CHAPTER XXXII.A RED TRACK.
When the train arrived at King’s Cross, Crossley was waiting on the platform. A quick glance showed him Nancy’s pale face in the window of a first-class compartment. He went forward to meet her.
“Thank you for answering my letter so promptly, Mrs. Rowton,” he said. “I have a carriage outside; may I take you at once to my house?”
At this moment Lady Georgina touched Nancy on the arm.
“Introduce me to the gentleman,” she said.
“Mr. Crossley, Lady Georgina Strong,” said Nance.
Crossley bowed. Lady Georgina favoured him with an intensely earnest glance. She saw a man of middle height, dressed in the correct garb of an ordinarygentleman. He had a pleasant face, and looked eminently respectable.
“Lady Georgina has been kind enough to accompany me to town, Mr. Crossley,” said Mrs. Rowton.
“Yes,” said Lady Georgina, “I have come with this lady because she is too young and inexperienced to take care of herself—also because her husband left her in my charge. She says that she has come up to London on receipt of a letter. May I ask, sir, if you are the writer?”
“I am, madam. I am anxious to see Mrs. Rowton on a private matter of much importance.”
“Yes, Lady Georgina, it is quite a secret,” said Nance.
“I am aware of that fact,” said Lady Georgina. “Well, sir,” she continued, “here is Mrs. Rowton. You are at liberty to tell her what you please. Where do you propose to take her to communicate your tidings?”
“To my own house, madam.”
“And where is your house?”
“It is a good way from here—near Clapham Common—but, expecting the lady, I ordered a private carriage, which is waiting for us at the present moment, and we can reach the house in about an hour from now.”
“Very well,” answered Lady Georgina, “only please understand that where Mrs. Rowton goes I go.”
The luggage was secured and put upon the top of the private carriage, which Crossley had hired from a livery stable not far from his own house. Lady Georgina and Nance entered, but the detective preferred sitting with the driver on the box, he said.
“The mystery thickens, but excitement suits me,” said Lady Georgina with a sigh, which she quickly suppressed as the horses started forward at a good pace, and they soon left King’s Cross behind them.
In the course of an hour they reached Crossley’s house. The moment they got within, Nance, who had been absolutely silent during the long drive, spoke.
“I am anxious to see you alone at once, Mr. Crossley,” she said.
She raised her eyes to the detective’s face as she spoke. He was placing his hat on the stand in the little narrow hall.
“Very well, madam, I wish to tell you my tidings without delay,” he replied.
“Then will you kindly show Lady Georgina to one room and take me to another?”
“May I take you to my drawing-room, madam?” said Crossley, bowing to Lady Georgina.
He opened a door on one side of the hall as he spoke, and ushered Lady Georgina into a small room, furnished in the ordinary style of a drawing-room of that class of house. There was a centre table on which some newspapers and one or two gaudily-bound books were placed. A paraffin lamp stood in the centre of the table, a bright fire burned in the grate; an easy-chair of old-fashioned make stood beside the fire.
“I shall do well here,” said Lady Georgina. “Do not pray give me another thought, only let me know when you have quite done with Mrs. Rowton.”
“One word, madam,” said Crossley, dropping hisvoice to a whisper. “I count it a providential arrangement that you are with the young lady. I have sore tidings for her. Heaven knows she will need help.”
There was a note in the detective’s voice which startled Lady Georgina, who was not a woman affected by nerves. She made no reply, however, beyond an emphatic nod of her head. The detective left the room, closing the door behind him. He took Nance at once into his private study, and motioned her to a chair. She loosened her cloak, but did not sit.
“I prefer to stand,” she said. “I want, Mr. Crossley, to learn your tidings at once and without preface.” She fixed her eyes on him as she spoke.
“How will she bear it?” thought the detective to himself. “I wish I had never gone into this business. Who would have thought that it would have come out as it has? Poor young lady, I cannot bear to meet her eyes.”
“You have prepared me for something very dreadful,” said Nance; “but please understand it is not the news itself, but the suspense which is really killing me. Speak! tell me what you have discovered.”
“I have very grave tidings, Mrs. Rowton,” said the man. “It is impossible for me to tell them you in half a dozen words. You have got to listen to a certain story. Believe me, I will not keep you in suspense a minute longer than I can help.”
“Begin, then,” said Nance.
A chair was standing near. She caught the back of it with one trembling hand, and stood very upright, facingthe detective, who placed himself on the hearth-rug with his back to the fire.
“I believe,” said Crossley, in a low but very firm voice, “that I have at last found the man who murdered your brother.”
“I thought as much,” said Nance. She spoke faintly.
