Chapter Sixteen.In the City.Through several days I remained in bed, my limbs rigid, my senses bewildered.Although we said nothing to Tweedie, Cleugh entirely shared my suspicion that if an attempt had actually been made upon my life it had been made at Riverdene. The doctor ran in several times each day, and Dick, assisted by old Mrs Joad, was as attentive to my wants as any trained nurse, snatching all the time he could spare from his duties to sit by me and gossip of men and things in Fleet Street, and the latest “scoop” of theComet.Tweedie was puzzled. Each time he saw me he remarked upon my curious symptoms, carefully noting them and expressing wonder as to the exact nature of the deleterious substance. He pronounced the opinion that it was some alkaloid, for such it was shown by the reagents he had used in his analysis, but of what nature he was utterly at a loss to determine. Many were the questions he put to me as to what I had eaten on that day, and I explained how I had lunched at one of the restaurants in Fleet Street, and afterwards dined with friends at Laleham.“You ate no sandwiches, or anything of that kind at station refreshment bars?” he asked, when he visited me one morning, in the vague idea, I suppose, that the poison might, after all, be a ptomaine.“None,” I answered. “With the exception of what I told you, I had a glass of wine at the house of a friend at Hampton before rowing up to Laleham.”“A glass of wine,” he repeated slowly, as if reflecting. “You noticed no peculiar taste in it? What was it—port?”“Yes,” I replied. “An excellent wine it was, without any taste unusual.”For the first time the recollection of that glass of wine given me by Eva at The Hollies came back to me. Surely she could not have deliberately given me a fatal draught?“Often,” he said, “a substance which is poison to one person is harmless to another. If we could only discover what it really was which affected you, we might treat you for it and cure you much more rapidly. As matters rest, however, you must grow strong again by degrees, and thank Providence that you’re still alive. I confess when I first saw you, I thought you’d only a few minutes to live.”“Was I so very bad?”“As ill as you could be. You were cold and rigid, and looked as though you were already dead. In fact, any one but a doctor would, I believe, have pronounced life extinct. Your breath on a mirror alone showed respiration, although the heart’s movement was so weak as to be practically imperceptible. But don’t trouble further over it, you’ll be about soon,” and shortly afterwards he shook my hand and went on his way to the hospital, already late on my account.I longed to tell him all the curious events of the past, but saw that such a course would be unwise. If I did so, Eva—the woman I adored—must be prematurely judged, first because of old Lowry’s revelations, and now secondly because of the suspicious fact of my illness after partaking of the wine she offered.The idea that the attempt had been made upon me at Riverdene seemed very improbable, because I had dined in common with the other guests; the tea I had taken was poured from the same Queen Anne pot from which the cups of others were filled, and in the whisky-and-soda I had had before leaving I was joined by three other men who had rowed up from a house-boat about a quarter of a mile lower down.As I lay there restless in my bed, trying vainly to read, I spent hours in recalling every event of that day, but could discover no suspicious circumstance other than that incident of the wine at The Hollies. I recollected how Eva after ringing for the servant and ordering it, had herself gone out into the dining-room, and had been absent a couple of minutes or so. Possibly she might only have gone there in order to unlock the cellarette, yet there were likewise, of course, other graver possibilities.This thought which fastened upon my mind so tenaciously allowed me but little rest. I tried to rid myself of it, tried to scorn such an idea, tried to reason with myself how plain it was that she actually held me in some esteem, and if so she would certainly not seek to take my life in that cowardly, dastardly manner. Sometimes I felt that I misjudged her; at others grave suspicions haunted me. Yet withal my love for her never once wavered. She was my idol. Through those long, weary hours of prostration and convalescence I thought always of her—always.I had written her a short note, saying that I was unwell and unable to go down to Riverdene, not, however, mentioning the cause of my illness, and in response there came in return a charmingly-worded little letter, expressing profound regret and hoping we should meet again very soon. A hundred times I read that note.Was the thin, delicate hand that penned it the same that had endeavoured to take my life?That was the sole question uppermost in my mind; a problem which racked my brain day by day, nay, hour by hour. But there was no solution. Thus was I compelled to exist in torturing suspicion, anxiety and uncertainty.One hot afternoon I had risen for the first time, and was sitting among pillows in the armchair reading some magazines which Dick had thoughtfully brought me during the luncheon hour, when a timid knock sounded at the door. The Hag had left me to attend upon her other “young gentlemen” in the Temple, and I was alone. Therefore I rose and answered the summons, finding to my surprise that my visitor was Lily Lowry.At once, at my invitation, she entered, a slim figure dressed in neat, if cheap, black, without any attempt at being fashionable, but with that primness and severity expected of lady’s-maids and shop-assistants. Her gloves were neat, her hat suited her well, and beneath her veil I saw a pretty face, pale, interesting and anxious-looking.“I didn’t expect to find any one in, except Mrs Joad,” she said apologetically, as she took the chair I offered. Then, noticing my pillows, and perhaps the paleness of my countenance, she asked. “What? You are surely not ill, Mr Urwin?”“Yes,” I answered. “I’ve been rather queer for a week past. The heat, or something of that sort, I suppose. Nothing at all serious.”“I’m so glad of that,” she said. “I only called because I was passing. I’ve been matching some silk at the wholesale houses in the City, and as I wanted to give Mr Cleugh a message I thought I’d leave it with Mrs Joad.”“A message?” I repeated. “Can I give it?”She hesitated, and I saw that a slight blush suffused her cheeks.“No,” she faltered. “You’re very kind, but perhaps, after all, it would be better to write to him.”“As you like,” I said, smiling. “You don’t, of course, care to trust your secrets in my keeping—eh?”She looked at me seriously for a moment, her lips quivered, and she drew a long breath.“You’ve always been extremely kind,” she said in a low voice, half-choked with emotion. “And now that I find you alone, I feel impelled to confide in you and seek your advice.”“I’m quite ready to offer any advice I can,” I answered, quickly interested. “If I can render you any assistance I will certainly do so with pleasure.”“Ah!” she exclaimed, sighing again, “I knew you would. I am in trouble—in such terrible trouble.”“What has happened?” I inquired quickly, for I saw how white and wan she was, and of course attributed it to Dick’s action in renouncing his pledge.“You, of course, know that Mr Cleugh and I have parted,” she said, looking up at me quickly.“He has told me so,” I responded gravely. “I regret very much to hear it. What is the reason?”“Has he not told you?” she asked, her eyes filled with tears.“No,” I answered. “He gave no reason.”“Well,” she explained, “he has judged me wrongly. I am entirely innocent, I assure you. In a place of business like ours we are compelled to be on friendly terms with the male assistants, and the other evening, as I was leaving the shop to go to the house where we girls live, at the other end of Rye Lane, one of the men—an insufferable young fellow in the hosiery department—chanced to be going the same way and walked with me.“On the way, Dick—Mr Cleugh, I mean—passed us, and now he declares that I’ve been in the habit of flirting with these men. It is not pleasant for any girl to walk alone along Rye Lane at ten o’clock at night, therefore this young fellow was only escorting me out of politeness. Yet I cannot make Dick believe otherwise than that he is my lover.”“He’s jealous of you,” I said. “Is not jealousy an index of true love?”“But if he loved me truly,” she protested, bursting into tears, “he surely would not treat me so cruelly as this. I’ve done nothing to warrant this denunciation as a worthless flirt—indeed, I haven’t.”“And you love him?” I asked with deep sympathy, for I saw how intense was her suffering.“He knows that I do,” she answered. “He could see but little of me because his work prevented him, yet I was supremely happy in the knowledge of his love. Yet now he has forsaken me,” she added, sobbing. “I’m but a poor girl, and I suppose if the truth were known he admires some one else better educated and more attractive than I am.”“No, I think not,” I said, although at heart I felt that she spoke the truth. “This is merely a lover’s quarrel, and you’ll quickly make it up again. Look at the brighter side of things—come.”But she shook her head gloomily, saying—“Never. I feel confident that Dick will never come back to me, although—although I shall love him always,” and she raised her veil to wipe the hot tears from her cheeks.“No, no,” I exclaimed, endeavouring to comfort her, “don’t meet trouble half-way. That’s one of the secrets of happiness. We all of us have our little spasms of grief and despair sometimes, you know.”“Ah! yes, of course,” she cried quickly. “But this sorrow has, alas! not come alone. Still another misfortune has fallen upon me.”“What’s that?” I inquired, surprised.“My father!” she exclaimed huskily.“And what of him?” I asked. “I called upon him a short time ago. Surely nothing has happened to him?”“Well,” she replied, “it occurred like this. I got permission this day week to leave business at five o’clock, and, as usual, went home. When, however, I arrived at the shop I found it shut, and to my amazement a bailiff was in possession.”“For debt?” I inquired.“Yes. He showed me some papers, and said it would cost about four hundred pounds to settle both bill and costs of the court.”“And your father? What was his explanation?” I asked, greatly interested and surprised.“He wasn’t there,” she responded. “That’s the curious part about the whole affair. I made inquiries, and discovered that he had suddenly shut up the shop about noon three days before, and had gone off with a heavy trunk placed on a four-wheeled cab.”