An Amiable Charlatan

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"None at all," I hastened to assure him.

We left the place together a few minutes later and found a vacant box at
the Tivoli. Arrived there, however, Mr. Parker soon became restless. He
kept on seeing friends in the auditorium. We watched him, with his hat a
little on the back of his head, going about shaking hands in various
directions.

"How long have you been in England?" I asked my companion.

"Barely two months," she replied. "Do look at father! Wherever he goes
it's the same. The one recreation of his life is making friends. The
people he is speaking to to-night he has probably come across in a
railroad train or an American bar. He makes lifelong friendships every
time he drinks a cocktail, and he never forgets a face."

"Isn't that a little trying for you?" I asked.

She laughed outright.

"If you could only see some of the people he brings up and introduces to
me!"

We talked for some time upon quite ordinary subjects. As the time passed
on, however, and her father did not return, it seemed to me she became
more silent. She told me very little about herself and the few personal
things she said were always restrained. I was beginning to feel almost
discouraged; she sat so long with a slight frown upon her forehead and her
head turned away from me.

"Miss Parker," I ventured at last, "something seems to have displeased
you."

"It has," she admitted.

"Will you please tell me what it is?" I asked humbly. "If I have said or
done anything clumsy give me a chance, at any rate, to let you see how
sorry I am."

She turned and faced me then.

"It is not your fault," she assured me; "only I am a little annoyed with
my father."

"Why?"

"I think," she went on, "it is perfectly delightful that he should have
made your acquaintance. It isn't that at all. But I do not think he should
have made use of you in the way he did. He is utterly reckless sometimes
and forgets what he is doing. It is all very well for himself, but he has
no right to expose you to--to--"

"To what risk did he expose me?" I demanded. "Tell me, Miss Parker--was he
absolutely honest when he told me he was an adventurer?"

"Absolutely!"

"Was I, then, an accomplice in anything illegal to-night?"

"Worse than illegal--criminal!" she told me.

Now my father had been a judge and I had a brother who was a barrister;
but the madness was upon me and I spoke quickly and convincingly.

"Then all I have to say about it is that I am glad!" I declared.

"Why?" she murmured, looking at me wonderingly.

"Because he is your father and I have helped him," I answered under my
breath.

For a few moments she was silent. She looked at me however; and as I
watched her eyes grow softer I suddenly held out my hand, and for a moment
she suffered hers to rest in it. Then she drew away a little.

She was still looking at me steadfastly; but something that had seemed to
me inimical had gone from her expression.

"Mr. Walmsley," she said slowly, "I want to tell you I think you are
making a mistake. Please listen to me carefully. You do not belong to the
order of people from whom the adventurers of the world are drawn. What you
are is written in your face. I am perfectly certain you possess the
ordinary conventional ideas as to right and wrong--the ideas in which you
have been brought up and which have been instilled into you all your life.
My father and I belong to a different class of society. There is nothing
to be gained for you by mixing with us, and a great deal to be lost."

"May I not judge for myself?" I asked.

"I fear," she answered, looking me full in the face and smiling at me
delightfully, "you are just a little prejudiced."

"Supposing," I whispered, "I have discovered something that seems to me
better worth living for than anything else I have yet found in the world I
know of--if that something belongs to a world in which I have not yet
lived--do you blame me if for the sake of it I would be willing to climb
down even into----"

She held out her finger warningly. I heard heavy footsteps outside and the
rattle of the doorhandle.

"You are very foolish!" she murmured. "Please let my father in."

Mr. Parker returned in high good humor. He had met a host of acquaintances
and declared that he had not had a dull moment. As for the performance he
seemed to have forgotten there was one going on at all.

"I am for supper," he suggested. "I owe our friend here a supper in return
for his interrupted dinner."

"Supper, by all means!" I agreed.

"Remember that I am wearing a hat," Eve said. "We must go to one of the
smaller places."

In the end we went back to Stephano's. We sat at the table at which I had
so often watched Eve and her father sitting alone, and by her side I
listened to the music I had so often heard while I had watched her from
what had seemed to me to be an impossible distance.

Mr. Parker talked wonderfully. He spoke of gigantic financial deals in
Wall Street; of operations which had altered the policy of nations; of
great robberies in New York, the details of which he discussed with
amazing technical knowledge.