“His name?” she said then after a pause.
“I will come to the name in a few minutes, madam. I have, I believe, found the man. You remember when I visited you at the Heights about two months ago that I then spoke of certain suspicions?”
“You did. Pardon me, why must we go into that? Can you not put me out of suspense at once?”
“I must tell my story in my own way, Mrs. Rowton. Believe me, my task is no easy one.”
“I will have patience,” said Nance. “I beg you to forgive me for showing want of self-control.”
“I more than forgive you, my young lady. I will say something more; I wish to Heaven I had never touched this business. But, now to proceed. The suspicions I had two months ago led me to place a detective belonging to my own staff on your premises.”
“Yes,” said Nance, “you sent Jacob Short, our very excellent footman, down to the Heights. He was a good servant, and for my part, I seldom remembered that he was anything else. But I recall now your words at the time. You said the scent lay red round Rowton Heights. I did not understand you.”
“Very likely not,” said Crossley. “Nevertheless, before I proceed any further, allow me to remind you,madam, that I earnestly begged of you to give up the search.”
“And I refused to do so,” said Nancy. “We need not revert to that again. I had vowed to go on with the thing—my vow was given to a dying man. I will go on with it to the bitter end.”
“Very well, madam, I have now to proceed with my story. Jacob Short went to Rowton Heights and did the work which I had expected him to do. The suspicions which I entertained before he arrived there were abundantly confirmed by evidence which he was able to collect.”
Nance came a step nearer.
“What do you mean?” she said. “Do you infer,” she moistened her lips, they were so dry she could scarcely get out the words—“do you really infer that the murderer, the man who took the life of my young brother, was really an inmate of Rowton Heights?”
The detective nodded.
“This is fearful! Who could it be? One of the servants? Surely not Vickers—not Hamley.”
“You must have patience, madam; you will know all in a few minutes.”
Nance again grasped the back of the chair and stood firm.
“You remember,” continued Crossley, looking fixedly at her as he spoke, “the evidence which I had in hand from the beginning. There was found near the body of the murdered man a torn piece of paper, which contained some writing in cipher; at the bottom of the cipher wasa hieroglyphic of peculiar shape and size. On the night of the murder, a friend of the murdered man saw a man escaping from the café—a tall, dark, fine-looking man, with a peculiar mark on his upper lip. That man was searched for by the police, but he was not heard of again. On that evidence I had to work up my case. The most important part of the evidence was contained in the torn paper which held the cipher.
“After long toil and weeks of labour I became acquainted with the key of the cipher, and was able to read what was written on the torn bit of paper. It was incriminating to the last degree, showing that the murder was premeditated, for it was an appointment to meet your brother at the café where he lost his life. From that day to now my object, madam, has been to find the man who used that cipher and that hieroglyphic. I obtained a certain clue which made me think it probable that I should find him in your house. Yes, Mrs. Rowton, in your house.
“I sent Jacob there for the purpose of rendering my suspicions certainties. He worked well, his object being to find the cipher and hieroglyphic, which had already been used on the piece of paper found close to the murdered man in the possession of the suspected party. For this purpose he made friends with a woman who kept a small post-office in the village near your home. He also left not a stone unturned to make investigations at the Heights itself. Yesterday morning, madam, a man living on your premises wrote a letter to town in the same cipher and signed it with the same hieroglyphic which wasused when your brother was murdered more than six years ago.
“This is terrible! it excites me beyond measure. Go on; tell me the rest quickly.”
“Jacob Short sent me full particulars,” continued Crossley, “and acting on them I went to see a woman last night whose husband belongs to a celebrated gang or school of burglars, known to us police as the Silver School. The man has not long ago been arrested on a charge of uttering a forged cheque. I thought it possible that the wife might know something about the man who wrote the cipher and who lived at Rowton Heights. I went to her last night and taxed her with her knowledge, believing, as I will explain, that her husband and this man belonged to the same School. Under pressure, she told me what she knew. She described the man who used that cipher and who signed his name with that special hieroglyphic. She described him as I expected her to describe him, but she could not tell me his name, for that had always been hidden from her. I had a photograph in my possession, however, which I showed her, and she identified the photograph with the man. There is no doubt that this man and the woman’s husband had been employed in the same nefarious work.”
“You absolutely bewilder me,” said Nance. “Then this ruffian has not only taken human life, but he is also a burglar. And you tell me calmly to my face that this fiend has lived in the house with my husband and myself. Have you arrested him, Mr. Crossley?”
Nancy Rowton’s eyes became full of fire—a passionof absolute revenge gave to her face a totally foreign appearance.
“Have you arrested the scoundrel?” she repeated.
