    ‘Told him – murder – me – I signal every half-hour – due in five minutes –’
    Very gently he released her, laughing the while. He had moved her to where he could see through the window. A man stood with his back to the railings of the Park, smoking a short cigar. He was watching the house for the half-hour signal.
    ‘You never thought I was such a good actor,’ said Hermann with his set smile.
    She staggered to the window and sank in a chair.
    ‘I didn’t frighten you, did I?’ he asked with a certain resemblance of tenderness.
    She was shaking from head to foot. ‘Go out!’ she said. ‘Go away! I know your secret now!’
    With a little shrug he left her, taking the silk cord with him, for that evidence was too damning to leave behind. She waited till she heard him speaking in the hall below, then she fled to her room and locked the door. With shaking hands she made her preparations. She dressed as quickly as she had dressed in her life and descended the stairs. In the hall she saw Martin, and paused. ‘Get me a walking-stick – any one will do – quickly!’
    The man went away and, returning with the ivory-headed cane of her brother, found her by the open door.
    She looked at her watch. It wanted twenty minutes to nine.
    A taxi-cab carried her to Vigo Street, and the nearer she came to the man who she knew loved her, and to the freedom which was ahead the higher rose her spirits.
    Gordon Bray was waiting. She paid the cab and dismissed it. ‘I knew you would be here!’ she said impulsively, and took his arm. ‘Gordon,’ she said breathlessly – it is strange how two people that day had been thrilled by the utterance of a Christian name – ‘you have known me for three years.’
    ‘And twenty-five days, Miss Zeberlieff,’ said the young man. ‘I count the days.’
    The eyes turned to him were bright with a light he had never seen.
    ‘Call me Vera,’ she said softly. ‘Please don’t think I’m bold – but I just want you to – you love me, don’t you?’
    The street lights went round and round in a giddy whirl before the man. ‘I worship you!’ he said hoarsely.
    ‘Then bear with me for a little while,’ she said tenderly; ‘and if I do things which you do not approve –?’
    ‘You couldn’t do that,’ he said.
    There in Regent Street, before all the hurrying world, shocked, amused or interested, according to its several temperaments, she raised her lips to his and he kissed her.
    ‘Now,’ she said, and thrust him away, her eyes dancing, ‘show me the new shop that King Kerry