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Updated: June 23, 2025
"If you will wait for a moment, I will inquire." He disappeared into his office, thrusting his head out, a moment or two later, with the telephone receiver still in his hand. "Mrs. Gardner would like the name again, sir, please," he remarked. Tavernake repeated it firmly. "You might say," he added, "that I shall not detain her for more than a few minutes." The man disappeared once more.
"Well, isn't that what it was?" the detective asked, smiling. Tavernake shrugged his shoulders. "There didn't seem to me to be much joke about it!" he exclaimed. Pritchard laughed gayly. "You are not used to Americans, my young friend," he said. "Over on this side you are all so fearfully literal. You are not seriously supposing that they meant to dose me with that stuff the other night, eh?"
"Madame is dressing now to go out for supper. She will be able to spare you only a few seconds." Tavernake remained alone in the luxurious little sitting-room for nearly ten minutes. Then the door of the inner room was opened and Elizabeth appeared. Tavernake, rising slowly to his feet, looked at her for a moment in reluctant but wondering admiration.
You shall decide; you, I know, are one of those people who never waver." "I should wear the pearls," Tavernake said. Elizabeth made them a little courtesy. "You see, my dear friends," she declared, "you have to come to England, after all, to find a man who knows his own mind and speaks it without fear. The pearls it shall be."
It was not until later on, when he was alone, that Tavernake realized with how little interest he listened to his companion's talk of their success. It was so short a time ago since the building up of a fortune had been the one aim upon which every nerve of his body was centered. Curiously enough, now he seemed to take it as a matter of course.
Leonard," she added, touching his hand for a moment with hers, "I wish that I could tell you everything, but there are things behind, things so terrible, that even to you, my dear brother, I could not speak of them." Tavernake rose to his feet and lit a cigarette a new habit with him, while Beatrice busied herself with a small coffee-making machine. He sat in an easy-chair and smoked slowly.
His business instincts were aroused. "Do you really mean that this Mrs. Wenham Gardner is not a person of substance?" he inquired. Beatrice shrugged her shoulders. "She is the wife of a man who had the reputation of being very wealthy," she replied. "She has no money of her own, I am sure." "She still lives with her husband, I suppose?" Tavernake asked. Beatrice closed her eyes.
"A music-hall in New York!" Tavernake muttered. The detective nodded. "Among the young bloods of the city," he continued, "were two brothers, as much alike as twins, although they aren't twins, whose names were Wenham and Jerry Gardner. There's nothing in fast life which those young men haven't tried.
I thought you'd shed your follies as your grip upon life had tightened, but one is never sure." Tavernake sighed. "Oh, I have shed the worst of my follies!" he answered. "I only wish " He never finished his sentence. Elizabeth had suddenly seen him. For a moment she leaned forward as though to assure herself that she was not mistaken. Then she half sprang to her feet and sat down again.
Tavernake remained by her side, however, showing not the slightest sense of embarrassment or annoyance. He seemed perfectly content to wait and he had not in the least the appearance of a man who could be easily shaken off. From a fit of furious anger she passed suddenly and without warning to a state of half hysterical amusement. "You are a foolish, absurd person," she declared. "Please go away.
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