“Does no one know where he’s gone?”“Nobody,” she answered excitedly. “It’s so strange that he has not written me a single line in explanation. I can’t understand it.”I paused for a few moments, deeply puzzled.“From the fact that the bailiff was in possession it would appear that he had preferred flight to facing his creditors,” I said slowly. “Were you aware that he was in debt?”“Not in the least,” she answered. “He has some property abroad, you know.”“Where?”“In France, I think. He never spoke of it to any one, although I knew that the rent was remitted regularly by a draft on the Crédit Lyonnais in Pall Mall. I used to go there with him to receive the money. It was quite a pile of banknotes each quarter.”“Then he could not really have been so badly off as he appeared?” I observed.“No. He was eccentric, and very miserly, and although he always had enough and to spare he used constantly to deplore our poverty. I took a situation merely to satisfy him, as he had so often expressed regret that I should be idling at home. There was, however, absolutely no real necessity.”“But surely,” I said, “he has not intentionally left you alone in the world? He will write very soon. Perhaps just now he does not write for fear his whereabouts should become known. He’s evidently escaped his creditors. Has he been speculating, do you think?”“Not that I am aware of.”“Can’t you think of any reason why he should have fled so precipitately?” I asked, at the same time reflecting that it might be due to the fact that he had aroused the suspicions of the police by the illegal sale of drugs.“No,” she answered. “None whatever, beyond what I’ve already explained. His flight is an entire mystery, and it was to seek the advice of Dick, as my closest friend, that I called here. How had I best act, do you think?”“I really don’t know,” I replied, after some reflection. “His disappearance is certainly remarkable, but if he is in hiding, it is not at all strange that he should omit to write to you. He knows your address, therefore, when he deems it safe in his own interests to communicate with you and explain, he will do so, no doubt.”“Then I’m to wait in patience and see our home sold up?” she asked, tears again welling in her dark, luminous eyes.“You can do nothing else,” I said. “He evidently means that it should be sold, for he has made no attempt to rescue it.”“There are so many of my poor mother’s things there. I should so like to keep them—her little trinkets and such trifles. It seems very hard that they should be sold to a second-hand dealer.”“That’s so, but you have no means of rescuing them,” I pointed out. “It is certainly very hard indeed for you to be left alone and friendless like this, but without doubt your father has some reason in acting thus.”“He’s fled like some common thief,” she cried, with a choking sob. “And now I haven’t a single friend.”“I am your friend,” I said, echoing her sigh. “You have my sympathy, Lily, and if I can render you any service I shall always be ready to do so.”She thanked me warmly in a voice choked by sobs, for the two great sorrows had fallen upon her, and she was overwhelmed and broken.I promised I would speak to Dick, and if possible arrange a meeting between them, in order to try and effect a reconciliation. Inwardly, however, I knew that this was quite impossible, for he had really grown tired of her, and had more than once in the past few days openly congratulated himself upon his freedom. She remained a short time longer, and before she left had become more composed and was in better spirits.Then, when she shook my hand to go forth, she said—“I thank you so much for all your kind words, Mr Urwin. I have at least to-day found a real friend.”“I hope so,” I laughed. “Good-bye.”“Good-bye; I hope you’ll soon be about again.”Then the door closed and I was again alone.I was heartily sorry for her, poor girl. The sudden flight of the old herbalist was, to say the least suspicious. That he had money and could pay the debt was certain. Without doubt he had disappeared on account of a too close attention from the police. Morris Lowry was, I knew, not very remarkable for paternal affection, therefore I feared that he had, as Lily suspected, left her at the mercy of the world.A week later I was able to go down to my office again, and about six o’clock on the second day I had resumed my duties I accidentally met Boyd at the bottom of Fleet Street.As merry as usual, we drank together at theBodegabeneath the railway arch in Ludgate Hill, but in reply to my eager questions he told me that absolutely nothing fresh had transpired regarding the curious affair at Kensington. I explained that I was still a frequent visitor at Riverdene, but up to the present had discovered nothing. I, of course, did not tell him all my suspicions, preferring to keep my own counsel and allow him to prosecute his inquiries after his own method. From his conversation, however, I saw that he had many other matters in hand, and from his attitude it seemed as though he had given up hope of obtaining a clue to the mystery.On finishing our wine we rose from the barrel on which we had been sitting, and he having announced his intention to walk along to the bookstall in Ludgate Hill Station to buy a magazine for his wife—for he was just off home by motor-bus to Hammersmith—we strolled together through that short arcade leading to the station, at that hour crowded by hungry City men eager to get back to their suburban homes.Into every door they surged, springing up the two staircases to the platform above as though they had not a further moment to live, while every few seconds the deep voices of the ticket-collectors cried the names of the stations from the City to Blackheath or Victoria, or from Herne Hill down to Dover. Amid this black-coated, silk-hatted, perspiring crowd a man suddenly brushed past me, rushing up the stairs two steps at a time, slipping through the barrier just as the door was slammed, and disappearing on to the platform.“Hulloa!” cried Boyd, pressing my arm quickly. “See! Look at that man—the one with the bag, running up the steps. Do you see him?”“Yes,” I answered, myself confounded.“Well, that’s the fellow I saw in St. James’s Park, and who got away so neatly from Ebury Street—you remember?”“That man!” I gasped, utterly amazed.“Yes. We mustn’t lose sight of him this time. He can tell us something if he likes,” and without further word he dashed away after the man who had hurried to catch his train, leaving me standing alone in amazement.That man who had brushed past I had instantly recognised as none other than Henry Blain, who for so many weeks was supposed to have been in Paris.This fresh development was certainly both startling and mysterious.
Through several days I remained in bed, my limbs rigid, my senses bewildered.
Although we said nothing to Tweedie, Cleugh entirely shared my suspicion that if an attempt had actually been made upon my life it had been made at Riverdene. The doctor ran in several times each day, and Dick, assisted by old Mrs Joad, was as attentive to my wants as any trained nurse, snatching all the time he could spare from his duties to sit by me and gossip of men and things in Fleet Street, and the latest “scoop” of theComet.
Tweedie was puzzled. Each time he saw me he remarked upon my curious symptoms, carefully noting them and expressing wonder as to the exact nature of the deleterious substance. He pronounced the opinion that it was some alkaloid, for such it was shown by the reagents he had used in his analysis, but of what nature he was utterly at a loss to determine. Many were the questions he put to me as to what I had eaten on that day, and I explained how I had lunched at one of the restaurants in Fleet Street, and afterwards dined with friends at Laleham.
“You ate no sandwiches, or anything of that kind at station refreshment bars?” he asked, when he visited me one morning, in the vague idea, I suppose, that the poison might, after all, be a ptomaine.
“None,” I answered. “With the exception of what I told you, I had a glass of wine at the house of a friend at Hampton before rowing up to Laleham.”
“A glass of wine,” he repeated slowly, as if reflecting. “You noticed no peculiar taste in it? What was it—port?”
“Yes,” I replied. “An excellent wine it was, without any taste unusual.”
For the first time the recollection of that glass of wine given me by Eva at The Hollies came back to me. Surely she could not have deliberately given me a fatal draught?
“Often,” he said, “a substance which is poison to one person is harmless to another. If we could only discover what it really was which affected you, we might treat you for it and cure you much more rapidly. As matters rest, however, you must grow strong again by degrees, and thank Providence that you’re still alive. I confess when I first saw you, I thought you’d only a few minutes to live.”
“Was I so very bad?”
“As ill as you could be. You were cold and rigid, and looked as though you were already dead. In fact, any one but a doctor would, I believe, have pronounced life extinct. Your breath on a mirror alone showed respiration, although the heart’s movement was so weak as to be practically imperceptible. But don’t trouble further over it, you’ll be about soon,” and shortly afterwards he shook my hand and went on his way to the hospital, already late on my account.
I longed to tell him all the curious events of the past, but saw that such a course would be unwise. If I did so, Eva—the woman I adored—must be prematurely judged, first because of old Lowry’s revelations, and now secondly because of the suspicious fact of my illness after partaking of the wine she offered.
The idea that the attempt had been made upon me at Riverdene seemed very improbable, because I had dined in common with the other guests; the tea I had taken was poured from the same Queen Anne pot from which the cups of others were filled, and in the whisky-and-soda I had had before leaving I was joined by three other men who had rowed up from a house-boat about a quarter of a mile lower down.
As I lay there restless in my bed, trying vainly to read, I spent hours in recalling every event of that day, but could discover no suspicious circumstance other than that incident of the wine at The Hollies. I recollected how Eva after ringing for the servant and ordering it, had herself gone out into the dining-room, and had been absent a couple of minutes or so. Possibly she might only have gone there in order to unlock the cellarette, yet there were likewise, of course, other graver possibilities.
