The Crime Club by William Holt-White

Author:William Holt-White [Holt-White, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aeterna Classics
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER XIV

LADY KATHLEEN'S MISSION

In spite of Mme. Estelle's declaration that he should see Lady Kathleen that night, and in spite of the conviction that Madame spoke the truth, Westerham, strange to say, had not expected to find her in the gaming-house.

As he entered the room of lights he had for a moment wondered for what reason he had been brought into such a place, but at the same time, by some swift mental process, he had decided that the mysterious gaming-house was but a step towards Lady Kathleen, and not the actual place in which he was to meet her.

For once his intuition had played him false and he was correspondingly taken aback. The deathly pallor, however, which had spread across Kathleen's face served to bring him to a swift realisation of the situation. It was imperative that there should be no scene; matters then would be doubly painful.

Westerham, therefore, instantly turned away and endeavoured to hide himself amid the odd jumble of men who stood round the table watching the play.

The chloroform still hung heavy in Westerham's brain, and at first he was quite unable to get any connected trend of thought. But presently his mental vision became clearer, and he was able to appreciate the extraordinary succession of events which had led up to this climax.

Melun he had not seen since the night of the atrocious murder at Walter's Hotel—and therefore he had been unable to extract from him any information of that villainous and apparently purposeless deed.

For what motive Melun might have in instigating such a crime, except it were to frighten him from his championship of Lady Kathleen, Westerham could not say. Then had followed his extraordinary adventure in the hansom cab and Madame's enigmatic utterances when he recovered his senses in the morning.

And if the motive of the murder were obscure, the motive which induced Melun and his accomplices to change his clothes while drugged was doubly hidden.

What, moreover, could be the motive in bringing him to behold Lady Kathleen in this gaming-house?

This last problem troubled him more than the others, and he gave himself up to considering it as he crouched down seeking to hide himself in the midst of the motley crowd which swayed and jostled round the tables.

Even as he debated this question with himself he took note of the men who hemmed the table in. Every type of face presented itself—the fleshy cheeks of middle-aged Jews, of pale clerks and salesmen, prosperous-looking men who might have been commercial travellers, and here and there a more refined-looking man in evening-dress.

A few were still playing, but the majority were watching the play of Lady Kathleen, and it dawned on Westerham that she was waging a losing fight with the bank.

Her face and figure were in extraordinary contrast to her surroundings. She was, besides, the only woman in the room.

Draped in a long opera cloak from which her

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