He played tricks with the knives and forks, balanced the glasses in
extraordinary fashion, and reduced our waiters to a state of numbed and
amazed incapacity. Every person who entered he seemed to have some slight
acquaintance with. All the time he was acknowledging and returning
greetings, and all the time he talked.

We spoke finally of gambling; and he laughed heartily when I made mild fun
of the gambling scare that was just then being written up in all the
papers and magazines.

"So you don't believe in baccarat tables in London!" he said. "Very good!
We shall see. After we have supped we shall see!"

We stayed until long past closing time. Mr. Parker continued in the
highest good humor, but Eve was subject at times to moods of either
indifference or depression. The more intimate note which had once or twice
crept into our conversation she seemed now inclined to deprecate. She
avoided meeting my eyes. More than once she glanced toward the clock.

"Haven't you an appointment to-night, father?" she asked, almost in an
undertone.

"Sure!" Mr. Parker answered readily. "I have an appointment, and I am
going to take you and Mr. Walmsley along."

"I am delighted to hear it!" I exclaimed quickly.

"I'll teach you to make fun of the newspapers," Mr. Parker went on. "No
gambling hells in London, eh? Well, we shall see!"

To my great relief Eve made no spoken objection to my inclusion in the
party. When at last we left a large and handsome motor car was drawn up
outside waiting for us.

"A taxicab," Mr. Parker explained, "is of no use to me--of no more use
than a hansom cab. I have to keep a car in order to slip about quietly.
Now in what part of London shall we look for a gambling hell, Mr.
Walmsley? I know of eleven. Name your own street--somewhere in the West
End."

I named one at random.

"The very place!" Mr. Parker declared; "the very place where I have
already an appointment. Get in. Say, you Londoners have no idea what goes
on in your own city!"

We drove to a quiet street not very far from the Ritz Hotel. Mr. Parker
led us across the pavement and we entered a block of flats. The entrance
hall was dimly lit and there seemed to be no one about. Mr. Parker,
however, rang for a lift, which came promptly down.

"You two will stay here," he directed, "for two or three minutes. Then the
lift will come down for you."

He ascended and left us there. I turned at once to Eve, who had scarcely
spoken a word during the drive from the restaurant.

"I do wish you would tell me what is troubling you, Miss Parker," I
begged. "If I am really in the way of course you have only to say the word
and I'll be off at once."

She held my arm for a moment. The touch of her fingers gave me
unreasonable pleasure.

"Please don't think me rude or unkind," she pleaded. "Don't even think
that I don't like your coming along with us--because I do. It isn't that.
Only, as I told my father before supper, you don't belong! You ought not
to be seen at these places, and with us. For some absurd reason father
seems to have taken a fancy to you. It isn't a very good thing for you. It
very likely won't be a good thing for us."

"Do please change your opinion of me a little," I implored her. "I can't
help my appearance; but let me assure you I am willing to play the
Bohemian to any extent so long as I can be with you. There isn't a thing
in your life I wouldn't be content to share," I ventured to add.

She sighed a little petulantly. She was half-convinced, but against her
will.

"You are very obstinate," she declared; "but, of course, you're rather
nice."

After that I was ready for anything that might happen. The lift had
descended and the porter bade us enter. We stopped at the third floor. In
the open doorway of one of the flats Mr. Parker was standing, solid and
imposing. He beckoned us, with a broad smile, to follow him.

To my surprise there were no locked doors or burly doorkeepers. We hung up
our things in the hall and passed into a long room, in which were some
fifteen or twenty people. Most of them were sitting round a _chemin de
fer_ table; a few were standing at the sideboard eating sandwiches. A
dark-haired, dark-eyed, sallow-faced man, a trifle corpulent, undeniably
Semitic, who seemed to be in charge of the place, came up and shook hands
with Mr. Parker.

"Glad to see you, sir--and your daughter," he said, glancing keenly at
them both and then at me. "This gentleman is a friend of yours?"

"Certainly," Mr. Parker replied. "I won't introduce you, but I'll answer
for him."

"You would like to play?"

"I will play, certainly," Mr. Parker answered cheerfully. "My friend will
watch--for the present, at any rate."

He waved us away, himself taking a seat at the table. I led Eve to a divan
at the farther corner of the room. We sat there and watched the people.
There were many whose faces I knew--a sprinkling of stock-brokers, one or
two actresses, and half a dozen or so men about town of a dubious type. On
the whole the company was scarcely reputable. I looked at Eve and sighed.