“I cannot arrest him at present,” answered Crossley. “To complete my evidence there is one last link wanting. The man who murdered your young brother not only used the cipher which I have discovered and the hieroglyphic, but he wore on his face a peculiar mark, a mark so uncommon and so impossible to hide that by that alone he might be identified at any time. My man, Short, found the cipher and the hieroglyphic, but it was, as he said, completely outside his province to discover the mark. When we find the man with the mark on his upper lip, we have found, beyond doubt, the murderer of your brother. I regret to say, madam, that no one can give us that last evidence but yourself.”
“I?” said Nance. “Impossible! You cannot know what you are saying. I?”
“Yes, Mrs. Rowton, that is your painful duty—that is, if you still wish me to go on with the search.”
“Of course I wish you to go on with it. My heart is on fire—my noble young brother—my father’s life sacrificed. Go on with the search? Yes, yes, I say to the bitter end. I would see that man on the gallows if I could. I have taken a vow in this matter.”
“There are some vows which are bad,” said the detective; “some vows are better broken than kept. I speak against my own calling when I remind you of that, Mrs. Rowton. I am interested in this case. It is, I admit, a very terrible one. Madam, you must prepare for a blow. It belongs to my calling to knowsomething of human nature. I think I read you right. I think I am not mistaken. You love your husband?”
“Love him,” said Nance. Her face, which had looked fierce and unwomanly, underwent an instant change. “You have no right to ask me that question,” she continued. “Nevertheless,” she added, raising her voice and speaking with sudden and unlooked for strength, “I will answer it. Yes, I love my husband. There are no words in any language to express my unalterable love.”
She no longer leant against the chair—she stood upright, her hands hung at her sides, her head was flung back. There was not the faintest suspicion in her voice, in her face, of the awful news which the detective was trying to break to her. He was silent for nearly a minute, puzzled how to proceed. She herself helped him at last.
“I cannot understand,” she said, “why it is left to me to make the final and last discovery. If you have done all else, why not complete it? The man who possesses the cipher and who has used it, who possesses the hieroglyphic and who has used it, must be the man who also possesses the mark. Find the mark for yourself, Mr. Crossley.”
“The mark, Mrs. Rowton, is on the face—on the upper lip. It is small, but distinct. It alters the complete character of the mouth, being a death’s head and arrow tattooed on the lip. How done and for what purpose I cannot tell you. Now, the man whom we suspect has covered that mark by means of a moustache.My servant would have completed the task himself, but he found it difficult—impossible.”
“A man who lives at Rowton Heights with a moustache,” said Nance, laughing somewhat unsteadily. “You must surely be mistaken, for I know everyone in my own house. The servants, of course, do not wear hair on their faces. In fact, no one wears a moustache except my husband.” She stopped, and looked with dilated eyes at the detective.
“That is true, Mrs. Rowton. No one wears a moustache but your husband, Adrian Rowton.”
“What can you mean? You look at me in a very queer way. What is your meaning? Speak.”
“I mean this, Mrs. Rowton. I have discovered this: your husband, Adrian Rowton, is also known as Silver, the leader of the Silver Mob or School. This man, madam, is the one who murdered Anthony Follett many years ago!”
“This man, Madam, is the one who murdered Anthony Follett many years ago!”—Page 276.
“This man, Madam, is the one who murdered Anthony Follett many years ago!”—Page 276.
There was a silence in the room which might almost be felt when Crossley ceased speaking. Nancy’s voice broke into it after a moment. She laughed—her laugh was wild and a little unsteady.
“My husband!” she said. “How dare you say that to my face? Do you think for one moment I believe you?”
“I knew it would be a blow to you, madam.”
“It is no blow; you are absolutely mistaken. Anything else might have been a blow, but not that. My husband kill my young brother! My husband take a man’s life! Oh! come—this is too much.”
“Satisfy yourself, then, Mrs. Rowton. Discover if his lip is smooth. Find out if he wears the mark.”
“I will find out. I thank you. You thought to have terrified and crushed me, but you only excite my anger and my contempt. My husband! I myself rather than he.”
She turned to the door as she spoke, opened it, and walked out with a steady step. Crossley followed her into the hall. It had never occurred to him that she would take his tidings with utter disbelief.
“Lady Georgina,” said Nancy, opening the door of the little drawing-room, “my business with this gentleman is now concluded, and I am ready to go away.”
Lady Georgina jumped up. She did not know Mrs. Rowton’s voice with the new quality in it. The ring of defiance, the vibration of strength and courage, were altogether a revelation to her. The carriage was waiting at the door. The ladies drove to the Universal Hotel.