Page:Guy Boothby--A Bid for Fortune.djvu/120

110 you are aware, has a comfortable position with the young Marquis of Beckenham, which if he conducts himself properly may lead to something really worth having in the future, and yet here he is anxious to surrender it in order to go back to his missionary work in New Guinea, to his hard life, insufficient food, and almost certain death."

"He was in New Guinea then?"

"Five years—so he tells me."

"Are you certain of that?"

"Absolutely!"

"Then all I can say is that in spite of his cloth, Mr. Baxter does not always tell the truth."

"I am sorry you should think that. Pray what reason have you for saying so?"

"Simply because in a conversation I had with him at Bournemouth he deliberately informed me that he had never been near New Guinea in his life."

"You must have misunderstood him. However that has nothing to do with us. Let us turn to a pleasanter subject."

He rang the bell, and when the landlord appeared ordered more refreshment. When it arrived he lit another cigarette, and leaning back in his chair glanced at me through half-closed eyes.

Then occurred one of the most curious and weird circumstances connected with this meeting. Hardly had he laid himself back in his chair before I heard a faint scratching against the table leg, and next moment an enormous cat, black as the Pit of Tophet, sprang with a bound upon the table and stood there steadfastly regarding me, its eyes flashing and its back arched. I have seen cats without number, Chinese, Persian, Manx, the Australian wild cat, and the English tabby, but