This thought which fastened upon my mind so tenaciously allowed me but little rest. I tried to rid myself of it, tried to scorn such an idea, tried to reason with myself how plain it was that she actually held me in some esteem, and if so she would certainly not seek to take my life in that cowardly, dastardly manner. Sometimes I felt that I misjudged her; at others grave suspicions haunted me. Yet withal my love for her never once wavered. She was my idol. Through those long, weary hours of prostration and convalescence I thought always of her—always.
I had written her a short note, saying that I was unwell and unable to go down to Riverdene, not, however, mentioning the cause of my illness, and in response there came in return a charmingly-worded little letter, expressing profound regret and hoping we should meet again very soon. A hundred times I read that note.
Was the thin, delicate hand that penned it the same that had endeavoured to take my life?
That was the sole question uppermost in my mind; a problem which racked my brain day by day, nay, hour by hour. But there was no solution. Thus was I compelled to exist in torturing suspicion, anxiety and uncertainty.
One hot afternoon I had risen for the first time, and was sitting among pillows in the armchair reading some magazines which Dick had thoughtfully brought me during the luncheon hour, when a timid knock sounded at the door. The Hag had left me to attend upon her other “young gentlemen” in the Temple, and I was alone. Therefore I rose and answered the summons, finding to my surprise that my visitor was Lily Lowry.
At once, at my invitation, she entered, a slim figure dressed in neat, if cheap, black, without any attempt at being fashionable, but with that primness and severity expected of lady’s-maids and shop-assistants. Her gloves were neat, her hat suited her well, and beneath her veil I saw a pretty face, pale, interesting and anxious-looking.
“I didn’t expect to find any one in, except Mrs Joad,” she said apologetically, as she took the chair I offered. Then, noticing my pillows, and perhaps the paleness of my countenance, she asked. “What? You are surely not ill, Mr Urwin?”
“Yes,” I answered. “I’ve been rather queer for a week past. The heat, or something of that sort, I suppose. Nothing at all serious.”
“I’m so glad of that,” she said. “I only called because I was passing. I’ve been matching some silk at the wholesale houses in the City, and as I wanted to give Mr Cleugh a message I thought I’d leave it with Mrs Joad.”
“A message?” I repeated. “Can I give it?”
She hesitated, and I saw that a slight blush suffused her cheeks.
“No,” she faltered. “You’re very kind, but perhaps, after all, it would be better to write to him.”
“As you like,” I said, smiling. “You don’t, of course, care to trust your secrets in my keeping—eh?”
She looked at me seriously for a moment, her lips quivered, and she drew a long breath.
“You’ve always been extremely kind,” she said in a low voice, half-choked with emotion. “And now that I find you alone, I feel impelled to confide in you and seek your advice.”
“I’m quite ready to offer any advice I can,” I answered, quickly interested. “If I can render you any assistance I will certainly do so with pleasure.”
“Ah!” she exclaimed, sighing again, “I knew you would. I am in trouble—in such terrible trouble.”
“What has happened?” I inquired quickly, for I saw how white and wan she was, and of course attributed it to Dick’s action in renouncing his pledge.
“You, of course, know that Mr Cleugh and I have parted,” she said, looking up at me quickly.
“He has told me so,” I responded gravely. “I regret very much to hear it. What is the reason?”
“Has he not told you?” she asked, her eyes filled with tears.
“No,” I answered. “He gave no reason.”
“Well,” she explained, “he has judged me wrongly. I am entirely innocent, I assure you. In a place of business like ours we are compelled to be on friendly terms with the male assistants, and the other evening, as I was leaving the shop to go to the house where we girls live, at the other end of Rye Lane, one of the men—an insufferable young fellow in the hosiery department—chanced to be going the same way and walked with me.
“On the way, Dick—Mr Cleugh, I mean—passed us, and now he declares that I’ve been in the habit of flirting with these men. It is not pleasant for any girl to walk alone along Rye Lane at ten o’clock at night, therefore this young fellow was only escorting me out of politeness. Yet I cannot make Dick believe otherwise than that he is my lover.”
“He’s jealous of you,” I said. “Is not jealousy an index of true love?”
“But if he loved me truly,” she protested, bursting into tears, “he surely would not treat me so cruelly as this. I’ve done nothing to warrant this denunciation as a worthless flirt—indeed, I haven’t.”
“And you love him?” I asked with deep sympathy, for I saw how intense was her suffering.
“He knows that I do,” she answered. “He could see but little of me because his work prevented him, yet I was supremely happy in the knowledge of his love. Yet now he has forsaken me,” she added, sobbing. “I’m but a poor girl, and I suppose if the truth were known he admires some one else better educated and more attractive than I am.”
“No, I think not,” I said, although at heart I felt that she spoke the truth. “This is merely a lover’s quarrel, and you’ll quickly make it up again. Look at the brighter side of things—come.”
But she shook her head gloomily, saying—
“Never. I feel confident that Dick will never come back to me, although—although I shall love him always,” and she raised her veil to wipe the hot tears from her cheeks.
“No, no,” I exclaimed, endeavouring to comfort her, “don’t meet trouble half-way. That’s one of the secrets of happiness. We all of us have our little spasms of grief and despair sometimes, you know.”
“Ah! yes, of course,” she cried quickly. “But this sorrow has, alas! not come alone. Still another misfortune has fallen upon me.”
“What’s that?” I inquired, surprised.
“My father!” she exclaimed huskily.
“And what of him?” I asked. “I called upon him a short time ago. Surely nothing has happened to him?”
“Well,” she replied, “it occurred like this. I got permission this day week to leave business at five o’clock, and, as usual, went home. When, however, I arrived at the shop I found it shut, and to my amazement a bailiff was in possession.”
“For debt?” I inquired.
“Yes. He showed me some papers, and said it would cost about four hundred pounds to settle both bill and costs of the court.”
“And your father? What was his explanation?” I asked, greatly interested and surprised.
“He wasn’t there,” she responded. “That’s the curious part about the whole affair. I made inquiries, and discovered that he had suddenly shut up the shop about noon three days before, and had gone off with a heavy trunk placed on a four-wheeled cab.”
“Does no one know where he’s gone?”
“Nobody,” she answered excitedly. “It’s so strange that he has not written me a single line in explanation. I can’t understand it.”
I paused for a few moments, deeply puzzled.
“From the fact that the bailiff was in possession it would appear that he had preferred flight to facing his creditors,” I said slowly. “Were you aware that he was in debt?”
“Not in the least,” she answered. “He has some property abroad, you know.”
“Where?”
“In France, I think. He never spoke of it to any one, although I knew that the rent was remitted regularly by a draft on the Crédit Lyonnais in Pall Mall. I used to go there with him to receive the money. It was quite a pile of banknotes each quarter.”
“Then he could not really have been so badly off as he appeared?” I observed.
“No. He was eccentric, and very miserly, and although he always had enough and to spare he used constantly to deplore our poverty. I took a situation merely to satisfy him, as he had so often expressed regret that I should be idling at home. There was, however, absolutely no real necessity.”
“But surely,” I said, “he has not intentionally left you alone in the world? He will write very soon. Perhaps just now he does not write for fear his whereabouts should become known. He’s evidently escaped his creditors. Has he been speculating, do you think?”
“Not that I am aware of.”
“Can’t you think of any reason why he should have fled so precipitately?” I asked, at the same time reflecting that it might be due to the fact that he had aroused the suspicions of the police by the illegal sale of drugs.
“No,” she answered. “None whatever, beyond what I’ve already explained. His flight is an entire mystery, and it was to seek the advice of Dick, as my closest friend, that I called here. How had I best act, do you think?”
“I really don’t know,” I replied, after some reflection. “His disappearance is certainly remarkable, but if he is in hiding, it is not at all strange that he should omit to write to you. He knows your address, therefore, when he deems it safe in his own interests to communicate with you and explain, he will do so, no doubt.”
“Then I’m to wait in patience and see our home sold up?” she asked, tears again welling in her dark, luminous eyes.
“You can do nothing else,” I said. “He evidently means that it should be sold, for he has made no attempt to rescue it.”
“There are so many of my poor mother’s things there. I should so like to keep them—her little trinkets and such trifles. It seems very hard that they should be sold to a second-hand dealer.”
“That’s so, but you have no means of rescuing them,” I pointed out. “It is certainly very hard indeed for you to be left alone and friendless like this, but without doubt your father has some reason in acting thus.”
“He’s fled like some common thief,” she cried, with a choking sob. “And now I haven’t a single friend.”
“I am your friend,” I said, echoing her sigh. “You have my sympathy, Lily, and if I can render you any service I shall always be ready to do so.”
She thanked me warmly in a voice choked by sobs, for the two great sorrows had fallen upon her, and she was overwhelmed and broken.
