The Fourth Plague by Edgar Wallace Read Free Book Online Page B

community, and it precluded one being bored by a long recital of the news which one had read in the morning papers in a more concise or a more accurate form. Her interest in the great Italian detective for the moment was a conventionally domestic one, for she rose from the music-stool.
    â€œI shall have to tell Parker to set another place,” she said.
    â€œIf he accepts,” interjected Marjorie.
    Vera raised her eyebrows with a little smile.
    â€œDon’t be absurd, Marjorie, of course he will accept.”
    â€œWhat do we call him—Inspector or Sergeant or something?” she asked of Sir Ralph.
    The spirit of revolt was stirring within her, and she permitted herself a facetiousness of attitude which ordinarily she would not have expressed. And this, despite the subconscious desire to soothe him into a complaisant mood.
    She never for one moment imagined that he would advance her the money she required, but he might let her have a portion of it if she could only invent a story sufficiently plausible. The truth was out of the question. She smiled to herself at the thought. She was an imaginative woman but not sufficiently so to picture Sir Ralph in that moment of confession. She needed the money as she had never needed money before. It was not for herself—her own wants were few and her tastes simple. She might, perhaps, induce her husband to let her have a hundred if she could invent a good reason—and it would have to be a superlatively good reason to induce Sir Ralph to part with his money.
    Somehow the old weariness of it all, the old distaste for the life she was living, came over her, and induced her to treat the subject in a manner in which she knew her husband would heartily disapprove.
    â€œYou will call him Doctor Tillizini,” said Sir Ralph sternly. “He is a professor of anthropology in the Florentine School of Medicine. He is a gentleman, Vera, and I shall expect you to treat him as such.”
    Marjorie, who had been an interested spectator of the passage between husband and wife, had discreetly withdrawn to her book and her chair by the window. As Sir Ralph turned to go, she rose.
    â€œI say, what fun,” she said. “Is he really coming, Uncle?”
    Sir Ralph nodded.
    â€œI hope so. I can do no more than invite him, but he is such a busy man that he may probably have to go back to town. At any rate, I am certain,” he said, a little pompously, “that he will approve most heartily of my treatment of that rascal to-day. I think it is monstrous the way Hilary George went on…”
    He was still sore over his treatment by his whilom friend, and he launched forth into a sea of explanation and justification, and, incidentally, gave the girl a fairly garbled version of the scene which had occurred outside the Session House—a scene in which he had played, by his account, a dignified and proper part, and in which Hilary had lost his temper to a distressing degree.
    The fire of Sir Ralph’s eloquence burnt itself down to glowerings and splutterings of incoherent disapproval.
    â€œHilary George,” he said, “will regret this.” He spoke in the satisfied tone of one who had made special arrangements with Providence to that end.
    Marjorie was following her uncle from the room, when a glance from Vera brought her back. The older woman waited until the door had closed behind her husband.
    â€œMarjorie,” she said, in the mild and honeyed tone which the girl recognized as her “At Home” voice, “I want you to do something for me.”
    â€œWith pleasure, dear,” said the girl warmly.
    Lady Morte-Mannery fingered the little silver ornaments on one of the tables which abounded in the drawing-room, and placed them as though they were pawns in a new game she was playing. She seemed to be concentrating her attention upon this pastime as she spoke.
    â€œI want you to do something very special for me,” she