"Well, what is it?" she asked.

"This is no sort of place for you, you know," I ventured.

"Here it comes," she laughed; "the real, hidebound, respectable
Englishman! I tell you I like it. I like the life; I like the light and
shade of it all. I should hate your stiff English country houses, your
highly moral amusements, and your dull day-by-day life. Look at those
people's faces as they bend over the table!"

"Well, I am looking at them," I told her. "I see nothing but greed. I see
no face that has not already lost a great part of its attractiveness."

"Perhaps!" she replied indifferently. "I will grant you that greed is the
keynote of this place; yet even that has its interesting side. Where else
do you see it so developed? Where else could you see the same emotion
actuating a number of very different people in an altogether different
manner?"

"For an adventuress," I remarked, "you seem to notice things."

"No one in the world, except those who live by adventures, ever has any
inducement to notice things," she retorted. "That is why amateurs are such
failures. One never does anything so well as when one does it for one's
living."

"The question is arguable," I submitted.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Every question is arguable if it is worth while," she agreed carelessly.
"Look at all those people coming in!"

"I don't understand it," I confessed. "These places are against the law,
yet there seems to be no concealment at all! Why aren't we raided?"

"Raids in this part of London only take place by arrangement," she assured
me. "This place will reach its due date sometime, but every one will know
all about it beforehand. They are making a clear profit here of about four
hundred pounds a night and it has been running for two months now. When
the raid comes Mr. Rubenstein--I think that is his name--can pay his five-
hundred-pound fine and move on somewhere else. It's wicked--the money they
make here some nights!"

"You seem to know a good deal about it," I remarked.

"The place interests father," she told me. "He comes here often."

"And you?"

"Sometimes. I am not always in the humor."

I looked at her long and thoughtfully. Her beauty was entirely the beauty
of a young girl. There were no signs of late hours or anxiety in her face.
She puzzled me more than ever.

"I wish I knew," I said, "exactly what you mean when you call yourself an
adventuress."

She laughed.

"It means this," she explained: "To-night I have money in my purse, jewels
on my fingers, a motor car to ride home in. In a week's time, if things
went badly with us, I might have nothing. Then father or I, or both of us,
would go out into the world to replenish, and from whomever had most of
what we desired we should take as opportunity presented itself."

"Irrespective of the law?"

"Absolutely!"

"Irrespective of your sense of right and wrong?"

"My sense of right and wrong, according to your standards, does not
exist."

I gave it up. She seemed thoroughly in earnest, and yet every word she
spoke seemed contrary to my instinctive judgment of her. She pointed to
the table.

"Look!" she whispered. "These people don't seem as though they had all
that money to gamble with, do they? Look! There must be at least a
thousand or fifteen hundred pounds upon the table."

It was just as she said these words that the thing happened. From
somewhere among the little crowd of people gathered round the table there
came the sound of heavy stamping on the floor, and in less than a moment
every light in the room went out. The place was in somber darkness. Then,
breaking the momentary silence, there came from outside a shrill whistle.
Again there was a silence--and then pandemonium! In a dozen different keys
one heard the same shout:

"The police!"

Eve gripped my arm. My matchbox was out in a moment and I struck a match,
holding it high over my head. As it burned a queer little halo of light
seemed thrown over the table. The door was wide open and blocked with
people rushing out. The banker was still sitting in his place. At first I
seemed to have the idea that Mr. Parker was by his side. Then, to my
astonishment, I saw him at the opposite end of the table, standing as
though he had appeared from nowhere. A stentorian voice was heard from
outside:

"Ladies and gentlemen, if you please! Nothing has happened. The lights
will be on again immediately."

Almost as he spoke the place was flooded with light.

The faces of the people were ghastly. A babel of voices arose.

"Where are the police?"

"Where are they?"

"Who said the police?"

The little dark gentleman whose name was Rubenstein stood upon a chair.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he called out, "nothing whatever has happened--
nothing! The electric lights went out owing to an accident, which I will
investigate. It seems to have been a practical joke on the part of the
lift man, who has disappeared. There are no police here. Please take your
places. The game will proceed."

They came back a little reluctantly, as though still afraid. Then suddenly
the banker's hoarse voice rang out through the room. All the time he had
been sitting like an automaton. Now he was on his feet, swaying backward
and forward, his eyes almost starting from his head.

