Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 5).djvu/506

His eyes lighted on a dark object, which he knew at once must be what he was in search of, lying on the white toilet cover of the dressing-table. His hand closed over it, his eyes turning once more towards the bed. Not a movement, not a sound!

Pocket-book in hand, he noiselessly crept out, locked the door on the outside again, and sped back to his own room.

Half the danger was over. He had now but to abstract the money he wanted, and replace the book where he had found it. He put the book on the table, and sat down.

"What was that? A sigh—a whispered word? Or was it coward conscience?" He sat back aghast for a moment; then, with a resolute face, bent forward, laying his hand upon the book. Suddenly he paused, raising his head again. A sound—a movement? Surely he heard something! He hurriedly blew out the light, and sat with all his senses on the alert. Again! Something or someone was in the room!

Meredith! Had Meredith seen and followed him—had the time come to act the part of jester? Unconsciously, he was gazing straight before him into the dressing glass, faintly reflecting, in the pale, grey light of the summer night, the objects around. Again a slight movement, hardly displacement, of the air; but sufficient to intimate a presence there.

Should he break into a laugh, and challenge Meredith—should he——— Great heavens! Mirrored in the glass, he saw a shadowy form moving silently towards him a form draped in cowl and gown. The monk!

Laurence Verschoyle fell back in his chair, his eyes fastened upon the figure faintly outlined in the dim light, the left hand raised, as if in solemn warning, and the right stretched forth towards—the pocket-book!

He saw it taken from the table, then everything faded from his vision, and he lost consciousness.

When, at length, he came to himself, it was a little confusedly; and it was some time before he remembered where he was and what had happened. The pocket-book! His eyes went hurriedly over the table. Gone! It had been no dream, then—no trick of the senses. He flung out his arms upon the table and buried his face upon them. Suddenly a faint hope sprang up in his heart. It must have been Meredith! His own fears, and the dim, uncertain light, had imparted the spectral, shadowy appearance, and exaggerated the whole effect. Meredith must have imagined—as in case of emergency he was to have been induced to imagine—that a jest was being played off upon him, and had determined to return it in kind, managing somehow to get himself up for the rôle. Had they not been talking about the monk and his gesture of warning? Yes; Meredith, of course!—beginning to recover his nerve. He had been caught, and Meredith had not been caught; that was all, and he had only to treat the whole thing as a jest.

But all this notwithstanding, there was an under-current of something very like fear in his mind which caused him to watch the slowly broadening light of day with feverish impatience for the time when he could enter Meredith's room. It would not do to go too early, lest his very anxiety should arouse the other's suspicions. Everything now depended upon his being able to treat the whole thing as a jest. He threw off his disguise, washed and dressed, and then sat listening for the usual sounds of Sally's movements about the house.

When the clock struck six he could contain himself no longer, and made his way to Meredith's room, going to the door which opened into the corridor. Meredith, in response to his knock, unlocked the door and admitted him.

"Up already, Meredith?"

"Yes, I am accustomed to rise early."

As he advanced into the room, Laurence darted a quick look towards the dressing-table. There lay the pocket-book! He had been right; it had appeared as a jest to Meredith, and he had played one off in return. "Had I only guessed and kept my wits about me, instead of making a fool of myself, by going off in a fainting fit, the jest might have been better kept up."

"I see you can make, as well as take, a jest, old fellow," he began, with an attempt at a laugh.

"I was too sleepy and lazy to do more than take it, Verschoyle. I saw what was done both times; but the restoration was managed best."

"Restoration?"

"The putting the book back."

Laurence Verschoyle dropped into a chair, gazing at the other with widely-opened eyes. "Do you mean to say you did not? For Heaven's sake, tell me the truth, Meredith! You followed me to my room and brought the book back. I—I—saw you!"

"That you did not, and could not have done, Verschoyle. I did not rise from the