The Man Who Bought London by Edgar Wallace Page A

he had thrown in her way, the almost compromising situations he had forced upon her with every variety of man from college youth to middle-aged man about town.
    If she were married she were dead so far as the inheritance went – if she were not married by the thirtieth of the month, would she still be alive?
    There was, as she knew, a streak of madness on Hermann’s side of the family. His mother had died in an insane asylum. Two of her blood relations had died violently at the hands of the law, and a cousin had horrified San Francisco with a scene of murder of a peculiarly brutal character.
    She had reason to believe that Hermann himself had been mixed up in some particularly disgraceful episode in New York, and that only on the payment of huge sums amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars the victim and her relations had staved off an exposure. Then there was the case of Sadie Mars, the beautiful young daughter of a Boston banker. No money could have hushed that up – but here family pride and the position of the girl’s parents saved Hermann. He went abroad, and the girl had taken an overdose of chloral with fatal results.Wherever he went, disaster followed; whatever he touched, he made rotten and bad; he lifted the wine of life to the lips of the innocent, and it was vinegar and gall. She thought all this, and then she began to write rapidly, covering sheet after sheet with her fine calligraphy. She finished at last, enclosed her letter in an envelope, and addressed it. She heard his footstep in the hall without, and hastily thrust the letter into her bosom.
    He looked across at the writing-table as he entered.
    ‘Writing?’ he asked.
    ‘Doing a few polite chores,’ she answered.
    ‘Shall I post them for you?’
    He made a show of politeness.
    ‘No, thank you!’ said the girl. ‘They can be posted in the ordinary way – Martin can take them.’
    ‘Martin is out,’ he said.
    She walked quickly to the bell and pushed it. Hermann looked at her strangely.
    ‘There’s no use ringing,’ he said. ‘I have sent Martin and Dennis out with messages.’
    She checked the inclination to panic which arose in her bosom. Her heart was beating wildly. Instinct told her that she stood in deadly peril of this man with the sinister glint in his eyes.
    ‘Give me that letter!’ he said suddenly.
    ‘Which letter?’
    ‘The letter you have been writing so industriously for the last ten minutes,’ he said.
    A scornful smile curved her lips. ‘Not the keyhole, Hermann!’ she protested with mock pain. ‘Surely not the keyhole – the servants’ entrance to domestic secrets!’
    ‘Give me that letter!’ he said roughly.
    She had edged away and backward till she stood near one of the big French windows. It was ajar, for the evening had been close. With a sudden movement she turned, flung open the long glass door, and stepped out on to the tiny balcony.
    He went livid with rage, and took two quick steps towards her, then stopped. She was addressing somebody.
    ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Mr Bray; have you been ringing long?’ An indistinct voice answered her. ‘My brother will let you in; thank you so much for calling for me.’
    She turned to Hermann Zeberlieff.
    ‘Would you mind opening the door to one of my “tame students”? You will find he sounds his h’s quite nicely!’ she said sweetly.
    ‘Damn you!’ snarled the man, but obeyed.

CHAPTER XII
    ‘Will you entertain Mr Bray whilst I get ready to go out?’
    Hermann muttered his sulky compliance. He would have liked to refuse point blank, to have indulged himself in a display of temper, if only to embarrass the girl; but he had sufficient command of himself to check his natural desire. He scowled at the young man with whom he was left alone, and answered in monosyllables the polite observations which Gordon Bray offered upon men and things. There was no evidence in either the attire or in the speech of the technical student to suggest that he was of any other