"Lock the doors! The bank has been robbed! The notes have gone! Mr.
Rubenstein, don't let any one go out! I tell you there was two thousand
pounds upon the table. Some one has the notes!"

There was a little murmur of voices and a shriek from one of the women as
she clutched her handbag. Mr. Parker, bland and benign, rose to his feet.

"My own stake has disappeared," he declared; "and the pile of notes I
distinctly saw in front of the banker has gone. I fear, Mr. Rubenstein,
there is a thief among us."

Mr. Rubenstein, white as a sheet, was standing at the door. He locked it
and put the key in his pocket.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "play is over for to-night. We are,
without a doubt, the victims of an attempted robbery. The lights were
turned out from the controlling switch by the lift man, who has
disappeared. I will ask you to leave the room one by one; and, for all our
sakes, I beg that any unknown to us will submit themselves to be
searched."

There was a little angry murmur. Mr. Rubenstein looked pleadingly round.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he begged, "you will not object, I am sure. I am a
poor man. Two thousand pounds of my money has gone from that table--all
the money I kept in reserve to make a bank for you. If any one will return
it now nothing shall be said. But to lose it all--I tell you it would ruin
me!"

The perspiration stood out on his forehead. He looked anxiously round, as
though seeking for sympathy. Mr. Parker came over to his side.

"Say, Mr. Rubenstein," he declared, "there isn't any one here who wants
you to lose a five-pound note--that's a sure thing! But there is just one
difficulty about this searching business: How can you identify your notes?
If I, for instance, were to insist that I had brought with me two thousand
pounds in banknotes in my pocket--which, let me hasten to assure you, I
didn't--how could you deny it?"

"My notes," Mr. Rubenstein replied feverishly, "all bear the stamp of
Lloyd's Bank and to-day's date. They can all be recognized."

"In that case," Mr. Parker continued, "I recommend you, Mr. Rubenstein, to
insist upon searching every person here not thoroughly known to you; and I
recommend you, ladies and gentlemen," he added, looking round, "to submit
to be searched. It will not be a very strenuous affair, because no one can
have had time to conceal the notes very effectively. I think you will all
agree with me that we cannot allow our friend, who has provided us with
amusement for so many nights, to run the risk of a loss like this. Begin
with me, Mr. Rubenstein. No--I insist upon it. You know me better than
most of your clients, I think; but I submit myself voluntarily to be
searched."

"I thank you very much indeed, sir," Mr. Rubenstein declared quickly. "It
is very good of you to set the example," he continued, thrusting his hand
into Mr. Parker's pockets. "Ah! I see nothing here--nothing! Notes in this
pocket--ten, twenty, thirty. Not mine, I see--no Lloyd's stamp. Gold! A
pleasant little handful of gold, that. Mr. Parker, I thank you, sir. If
you will be so good as to pass into the next room."

I brought Eve up. We were recognized as having been sitting upon the divan
and Mr. Rubenstein, with a bow and extended hand, motioned to us to pass
on.

"You will visit us again, I trust," he said, "when we are not so
disturbed."

"Most certainly!" Mr. Parker promised in our names. "Most certainly, Mr.
Rubenstein. We will all come again. Good night!"

We walked out to the landing and, descending the stairs, reached the
street and stepped into the motor car that was waiting for us. It rolled
off and turned into Piccadilly.

"How much was it, father?" Eve asked suddenly, from her place in the
corner.

"I am not sure," Mr. Parker answered. "There is a matter of eight hundred
pounds in my right shoe, and a little more than that, I think, in my left.
The note down my back was, I believe, a hundred-pound one. Quite a
pleasant little evening and fairly remunerative! The lift man will cost me
a hundred--but he was worth it."

I sat quite still. I felt that Eve's eyes were watching me. I set my teeth
for a moment; and I turned toward her, my cigarette case in my hand.

"You don't mind?" I murmured as I lit a cigarette.

She shook her head. Her eyes were still fixed upon me.

"Where can we drop you?" Mr. Parker inquired.

"If the evening is really over and there are no more excitements to come,
you might put me down at the Milan Court," I told him, "if that is
anywhere on your way."

Mr. Parker lifted the speaking tube to his lips and gave an order. We
glided up to the Milan a few minutes later.

"I have enjoyed my evening immensely," I assured Eve impressively, "every
moment of it; and I do hope, Mr. Parker," I added as I shook hands, "that
you and your daughter will give me the great pleasure of dining with me
any night this week. If there are any other little adventures about here
in which I could take a hand I can assure you I should be delighted. I
might even be of some assistance."

