Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/94

90 "I shouldn't trouble about that," she smiled, "but if you want to come in, please do."

She closed the door behind him and left the light burning in the hall. She did not ask him to sit down.

"You have seen the account in the Post Record?" he asked.

She nodded.

"And I suppose you are rather struck with the discrepancy between what I told you and what I told the reporters, but I feel you ought to know that I had a very special reason for protecting this man."

"Of that I have no doubt," she said coldly. "Miss Cresswell, you must be patient and kind to me," he said earnestly. "I have devoted a great deal of time and I have run very considerable dangers in order to save you."

"To save me?" she repeated in surprise.

"Miss Cresswell," he asked, "did you ever know your father?"

She shook her head, so impressed by the gravity of his tone that she did not cut the conversation short as she had intended.

"No," she said, "I was a girl when he died. I know nothing of him. Even his own people who brought him up never spoke of him."

"Are you sure he is dead?" he asked.

"Sure? I have never doubted it. Why do you ask me? Is he alive?"

He nodded.

"What I am going to tell you will be rather painful," he said: "your father was a notorious swindler." He paused, but she did not protest.

In her life she had heard many hints which did not redound to her father's credit, and she had purposely refrained from pursuing her inquiries.

"Some time ago your father escaped from Cayenne. He is, you will be surprised to know, a French subject, and the police have been searching for him for twelve months, including our friend Mr. Beale."

"It isn't true," she flamed. "How dare you suggest?"