I promised I would speak to Dick, and if possible arrange a meeting between them, in order to try and effect a reconciliation. Inwardly, however, I knew that this was quite impossible, for he had really grown tired of her, and had more than once in the past few days openly congratulated himself upon his freedom. She remained a short time longer, and before she left had become more composed and was in better spirits.
Then, when she shook my hand to go forth, she said—
“I thank you so much for all your kind words, Mr Urwin. I have at least to-day found a real friend.”
“I hope so,” I laughed. “Good-bye.”
“Good-bye; I hope you’ll soon be about again.”
Then the door closed and I was again alone.
I was heartily sorry for her, poor girl. The sudden flight of the old herbalist was, to say the least suspicious. That he had money and could pay the debt was certain. Without doubt he had disappeared on account of a too close attention from the police. Morris Lowry was, I knew, not very remarkable for paternal affection, therefore I feared that he had, as Lily suspected, left her at the mercy of the world.
A week later I was able to go down to my office again, and about six o’clock on the second day I had resumed my duties I accidentally met Boyd at the bottom of Fleet Street.
As merry as usual, we drank together at theBodegabeneath the railway arch in Ludgate Hill, but in reply to my eager questions he told me that absolutely nothing fresh had transpired regarding the curious affair at Kensington. I explained that I was still a frequent visitor at Riverdene, but up to the present had discovered nothing. I, of course, did not tell him all my suspicions, preferring to keep my own counsel and allow him to prosecute his inquiries after his own method. From his conversation, however, I saw that he had many other matters in hand, and from his attitude it seemed as though he had given up hope of obtaining a clue to the mystery.
On finishing our wine we rose from the barrel on which we had been sitting, and he having announced his intention to walk along to the bookstall in Ludgate Hill Station to buy a magazine for his wife—for he was just off home by motor-bus to Hammersmith—we strolled together through that short arcade leading to the station, at that hour crowded by hungry City men eager to get back to their suburban homes.
Into every door they surged, springing up the two staircases to the platform above as though they had not a further moment to live, while every few seconds the deep voices of the ticket-collectors cried the names of the stations from the City to Blackheath or Victoria, or from Herne Hill down to Dover. Amid this black-coated, silk-hatted, perspiring crowd a man suddenly brushed past me, rushing up the stairs two steps at a time, slipping through the barrier just as the door was slammed, and disappearing on to the platform.
“Hulloa!” cried Boyd, pressing my arm quickly. “See! Look at that man—the one with the bag, running up the steps. Do you see him?”
“Yes,” I answered, myself confounded.
“Well, that’s the fellow I saw in St. James’s Park, and who got away so neatly from Ebury Street—you remember?”
“That man!” I gasped, utterly amazed.
“Yes. We mustn’t lose sight of him this time. He can tell us something if he likes,” and without further word he dashed away after the man who had hurried to catch his train, leaving me standing alone in amazement.
That man who had brushed past I had instantly recognised as none other than Henry Blain, who for so many weeks was supposed to have been in Paris.
This fresh development was certainly both startling and mysterious.
Chapter Seventeen.A Visit from Boyd.Without a second’s hesitation I rushed up the steps after Boyd, but on gaining the platform found that a train had just gone out, and was at that moment disappearing across the bridge over the Thames. The detective, known to the ticket-collector as a police-officer, had been allowed to pass the barrier, and had evidently caught the same train as Blain.There was certainly an element of deepest mystery in the fact that the unknown man who had kept the appointment in St. James’s Park, and had afterwards taken such elaborate precautions against being followed, should be revealed to be none other than the once purse-proud proprietor of Shenley. Quite apparent it was, too, that the object of Eva’s visit to the park was to meet him clandestinely, for what reason was a profound enigma. The more I revolved the strange events within my mind, the more absolutely bewildering they become.True, I had made certain discoveries—discoveries which, rather than tending to throw light on the real author of the crime or its motive, only, however, increased the enigma and enveloped the woman whom I had grown to love so fondly in an impenetrable veil of suspicion.Thoughts such as these filled my mind as, turning from the station in despair, I went back into the dust and turmoil of Fleet Street, crowded at that hour by tired thousands hurrying homeward. I loved Eva. Even though every proof I had obtained pointed to her complicity in the dastardly affair, she was still my idol. I thought daily, hourly, only of her, refusing always to suspect her, and endeavouring to convince myself that the truths I had elicited had no foundation in fact.Love is blind. When a man loves a woman as I loved Eva Glaslyn at that moment, nothing can turn aside his passion. I verily believe that if at that hour I had stood by and seen her in the dock at the Old Bailey, condemned as a murderess, my affection for her would have been none the less. I lived for her alone. She was all that was dearest in the world to me. Mary Blain had, no doubt, noticed my infatuation, yet she had said nothing, she herself being, I believed, in love with Dick. At least I could congratulate myself that we had mutually agreed to allow the past to fade from our remembrance.Nevertheless, when I thought of Eva, and told myself how passionate was my affection and how ardent my feelings towards her, the ogre of suspicion would sometimes arise and cause me to pause in my ecstatic dreamings. Had she not stiffened strangely, and refused to reciprocate my love? Had she not point-blank told me that we could never be more than friends? Had she not, indeed, herself hinted at her own guilt in that strange sentence which had fallen from her lips?As I passed up Fleet Street that evening, jostling with the crowd, I thought of these things, and was plunged into gloom and uncertainty. The statement of old Lowry was one of which I felt in duty bound to obtain proof. Yet how? He had declared that a woman exactly resembling her had purchased a certain drug which could be required for one purpose alone, while a secret attempt had been made to take my life—by whom I knew not. Sometimes, in moments of despair, I entertained deep suspicions of her, but always I found my love in the ascendancy, and ended by refusing to believe the evidence which I had so diligently and patiently collected.For months Scotland Yard had had the matter in hand, but discovering nothing, had allowed it to drop. Of course, in face of the statement made by the landlord of the house in Phillimore Place, Boyd was ever anxious to question Mrs Blain, but had wisely left this to me. And how had I succeeded? Only in making discoveries which, although startling in themselves, increased the mystery rather than solved it.Even at that moment the identity of the victims remained still unknown. They were lying in nameless graves in Abney Park Cemetery, having been buried by the parish. The Blains alone could give us information as to who they were and who was the unnamed scientist whose discovery was now creating such a stir throughout Europe. Curious it was that he did not come forward and claim the discovery as his own, for he must have read accounts of it in the papers. My own theory in this matter was that he was unable to communicate with the Royal Institution for one simple reason, namely, that he was dead—that he was the man whom we found lying lifeless with that strange mascot, the penny wrapped in paper, in his pocket.I walked along to Wellington Street, where I called in to see my friend Crutchley, one of the sub-editors of theMorning Post, who had just come on duty and was preparing for his night’s work. In the offices of the morning papers activity begins when tired London takes her ease, for their night is as day, until at dawn the staff, weary after hours of work by electric light in stifling rooms, go forth chilled and jaded to their homes to sleep while the world works. For half an hour I sat in his den, where the table was already piled with telegrams and flimsy, while he, with coat off, shirt-cuffs turned up, and a cigarette in his mouth, sighed, sharpened his big blue pencil, and, as he chatted, commenced to “slaughter” wordy descriptions by too eloquent reporters. The world wants news, not “gas,” is the motto of every working sub-editor. The public prefer facts without “padding,” and to cut out the latter is the duty of the man who, from the sub-editorial chair, decides upon what shall appear and what shall be omitted, a duty which requires the greatest care and judgment. When I left him I recollected that Dick had gone to some place down in Essex for theComet, and would not return to eat the diurnal steak in company. Therefore I wandered aimlessly along the Strand, and turned into a restaurant, afterwards spending the evening at the theatre.Nearly three weeks went by and I heard nothing of Boyd, although I had written to him. At nearly ten o’clock one night, however, when I had returned to Gray’s Inn alone, I found the detective standing in the half-light against the mantelpiece.“Bad luck the other night,” he said, after we had exchanged greetings.“What, didn’t you follow him?” I cried, surprised.“No, that’s the devil of it,” he exclaimed in a tone of bitter disappointment, sinking into a chair. “You’ll remember that that platform at Ludgate Hill is an island one, and just as I got through the barrier a train on the other side was moving off to Snow Hill and Moorgate Street, while one to Blackheath was just on the point of starting in the opposite direction. I, of course, jumped into the latter, feeling sure he’d be going out of town.”“And you found out your mistake too late?”“I examined all the carriages at Loughborough Junction, but there was no sign of him. He evidently took the other train.”“Unfortunate,” I answered, then sat for a few moments in calm reflection.“Unfortunate!” he echoed. “It’s more than that. We seem foredoomed to failure in this affair. I’ve had three men on the job ever since, but with no result. Even the ‘narks’ know nothing. But,” he added, “when I pointed him out you seemed to know him. Am I right?”I hesitated, wondering whether to tell him all the facts as I knew them and obtain his assistance in my further inquiries. It struck me that he, a professional investigator of crime, shrewd, clear-headed and acquainted with all the methods and subterfuges of evil-doers, might suggest some other means which had not occurred to me. I had hitherto been deterred from making any explanation of my discoveries and suspicions on account of my strong love for Eva, but now the idea took possession of me that if I explained the whole to Boyd and told him of my deep affection for her, we might work together, and perhaps at length obtain some solution of this most intricate of problems. I was sick with the giddiness of one who falls from some great height. I had lost my hold upon the dreams and hopes of life.“You’re quite right, Boyd,” I said, handing him the cigarettes. “I know that man.”“Who is he? He looks rather gentlemanly. That shabby get-up of his was a fake, I’m sure.”“Yes,” I responded. “He’s a man pretty well-to-do. His name is Blain, and he is the husband of Mrs Blain, whom, you recollect, is supposed to have taken the house in Phillimore Place.”The detective gave vent to an unwritable exclamation.