They both of them looked at me steadfastly. Then Eve at last glanced away,
with a little shrug of the shoulders, and Mr. Joseph H. Parker gripped my
hand.

"Say, you're all right!" he pronounced. "You just ring up 3771A Gerrard
to-morrow morning between ten and eleven."

CHAPTER III--CULLEN GIVES ADVICE

At ten o'clock the following morning my telephone bell rang and a visitor
was announced. I did not catch the name given me, and it was only when I
opened the door to him in response to his ring that I recognized Mr.
Cullen. In morning clothes, which consisted in his case of a blue serge
suit that needed brushing and a bowler hat of extinct shape, he seemed to
me, if possible, a little more objectionable than I had found him the
previous night. He presented himself, however, in a wholly non-aggressive
spirit.

"Mr. Walmsley," he said, as he took the chair to which I motioned him, "I
have called to see you very largely in your own interests."

I murmured something to the effect that I was extremely obliged.

"I have made inquiries concerning you," he went on, "and I find that you
not only have a blameless record but that you are possessed of
considerable means, and that you belong to a highly esteemed county
family."

"And what of it, Mr. Cullen?" I asked.

"This," he answered, "that I feel it my duty to warn you against the
companions with whom you spent a portion of last evening."

"You mean Mr. and Miss Parker?"

"I mean Mr. and Miss Parker."

"Are you making any definite charges against this young lady and
gentleman?" I inquired after a moment's pause.

"Very definite charges indeed!" he replied. "I warn you, Mr. Walmsley,
that this man and his daughter are in bad repute with us, and to be seen
associated with them is to bring yourself under police surveillance. We
had a special warning when they sailed from New York, and since their
arrival in London they have already been concerned in two or three very
shady transactions."

"If they break the law," I inquired, "why do you not arrest them?"

"Because I have had bad luck--rotten bad luck!" Mr. Cullen declared
firmly. "I am perfectly convinced that this Mr. Parker, as he calls
himself, has been financing one of the greatest artists in banknote
counterfeits ever known to the police. I am perfectly convinced that Mr.
Parker left this young man in Adam Street last night, with a packet of
notes upon his person for which he had just paid two hundred pounds, and
if I could have arrested him then the game would have been up. He dodged
me by going into the Cecil, leaving by the back way and coming through the
Savoy; but I picked him up again within two minutes of his reaching
Stephano's.

"Obviously with your collusion--you'll pardon me, sir, but there the facts
are--he was seated at your table as though in the middle of a dinner. I
had him searched, but there wasn't a thing on him. I am not going to ask
you what he did with the notes he had--whether he palmed them off on you
or not--but I will simply say that between the time of his entering
Stephano's and the time of my searching him he got rid of a thousand
pounds' worth of counterfeit notes."

"Sounds very clever of him!" I remarked. "How do you know that he didn't
get rid of them to some one in either the Cecil or the Savoy?"

"Because," Mr. Cullen explained, "he was followed by one of my men through
both places and not lost sight of for a single second. You see, I made
sure he would come to Stephano's and I was on the other side of the
Strand, but I had left a man in case he went the other way. I tell you he
was under the strictest surveillance the whole time, except during the few
minutes--I might almost say seconds--when he disappeared in the
restaurant."

"Anything else against him?" I asked.

"I am not inclined," Mr. Cullen continued slowly, "to mention specifically
the various cases that have come under my notice and in which I believe
him to be concerned; but, among other things, he is a frequenter of half
the gambling houses in London and a tout for their owners. Trouble follows
wherever he goes. But, Mr. Walmsley, mark my words! I am not a man given
to idle speech and I assure you that within a few weeks--perhaps within a
few days--I shall have him; aye, and the young lady, too! You don't want
to be mixed up in this sort of business, sir. I am here to give you the
advice to sheer off! They'll only rob you and bring you, too, under
suspicion."

I lit a cigarette and stood on the hearthrug with my hands behind me.

"Mr. Cullen," I said, "it is, of course, very kind of you to come to me in
this disinterested manner. You don't seem to have anything to gain by it,
so I will accept your attitude as being a bona fide one. I will, if I may,
be equally frank with you. I met both Mr. Parker and his daughter last
night for the first time----"

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