Page:Burton Stevenson--The marathon mystery.djvu/114

92 “Cecily tells me that your presence of mind prevented a general conflagration, Mr.”

“Lester,” I said. “I am your neighbour across the hall.”

“My name is Tremaine, and I’m exceedingly glad to meet you,” he continued, with a courtesy which charmed me from the first moment. “We must pour a libation to honour the escape.”

Cecily, who had been hanging on his lips, flew to the next room and was back in a moment with decanter and glasses—three of them—and she joined us with an imperturbable matter-of-course air which somewhat surprised me. Only I noticed she left a little wine in her glass, and with it she approached a square cage of fine gilt mesh hanging over the radiator in the warmest corner of the room.

I happened to look at Tremaine and was astonished at the intensity of the glance he sent after her. So absorbed was he that for the first time I had the opportunity to examine him closely. It was impossible to tell his age, there was about him such an air of exhaustless youth—he might have been anywhere from thirty to forty-five. He was a handsome man, with a dark, fascinating face which somehow matched his wife’s. The power of his eye I had already experienced, and the square jaw and clear-cut lips bespoke an extraordinary power of will to match. He perhaps felt my scrutiny, for he turned to me, shaking off with an effort the spell that held him.

“She’s a most extraordinary woman,” he said, with a smile that seemed a little forced. “She’s about to do what no other woman in the world would