“Blain!” he echoed, his face betraying a look of amazement, and pausing with a lighted vesta in his hand. “Well, that’s indeed a facer!” Then he added: “He must, in that case, know something of the matter as well as his wife.”At that moment there was a tap at the door of the sitting-room, and old Mrs Joad entered with a letter which, she said, had come by the last post and she had forgotten to give it to me.By the writing I saw it was from Eva, and eagerly read it. It was a brief note to say that her mother had been called away to her brother in Inverness, who was seriously ill, that The Hollies was closed, and that she had accepted an invitation to remain the guest of the Blains until Lady Glaslyn’s return.I handed the note to the detective without comment.“Well,” he exclaimed, looking up at me when he had read it, “there’s nothing very fishy about that, is there?”Then I recollected that he was in ignorance of my suspicions. Yet I loved Eva with all my soul and held back from placing any facts in the hands of this man who, with ruthless disregard for my affection or my feelings, would perhaps arrest her for complicity in the crime. And yet as I sat before him, watching his face through the blue haze of cigarette smoke, I felt impelled to seek his aid, for this tangled chain of recent events had utterly bewildered and unnerved me. I was not yet strong again after the strange seizure which had so puzzled the doctor, and a sense of gloom and despair had since overwhelmed me, arising perhaps from the constant suspicion that a secret attempt had been made upon my life.To remain longer in that state of uncertainty was impossible. I felt I should go mad if I did not make some further determined effort to ascertain the truth. Some one, whom I knew not, had attempted to kill me. And why? There could be but one reason. Because I had succeeded in placing myself upon the actual track of the assassin. An attempt, cowardly and dastardly, had been made upon me, therefore I had every right to seek the aid of the police to discover its author.This argument decided me, and casting my cigarette into the grate, I asked Boyd to give me his attention while I related to him all that I had discovered.In an instant his free-and-easy manner changed, and as I spoke he sat leaning towards me, attentively listening to every word, but hazarding no remark. Without attempting to conceal anything, I explained to him first of all my great love for the woman who was under such terrible suspicion, and then as I narrated our conversation when alone on the river, and repeated her curious response to my declaration of love, he knit his dark brows seriously and gave vent to a grunt indicative of doubt. He was no blunderer, this detective. Unlike the majority he was well-educated, speaking French and Italian fluently, an adept in the art of disguise, a man who formed very careful theories, and whose appearance was never that of an agent of police. One would rather have taken him for a well-to-do Jew, or perhaps some prosperous City man of foreign extraction, for his dark complexion and aquiline features gave him an un-English appearance, and his invariable spruceness in dress accounted for his success in following criminals, who never dreamed that the smart, well-dressed gentleman of perfect manner was actually an emissary from Scotland Yard. His knowledge of foreign languages had caused him to be entrusted with numbers of very important inquiries political and criminal, and in tracking the guilty he had paid flying visits to nearly all the Continental capitals.In his sharp eyes there was a strange glitter, I thought, as without interruption I told him what I knew. I advanced no theories whatever, but merely laid before him the plain unvarnished truth. Then, when I had finished, I said—“Now, first of all, recollect that whatever may be the result of our inquiries I will do no harm whatever to the woman I love. Understand that entirely.”“I quite understand,” he said gravely, speaking for the first time. “That’s only natural. But the difficulties in our way appear almost insurmountable.”“Well?” I asked anxiously, “what is your opinion, now that I have told you everything?”He shook his head, puffed thoughtfully at the fresh cigarette he had just lit, and then contemplated it thoughtfully.“I have no opinion at present,” he responded. “One might form half a dozen theories upon these facts, all equally wide of the mark.”“Then how are we to act?” I asked in dismay.He raised his dark eyebrow’s in gesture of bewilderment. Then he gazed gravely in my face.“Look here, Boyd,” I continued, “I love Eva Glaslyn, and to you I make no secret of it whatsoever. But at all hazards I mean to ascertain the truth.”“Even at the risk of convicting her?” he inquired, looking across at me quickly.“Convicting her!” I echoed. “Then you really entertain the same suspicion as myself?”“We may have suspicions without forming any theories,” he responded calmly. Then he added, in a tone of regret, “It’s certainly a thousand pities that you love her.”“Why?”“Upon your own showing she appears to have very little regard for you.”“How?”“Well,” he answered slowly, “there’s no doubt that the other day an attempt was made upon your life.”“And you suspect her?”“We can suspect no one else,” he answered.“According to that old herbalist’s statement she had purchased a certain drug of him. What could an innocent young lady require with this unnamed drug if not to administer it to some one she wanted to get rid of?”“But she has no object in ridding herself of me,” I urged.“Of that I’m not quite so sure, my dear fellow,” he observed, after a brief pause. “Recollect that on the morning when she went to St. James’s Park in order to meet, for some mysterious purpose, the man whom we now know was old Mr Blain, she met you face to face. We have no idea what her actions were previously, but she may have believed that you had been spying upon her; therefore, on recognising you when you were formally introduced at Riverdene, she conceived a plan for getting you out of the way. It was with that object very possibly that she made the secret purchase at the herbalist’s.”“No, Boyd, I can’t believe it of her,” I said quickly. “I won’t believe it!”“Very well,” he said in the same calm tone as before. “But there’s still another fact extremely puzzling, and that is why this man Lowry should have left in such a hurry. I must inquire at the Carter Street Police-Station, the district wherein he lived, and see whether there was anything against him. By the way,” he added, “does your friend Cleugh know the whole of these facts you’ve explained to me?”“No, not the whole—only some.”“Does he know that you’ve declared your love to Lady Glaslyn’s daughter and been refused?”“No.”“Then don’t tell him,” said the detective.“I believe that the reason of his sudden weariness of Lily Lowry’s society is due to the fact that he loves Mary Blain.”“All the more reason, then, why he should in future remain in entire ignorance of whatever facts we may elicit.”Then he paused, furiously consuming his cigarette and taking a long draught of the whisky-and-soda I had mixed and placed at his elbow.“This is really a most remarkable mystery, Urwin,” he exclaimed at length, twisting the plain gold ring upon his finger, a habit of his when pondering deeply. “There seem a thousand complications. It’s absolutely the most astounding case that I’ve ever had in hand. Even Shaw, our superintendent at the Yard, a man whose deep-rooted conviction is that we never need fail if we really take an interest in an inquiry, acknowledged to me the other day that he could see no way to a clue. Of course, we might question Mrs Blain, or even arrest Blain himself on suspicion if we could find him again. But whoever is guilty has taken such careful precautions to obliterate every trace of a clue that both the superintendent and myself are agreed that the interrogation of either of the Blains would only result in defeating our ends.” That was exactly my own opinion. I had many times wondered why the police had not made inquiries of Mrs Blain on account of the statement by the landlord at Kensington, but it was now plain that the Director of Criminal Investigations, the greyheaded, loud-voiced, old gentleman whom I knew quite well at Scotland Yard, had decided otherwise.“But why are you so anxious that my friend Cleugh should remain in ignorance of our movements?” I inquired.“You say that he loves Mary Blain,” answered Boyd. “He might in that case drop some unintentional hint to her of the direction of our inquiries. This matter, to be successful, must be entirely a secret between ourselves—you understand? To-day we’ve made a discovery—the identity of the man who threw some object into the lake—and it puts a rather fresh complexion upon the affair, even though it further complicates it considerably. You said that his wife has all along told you that her husband was in Paris—I think?”“Yes,” I responded. “She said he was there in connexion with some company which he was trying to promote.”“And all along he has been in London—in hiding.”“He may have just returned from Paris,” I suggested. “Recollect that I’ve not been to Riverdene for some little time.”“No, my dear fellow,” Boyd said. “His ingenuity in eluding us in Ebury Street showed that he had already prepared a snug hiding-place for himself before that tragedy at Phillimore Place. Besides, the other evening his clothes showed an attempt at disguise—didn’t they?”“Certainly. He’s very smartly dressed always; indeed, rather a fop in his way.”“Depend upon it that he’s never dared to set foot outside London all this time. He knows well enough that the Metropolis is the safest place in the whole world in which a criminal may conceal himself. Only a bungler attempts to get away abroad.”Silence again fell between us. The quiet was unbroken save for the slow ticking of the clock upon the mantelshelf. Of a sudden, with a rather curious glance, he bent forward to me, eagerly saying—“Now in this affair we must be perfectly candid with each other. You must conceal nothing from me.”“I have concealed nothing,” I protested, surprised at his curious attitude, as though he held me in some suspicion.“I don’t allege that you have,” he answered. “But I want you to answer truthfully a question which is of highest importance. I want you to tell me whether, on the afternoon of the day you were called by Patterson to Kensington, your friend Cleugh was here, at home.”“No, he certainly wasn’t. I arrived home first, and he came in perhaps ten minutes or a quarter of an hour later than usual,” I answered, wondering what connexion this could have with the inquiry.“And after you made the discovery you did not telegraph or communicate with him in any way? I take it that you were surprised to meet him in that house.”“Certainly I was,” I responded. “But he had an appointment with Lily Lowry, and finding that she could not keep it, he came along to Kensington to ascertain the nature of the event about which Patterson had wired to me.”The detective’s features relaxed into a strange smile.“Would you be surprised then to know that your friend never called at the Police-Station on that evening, but went straight to Phillimore Place and there joined me while you were absent inquiring of the neighbours? That very evening I inquired of the constable on duty at the door of the station, and of others, all of whom told me that no one had called to inquire for Patterson except yourself.”“That’s certainly extraordinary,” I said in wonderment.“Yes,” he observed mechanically. “It’s a very curious fact; one which appears to prove that he knew something more of the mysterious occurrence than he has admitted—in fact, that he was aware of it long before we were.”“What!” I gasped, gazing at my companion in alarm. “Surely you don’t mean that you suspect Dick of having had any hand in the affair?”Then, at that instant, I recollected how, when I had received the telegram on that memorable evening, his face had suddenly changed, and his hand had trembled.
