Swirling Waters | Page 6

gave up and retraced his steps, leaving Matheson to his fate.
CHAPTER IV
ON THE SCENT OF A MYSTERY
The name of the young man who had shadowed Matheson was Arthur Dean, and his position in life was that of a clerk in the Leadenhall Street office of Lars Larssen. The latter had brought him over to Paris as temporary secretary because the confidential secretary had happened to be ill and away from business at the moment when Matheson's letter arrived.
Young Dean bitterly repented his cowardice before he was five minutes distant from the narrow lane on the heights of Montmartre.
Not only had he left a fellow-countryman to possible violence and robbery, but his action would inevitably recoil on himself. To be even a temporary secretary to the great shipowner was a chance, an opportunity that most young business men of twenty-four would eagerly grasp at. He was throwing away his chance by this cowardly disobedience to orders--Lars Larssen was not the man to forgive an offence of that kind.
Dean turned on his tracks and again crossed the Place Pigalle. The lane behind was deserted. He mounted it and searched eagerly. His search was fruitless. Matheson was nowhere visible--nor the two apaches. To what had happened in that interval of ten minutes there was no clue.
The young fellow did not dare to go back to the Grand Hotel and report his failure. He wandered about aimlessly and miserably, until a flaunting poster outside an all-night caf�� chantant caught his eye and decided him to enter and kill time until some plan for retrieving his failure might occur to him.
As he entered the swinging doors a cheery hand was laid on his shoulders. "Hullo, old man! Hail and thrice hail!"
"Jimmy!" There was a note of pleasure in the young man's voice.
"The same," confirmed Jimmy Martin. He was a tubby, clean-shaven, rosy-faced little fellow of thirty odd, with an inexhaustible fund of good spirits. Everyone called him "Jimmy." Dean had known him as a reporter on a London daily paper and a fellow-member of a local dramatic society in Streatham.
"Why are you here?" asked Dean.
"Strictly on business, my gay young spark. My present owners, the Europe Chronicle, bless their dear hearts, want to know if La Belle Ariola"--he waved his hand towards a poster which showed chiefly a toreador hat, a pair of flashing eyes, and a whirl of white draperies--"is engaged or no to the Prince of Sardinia. I find the maiden coy, not to say secretive----"
"I wish you could help me," interrupted Dean eagerly.
"If four francs seventy will do it--my worldly possessions until next pay-day----"
"No, no, this is quite different." He drew Martin outside into the street and whispered. "To-night, as I happen to know, an Englishman walking along a back street by the Place Pigalle was followed by two apaches."
"A week-end tripper, or somebody with a flourish at each end of his name?"
"Somebody worth while. Now I want to know particularly if anything happened."
Martin nodded in full understanding. "Come along to the office about ten to-morrow morning, and I'll tell you if anything's been fired in from the gendarmeries or the hospitals. What did you say the man's name was?"
Dean shook his head.
"Imitaciong oyster?" commented Martin cheerfully. "Very well, see you to-morrow. Meanwhile, be good. Flee the giddy lure. Go home to your little bed and sleep sweet." There was seriousness under his good-natured banter. "Come along and I'll see you as far as the bullyvards."
Arthur Dean went with him, but did not return to the Grand Hotel. He found a small hotel for the night, and next morning at ten o'clock he was at the office of the Europe Chronicle, an important daily paper published simultaneously in Paris, Frankfort, and Florence.
Martin came out from the news room into the adjoining ante-room with a slip of "flimsy" in his hand.
"Was your man hefty with the shillelagh?" he asked.
"He carried a big, gold-mounted stick."
"Then here's your bird." He read out from the slip of paper: "Last night, shortly after twelve, a certain Gaspard P---- was brought to the H?pital Malesherbes suffering from a fractured skull. This morning, on recovering consciousness, he states that he was attacked without cause by a drunken Englishman, and struck over the head with a heavy stick. His state is grave."
Dean felt a warm wave of relief. He thanked the journalist cordially and was about to leave, when the telephone bell rang sharply in the adjoining news room. The sub-editor in charge took up the receiver.
"Ullo, ullo! C'est ici le Chronicle," said the sub-editor, and after listening for a moment signed imperatively to Martin to come in and shut the door.
Presently Martin came out from the news room bustling with energy and took Dean by the arm. "You specified two apaches, didn't you?" he asked, and hurried on without