第35章

"The police have been known to overlook things. Of course, what I am hoping is that amongst Mr. Orden's papers there may be some indication as to where he has deposited our property."

"But this has nothing to do with me," she protested. "I do not like to be concerned in such affairs."

"But I particularly wish you to accompany me," he urged. "You are the only one who has seen the packet. It would be better, therefore, if we conducted the search in company."

Catherine made a little grimace, but she objected no further. She objected very strongly, however, when Fenn tried to take her arm on leaving the place, and she withdrew into her own corner of the taxi immediately they had taken their seats.

"You must forgive my prejudices, Mr. Fenn," she said - "my foreign bringing up, perhaps - but I hate being touched."

"Oh, come!" he remonstrated. "No need to be so stand-offish."

He tried to hold her hand, an attempt which she skilfully frustrated.

"Really," she insisted earnestly, "this sort of thing does not amuse me. I avoid it even amongst my own friends."

"Am I not a friend?" he demanded.

"So far as regards our work, you certainly are," she admitted.

"Outside it, I do not think that we could ever have much to say to one another."

"Why not?" he objected, a little sharply. "We're as close together in our work and aims as any two people could be.

Perhaps," he went on, after a moment's hesitation and a careful glance around, "I ought to take you into my confidence as regards my personal position."

"I am not inviting anything of the sort," she observed, with faint but wasted sarcasm.

"You know me, of course," he went on, "only as the late manager of a firm of timber merchants and the present elected representative of the allied Timber and Shipbuilding Trades Unions. What you do not know" - a queer note of triumph stealing into his tone "is that I am a wealthy man."

She raised her eyebrows.

"I imagined," she remarked, "that all Labour leaders were like the Apostles - took no thought for such things."

"One must always keep one's eye on the main chance; Miss Abbeway," he protested, "or how would things be when one came to think of marriage, for instance?"

"Where did your money come from?" she asked bluntly.

Her question was framed simply to direct him from a repulsive subject. His embarrassment, however, afforded her food for future thought.

"I have saved money all my life," he confided eagerly. "An uncle left me a little. Lately I have speculated - successfully. I don't want to dwell on this. I only wanted you to understand that if I chose I could cut a very different figure - that my wife wouldn't have to live in a suburb."

"I really do not see," was the cold response, "how this concerns me in the least."

"You, call yourself a Socialist, don't you, Miss Abbeway?" he demanded. "You're not allowing the fact that you're an aristocrat and that I am a self-made man to weigh with you?"

"The accident of birth counts for nothing," she replied"you must know that those are my principles - but it sometimes happens that birth and environment give one tastes which it is impossible to ignore. Please do not let us pursue this conversation any further, Mr. Fenn. We have had a very pleasant dinner, for which I thank you - and here we are at Mr. Orden's flat."

Her companion handed her out a little sulkily, and they ascended in the lift to the fifth floor. The door was opened to them by Julian's servant. He recognised Catherine and greeted her respectfully. Fenn produced his authority, which the man accepted without comment.

"No news of your master yet?" Catherine asked him.

"None at all, madam," was the somewhat depressed admission. "I am afraid that something must have happened to him. He was not the kind of gentleman to go away like this and leave no word behind him."

"Still," she advised cheerfully, "I shouldn't despair. More wonderful things have happened than that your master should return home to-morrow or the next day with a perfectly simple explanation of his absence."

"I should be very glad to see him, madam," the man replied, as he backed towards the door. "If I can be of any assistance, perhaps you will ring."

The valet departed, closing the door behind him. Catherine looked around the room into which they had been ushered, with a little frown. It was essentially a man's sitting room, but it was well and tastefully furnished, and she was astonished at the immense number of books, pamphlets and Reviews which crowded the walls and every available space. The Derby desk still stood open, there was a typewriter on a special stand, and a pile of manuscript paper.

"What on earth," she murmured, "could Mr. Orden have wanted with a typewriter! I thought journalism was generally done in the offices of a newspaper - the sort of journalism that he used to undertake."

"Nice little crib, isn't it?" Fenn remarked, glancing around.

"Cosy little place, I call it."

Something in the man's expression as be advanced towards her brought all the iciness back to her tone and manner.

"It is a pleasant apartment," she said, "but I am not at all sure that I like being here, and I certainly dislike our errand. It does not seem credible that, if the police have already searched, we should find the packet here."

"The police don't know what to look for," he reminded her. "We do."

There was apparently very little delicacy about Mr. Fenn. He drew a chair to the desk and began to look through a pile of papers, making running comments as he did so.

"Hm! Our friend seems to have been quite a collector of old books. I expect second-hand booksellers found him rather a mark.

Some fellow here thanking him for a loan. And here's a tailor's bill. By Jove, Miss Abbeway, just listen to this! `One dress suit-fourteen guineas!' That's the way these fellows who don't know any better chuck their money about," he added, swinging around in his chair towards her. "The clothes I have on cost me exactly four pounds fifteen cash, and I guarantee his were no better."

Catherine frowned impatiently.