Without a second’s hesitation I rushed up the steps after Boyd, but on gaining the platform found that a train had just gone out, and was at that moment disappearing across the bridge over the Thames. The detective, known to the ticket-collector as a police-officer, had been allowed to pass the barrier, and had evidently caught the same train as Blain.
There was certainly an element of deepest mystery in the fact that the unknown man who had kept the appointment in St. James’s Park, and had afterwards taken such elaborate precautions against being followed, should be revealed to be none other than the once purse-proud proprietor of Shenley. Quite apparent it was, too, that the object of Eva’s visit to the park was to meet him clandestinely, for what reason was a profound enigma. The more I revolved the strange events within my mind, the more absolutely bewildering they become.
True, I had made certain discoveries—discoveries which, rather than tending to throw light on the real author of the crime or its motive, only, however, increased the enigma and enveloped the woman whom I had grown to love so fondly in an impenetrable veil of suspicion.
Thoughts such as these filled my mind as, turning from the station in despair, I went back into the dust and turmoil of Fleet Street, crowded at that hour by tired thousands hurrying homeward. I loved Eva. Even though every proof I had obtained pointed to her complicity in the dastardly affair, she was still my idol. I thought daily, hourly, only of her, refusing always to suspect her, and endeavouring to convince myself that the truths I had elicited had no foundation in fact.
Love is blind. When a man loves a woman as I loved Eva Glaslyn at that moment, nothing can turn aside his passion. I verily believe that if at that hour I had stood by and seen her in the dock at the Old Bailey, condemned as a murderess, my affection for her would have been none the less. I lived for her alone. She was all that was dearest in the world to me. Mary Blain had, no doubt, noticed my infatuation, yet she had said nothing, she herself being, I believed, in love with Dick. At least I could congratulate myself that we had mutually agreed to allow the past to fade from our remembrance.
Nevertheless, when I thought of Eva, and told myself how passionate was my affection and how ardent my feelings towards her, the ogre of suspicion would sometimes arise and cause me to pause in my ecstatic dreamings. Had she not stiffened strangely, and refused to reciprocate my love? Had she not point-blank told me that we could never be more than friends? Had she not, indeed, herself hinted at her own guilt in that strange sentence which had fallen from her lips?
As I passed up Fleet Street that evening, jostling with the crowd, I thought of these things, and was plunged into gloom and uncertainty. The statement of old Lowry was one of which I felt in duty bound to obtain proof. Yet how? He had declared that a woman exactly resembling her had purchased a certain drug which could be required for one purpose alone, while a secret attempt had been made to take my life—by whom I knew not. Sometimes, in moments of despair, I entertained deep suspicions of her, but always I found my love in the ascendancy, and ended by refusing to believe the evidence which I had so diligently and patiently collected.
For months Scotland Yard had had the matter in hand, but discovering nothing, had allowed it to drop. Of course, in face of the statement made by the landlord of the house in Phillimore Place, Boyd was ever anxious to question Mrs Blain, but had wisely left this to me. And how had I succeeded? Only in making discoveries which, although startling in themselves, increased the mystery rather than solved it.
Even at that moment the identity of the victims remained still unknown. They were lying in nameless graves in Abney Park Cemetery, having been buried by the parish. The Blains alone could give us information as to who they were and who was the unnamed scientist whose discovery was now creating such a stir throughout Europe. Curious it was that he did not come forward and claim the discovery as his own, for he must have read accounts of it in the papers. My own theory in this matter was that he was unable to communicate with the Royal Institution for one simple reason, namely, that he was dead—that he was the man whom we found lying lifeless with that strange mascot, the penny wrapped in paper, in his pocket.
I walked along to Wellington Street, where I called in to see my friend Crutchley, one of the sub-editors of theMorning Post, who had just come on duty and was preparing for his night’s work. In the offices of the morning papers activity begins when tired London takes her ease, for their night is as day, until at dawn the staff, weary after hours of work by electric light in stifling rooms, go forth chilled and jaded to their homes to sleep while the world works. For half an hour I sat in his den, where the table was already piled with telegrams and flimsy, while he, with coat off, shirt-cuffs turned up, and a cigarette in his mouth, sighed, sharpened his big blue pencil, and, as he chatted, commenced to “slaughter” wordy descriptions by too eloquent reporters. The world wants news, not “gas,” is the motto of every working sub-editor. The public prefer facts without “padding,” and to cut out the latter is the duty of the man who, from the sub-editorial chair, decides upon what shall appear and what shall be omitted, a duty which requires the greatest care and judgment. When I left him I recollected that Dick had gone to some place down in Essex for theComet, and would not return to eat the diurnal steak in company. Therefore I wandered aimlessly along the Strand, and turned into a restaurant, afterwards spending the evening at the theatre.
Nearly three weeks went by and I heard nothing of Boyd, although I had written to him. At nearly ten o’clock one night, however, when I had returned to Gray’s Inn alone, I found the detective standing in the half-light against the mantelpiece.
“Bad luck the other night,” he said, after we had exchanged greetings.
“What, didn’t you follow him?” I cried, surprised.
“No, that’s the devil of it,” he exclaimed in a tone of bitter disappointment, sinking into a chair. “You’ll remember that that platform at Ludgate Hill is an island one, and just as I got through the barrier a train on the other side was moving off to Snow Hill and Moorgate Street, while one to Blackheath was just on the point of starting in the opposite direction. I, of course, jumped into the latter, feeling sure he’d be going out of town.”
“And you found out your mistake too late?”
“I examined all the carriages at Loughborough Junction, but there was no sign of him. He evidently took the other train.”
“Unfortunate,” I answered, then sat for a few moments in calm reflection.
“Unfortunate!” he echoed. “It’s more than that. We seem foredoomed to failure in this affair. I’ve had three men on the job ever since, but with no result. Even the ‘narks’ know nothing. But,” he added, “when I pointed him out you seemed to know him. Am I right?”
I hesitated, wondering whether to tell him all the facts as I knew them and obtain his assistance in my further inquiries. It struck me that he, a professional investigator of crime, shrewd, clear-headed and acquainted with all the methods and subterfuges of evil-doers, might suggest some other means which had not occurred to me. I had hitherto been deterred from making any explanation of my discoveries and suspicions on account of my strong love for Eva, but now the idea took possession of me that if I explained the whole to Boyd and told him of my deep affection for her, we might work together, and perhaps at length obtain some solution of this most intricate of problems. I was sick with the giddiness of one who falls from some great height. I had lost my hold upon the dreams and hopes of life.
“You’re quite right, Boyd,” I said, handing him the cigarettes. “I know that man.”
“Who is he? He looks rather gentlemanly. That shabby get-up of his was a fake, I’m sure.”
“Yes,” I responded. “He’s a man pretty well-to-do. His name is Blain, and he is the husband of Mrs Blain, whom, you recollect, is supposed to have taken the house in Phillimore Place.”
The detective gave vent to an unwritable exclamation.
“Blain!” he echoed, his face betraying a look of amazement, and pausing with a lighted vesta in his hand. “Well, that’s indeed a facer!” Then he added: “He must, in that case, know something of the matter as well as his wife.”
At that moment there was a tap at the door of the sitting-room, and old Mrs Joad entered with a letter which, she said, had come by the last post and she had forgotten to give it to me.
By the writing I saw it was from Eva, and eagerly read it. It was a brief note to say that her mother had been called away to her brother in Inverness, who was seriously ill, that The Hollies was closed, and that she had accepted an invitation to remain the guest of the Blains until Lady Glaslyn’s return.
I handed the note to the detective without comment.
“Well,” he exclaimed, looking up at me when he had read it, “there’s nothing very fishy about that, is there?”
Then I recollected that he was in ignorance of my suspicions. Yet I loved Eva with all my soul and held back from placing any facts in the hands of this man who, with ruthless disregard for my affection or my feelings, would perhaps arrest her for complicity in the crime. And yet as I sat before him, watching his face through the blue haze of cigarette smoke, I felt impelled to seek his aid, for this tangled chain of recent events had utterly bewildered and unnerved me. I was not yet strong again after the strange seizure which had so puzzled the doctor, and a sense of gloom and despair had since overwhelmed me, arising perhaps from the constant suspicion that a secret attempt had been made upon my life.
To remain longer in that state of uncertainty was impossible. I felt I should go mad if I did not make some further determined effort to ascertain the truth. Some one, whom I knew not, had attempted to kill me. And why? There could be but one reason. Because I had succeeded in placing myself upon the actual track of the assassin. An attempt, cowardly and dastardly, had been made upon me, therefore I had every right to seek the aid of the police to discover its author.
This argument decided me, and casting my cigarette into the grate, I asked Boyd to give me his attention while I related to him all that I had discovered.
In an instant his free-and-easy manner changed, and as I spoke he sat leaning towards me, attentively listening to every word, but hazarding no remark. Without attempting to conceal anything, I explained to him first of all my great love for the woman who was under such terrible suspicion, and then as I narrated our conversation when alone on the river, and repeated her curious response to my declaration of love, he knit his dark brows seriously and gave vent to a grunt indicative of doubt. He was no blunderer, this detective. Unlike the majority he was well-educated, speaking French and Italian fluently, an adept in the art of disguise, a man who formed very careful theories, and whose appearance was never that of an agent of police. One would rather have taken him for a well-to-do Jew, or perhaps some prosperous City man of foreign extraction, for his dark complexion and aquiline features gave him an un-English appearance, and his invariable spruceness in dress accounted for his success in following criminals, who never dreamed that the smart, well-dressed gentleman of perfect manner was actually an emissary from Scotland Yard. His knowledge of foreign languages had caused him to be entrusted with numbers of very important inquiries political and criminal, and in tracking the guilty he had paid flying visits to nearly all the Continental capitals.
In his sharp eyes there was a strange glitter, I thought, as without interruption I told him what I knew. I advanced no theories whatever, but merely laid before him the plain unvarnished truth. Then, when I had finished, I said—
“Now, first of all, recollect that whatever may be the result of our inquiries I will do no harm whatever to the woman I love. Understand that entirely.”
“I quite understand,” he said gravely, speaking for the first time. “That’s only natural. But the difficulties in our way appear almost insurmountable.”
“Well?” I asked anxiously, “what is your opinion, now that I have told you everything?”
He shook his head, puffed thoughtfully at the fresh cigarette he had just lit, and then contemplated it thoughtfully.
“I have no opinion at present,” he responded. “One might form half a dozen theories upon these facts, all equally wide of the mark.”
“Then how are we to act?” I asked in dismay.
He raised his dark eyebrow’s in gesture of bewilderment. Then he gazed gravely in my face.
“Look here, Boyd,” I continued, “I love Eva Glaslyn, and to you I make no secret of it whatsoever. But at all hazards I mean to ascertain the truth.”
“Even at the risk of convicting her?” he inquired, looking across at me quickly.
“Convicting her!” I echoed. “Then you really entertain the same suspicion as myself?”
“We may have suspicions without forming any theories,” he responded calmly. Then he added, in a tone of regret, “It’s certainly a thousand pities that you love her.”
“Why?”
“Upon your own showing she appears to have very little regard for you.”
“How?”
“Well,” he answered slowly, “there’s no doubt that the other day an attempt was made upon your life.”
“And you suspect her?”
“We can suspect no one else,” he answered.
“According to that old herbalist’s statement she had purchased a certain drug of him. What could an innocent young lady require with this unnamed drug if not to administer it to some one she wanted to get rid of?”
“But she has no object in ridding herself of me,” I urged.
“Of that I’m not quite so sure, my dear fellow,” he observed, after a brief pause. “Recollect that on the morning when she went to St. James’s Park in order to meet, for some mysterious purpose, the man whom we now know was old Mr Blain, she met you face to face. We have no idea what her actions were previously, but she may have believed that you had been spying upon her; therefore, on recognising you when you were formally introduced at Riverdene, she conceived a plan for getting you out of the way. It was with that object very possibly that she made the secret purchase at the herbalist’s.”
“No, Boyd, I can’t believe it of her,” I said quickly. “I won’t believe it!”
“Very well,” he said in the same calm tone as before. “But there’s still another fact extremely puzzling, and that is why this man Lowry should have left in such a hurry. I must inquire at the Carter Street Police-Station, the district wherein he lived, and see whether there was anything against him. By the way,” he added, “does your friend Cleugh know the whole of these facts you’ve explained to me?”
“No, not the whole—only some.”
“Does he know that you’ve declared your love to Lady Glaslyn’s daughter and been refused?”
“No.”
“Then don’t tell him,” said the detective.
“I believe that the reason of his sudden weariness of Lily Lowry’s society is due to the fact that he loves Mary Blain.”
“All the more reason, then, why he should in future remain in entire ignorance of whatever facts we may elicit.”
Then he paused, furiously consuming his cigarette and taking a long draught of the whisky-and-soda I had mixed and placed at his elbow.
“This is really a most remarkable mystery, Urwin,” he exclaimed at length, twisting the plain gold ring upon his finger, a habit of his when pondering deeply. “There seem a thousand complications. It’s absolutely the most astounding case that I’ve ever had in hand. Even Shaw, our superintendent at the Yard, a man whose deep-rooted conviction is that we never need fail if we really take an interest in an inquiry, acknowledged to me the other day that he could see no way to a clue. Of course, we might question Mrs Blain, or even arrest Blain himself on suspicion if we could find him again. But whoever is guilty has taken such careful precautions to obliterate every trace of a clue that both the superintendent and myself are agreed that the interrogation of either of the Blains would only result in defeating our ends.” That was exactly my own opinion. I had many times wondered why the police had not made inquiries of Mrs Blain on account of the statement by the landlord at Kensington, but it was now plain that the Director of Criminal Investigations, the greyheaded, loud-voiced, old gentleman whom I knew quite well at Scotland Yard, had decided otherwise.
“But why are you so anxious that my friend Cleugh should remain in ignorance of our movements?” I inquired.
“You say that he loves Mary Blain,” answered Boyd. “He might in that case drop some unintentional hint to her of the direction of our inquiries. This matter, to be successful, must be entirely a secret between ourselves—you understand? To-day we’ve made a discovery—the identity of the man who threw some object into the lake—and it puts a rather fresh complexion upon the affair, even though it further complicates it considerably. You said that his wife has all along told you that her husband was in Paris—I think?”
“Yes,” I responded. “She said he was there in connexion with some company which he was trying to promote.”
“And all along he has been in London—in hiding.”
“He may have just returned from Paris,” I suggested. “Recollect that I’ve not been to Riverdene for some little time.”
“No, my dear fellow,” Boyd said. “His ingenuity in eluding us in Ebury Street showed that he had already prepared a snug hiding-place for himself before that tragedy at Phillimore Place. Besides, the other evening his clothes showed an attempt at disguise—didn’t they?”
“Certainly. He’s very smartly dressed always; indeed, rather a fop in his way.”
“Depend upon it that he’s never dared to set foot outside London all this time. He knows well enough that the Metropolis is the safest place in the whole world in which a criminal may conceal himself. Only a bungler attempts to get away abroad.”
Silence again fell between us. The quiet was unbroken save for the slow ticking of the clock upon the mantelshelf. Of a sudden, with a rather curious glance, he bent forward to me, eagerly saying—
“Now in this affair we must be perfectly candid with each other. You must conceal nothing from me.”
“I have concealed nothing,” I protested, surprised at his curious attitude, as though he held me in some suspicion.
“I don’t allege that you have,” he answered. “But I want you to answer truthfully a question which is of highest importance. I want you to tell me whether, on the afternoon of the day you were called by Patterson to Kensington, your friend Cleugh was here, at home.”
“No, he certainly wasn’t. I arrived home first, and he came in perhaps ten minutes or a quarter of an hour later than usual,” I answered, wondering what connexion this could have with the inquiry.
“And after you made the discovery you did not telegraph or communicate with him in any way? I take it that you were surprised to meet him in that house.”
“Certainly I was,” I responded. “But he had an appointment with Lily Lowry, and finding that she could not keep it, he came along to Kensington to ascertain the nature of the event about which Patterson had wired to me.”
The detective’s features relaxed into a strange smile.
“Would you be surprised then to know that your friend never called at the Police-Station on that evening, but went straight to Phillimore Place and there joined me while you were absent inquiring of the neighbours? That very evening I inquired of the constable on duty at the door of the station, and of others, all of whom told me that no one had called to inquire for Patterson except yourself.”
“That’s certainly extraordinary,” I said in wonderment.
“Yes,” he observed mechanically. “It’s a very curious fact; one which appears to prove that he knew something more of the mysterious occurrence than he has admitted—in fact, that he was aware of it long before we were.”
“What!” I gasped, gazing at my companion in alarm. “Surely you don’t mean that you suspect Dick of having had any hand in the affair?”
Then, at that instant, I recollected how, when I had received the telegram on that memorable evening, his face had suddenly changed, and his hand had trembled.
Chapter Eighteen.“You will never Know—Never!”Dick returned about eleven, and shortly afterwards Boyd swallowed another whisky-and-soda and left.I thought my friend started slightly at finding the detective with me, but he betrayed not the slightest annoyance. Indeed, he himself started the discussion regarding the mystery, appearing in no way loth to discuss it in all its phases.The detective’s suspicion was certainly a startling one, and of course accounted for his anxiety that Dick should in future remain in utter ignorance of our actions. When Boyd had gone he at once commenced to question me upon what theories he had expressed, and in what direction he was prosecuting inquiries. Although I would not allow myself to suspect my best friend, I nevertheless preserved the silence which Boyd had imposed upon me, evading giving him direct answers, preserving the secret of the identity of the man seen in St. James’s Park, and managing to put aside his questions by a declaration that personally I was sick of the whole matter, for I felt that it would now ever remain a mystery.That night, however, I remained awake many hours thinking fondly of Eva, and calmly revolving in my mind all that had fallen from the lips of Boyd. He, one of the most skilful officers in London, had formed no theory. He only entertained certain suspicions, vague perhaps, yet by no means groundless. I had not seen Eva since that day when the strange, incomprehensible attempt had been made to take my life, and a strong desire again possessed me to stroll at her side, to hear her voice, to hold her hand. Was it, I wondered time after time, that hand, so soft, slim and delicate, that had actually attempted to secretly take my life?The detective had calmly reviewed all the facts I had explained, and, as a professional investigator of crime, had openly expressed a suspicion in the affirmative.Often had I wondered what kind of woman was Eva’s mother, whom I had never met. That she was somewhat eccentric was evident from her daughter’s words on the last occasion I had visited Riverdene. I lay there thinking of Eva, scouting every suspicion which the detective’s words had aroused within me, until with the first streak of dawn I fell asleep and dreamed of her.Next afternoon, without mentioning anything to Dick save the sending of a telegram to say I should not dine at home, I left my office half an hour earlier, and full of conflicting thoughts travelled down to Riverdene.Having been informed by the servant that Mrs Blain and Miss Mary were absent in London shopping, but that Miss Glaslyn was at home, I was shown into the long, pleasant drawing-room which opened upon the wide lawn sloping to the river’s brink. The great bowls of cut flowers diffused a pleasant odour, and the books and papers lying in the cosy-corner, with its soft cushions of pale-blue silk, betrayed signs of recent occupation.It was a low-ceilinged, comfortable apartment, cool and restful after the dust and glare of the white road outside.In a few moments the door opened and Eva entered, fresh and charming in a cool dress of cream flannel, her sweet face illumined by a smile of glad welcome.“This is quite an unexpected pleasure, Mr Urwin!” she exclaimed, rushing towards me gladly with outstretched hand. “I had no idea that you’d come down to-day. The Blains are up in town, you know. I should have gone, only I had a rather bad headache. We went up to Windsor yesterday with the Thurleys on their launch, and I suppose the sun upset me. It was unbearably hot.”“Why do you persist in calling me Mr Urwin?” I asked in a rather reproachful tone, still retaining possession of her hand. “Cannot you call me Frank?”She blushed slightly, and drew her hand forcibly away. Then motioning me to a seat she cast herself into a low armchair near me, stretching forth her tiny foot, neat in its silk stocking and patent leather shoe. She made no response to my suggestion, so I repeated it.“Why should I call you by your Christian name?” she asked.“Because I call you by yours, Eva,” I answered earnestly. “I really can’t bear this persistent formality.”She smiled, a rather curious smile it was, I thought.“So you’re staying as guest here?” I went on, after a moment’s pause.“Yes,” she explained. “My Uncle Henry, in Inverness, is very ill and not expected to live; therefore they summoned mother by telegraph, with other members of the family. As the servants have had no holiday this year, she sent them away for a fortnight and closed the house, Mrs Blain having invited me here.”“Have you heard from your mother?”“Yes, I had a wire yesterday to say that she had arrived, safely,” she answered, not, however, without a second’s hesitation, as though she were debating whether or no to tell me the truth.“And Mr Blain has not returned from Paris yet?” I asked.“No,” she responded. “The Blains are talking of joining him next week, or perhaps the week after, and have invited me to accompany them. I should be delighted, for I love Paris.”“You find the shops interesting?” I laughed.“Yes,” she answered. “All women do, I suppose. At least I’ve met very few who, having been in Paris, haven’t hunted for bargains at the Louvre, the Printemps, or the Bon Marché. Paris is worth visiting if only for one’s hats, for you can often buy a hat for twenty francs exactly the same style and of better material than that for which you pay three or four guineas in Regent Street.”“I’m not much of an expert in such things,” I laughed, nevertheless recollecting how curious it was that Blain remained still in London. Might not his wife and daughter have gone up that day to visit him in his hiding-place?“But you’ve been awfully queer, I hear,” she said concernedly. “You really don’t look quite yourself even now. What has been the matter? We were all so concerned when we heard about it.”Our eyes met. In hers there was a deep, earnest look as though she were really solicitous of my welfare, yet I fancied somehow that those clear blue eyes wavered beneath my steady, searching glance. She watched me, reading me as easily as she would have read black letters on a white page.“I was taken suddenly ill—the heat perhaps,” I answered with affected carelessness. “I had run down, the doctor said. It was nothing very serious.” She gave vent to a perceptible sigh of relief, then smiling sweetly as she ever did, said: “Well, it is indeed a pleasure to welcome you here again to-day.” She still wore that brooch, the quaint little playing-card which had betrayed her visit to Morris Lowry. Its sight sent a strange thrill through me, for I remembered the object of her visit to that dark, dirty, obscure herbalist’s.“The pleasure is mutual, believe me, Eva,” I answered, putting away from me instantly the gruesome thought oppressing me. “Through this whole month I have thought only of you.”She sighed, in an instant serious. Then glancing back to assure herself that there were no eavesdroppers, she said, “It would be far better, Mr Urwin—Frank—if you could leave me and forget.”“But I can’t,” I said, rising quickly and again taking her soft white hand. “You know, Eva, how deeply, how sincerely, how devotedly I love you; how I am entirely yours for ever.”I spoke simply and directly what I felt; I was calmer than I had been when I rowed her beneath the willows’ shade.“Ah, no!” she cried in a pained voice, rising to her feet with sudden resolution. “You really must not say this. I will not let you sacrifice yourself. I will not allow you to thus—”“It is no sacrifice,” I protested, quickly interrupting. “I love you, Eva, with all my soul. One woman alone in all the world holds me beneath the spell of her grace, her charm and her sweetness. It is yourself. Every hour I think only of you; ever before me your face rises in my day-dreams, and in those moments when I see your sweet smiles I tell myself that no other woman can ever have a place in my heart. Ah! you cannot know how fondly I love you,” I said, raising the hand tenderly to my lips and imprinting a kiss upon it. “If you could only know you would never treat me with this cold, calm indifference.”Her bosom rose and fell slowly, and she was silent. I fancied that she shuddered slightly.At that moment my position struck me as an extremely strange one, declaring love to one whom an expert detective suspected of having made a cowardly attempt upon my life. Was it just? I asked myself. Yes, in this I was justified, for I loved her, even though I had more than once been inclined to agree with Boyd in his misgivings.“I was not aware of any indifference,” she faltered at last, raising her great eyes, so clear and earnest, for an instant to mine. “I had merely urged you to reflect.”“Reflection is unnecessary,” I answered quickly. “I know that I love you truly. That surely is sufficient.”“It might be if I were free,” she responded in a low, hoarse voice. “But I tell you to-day, Frank, as I told you before, this love dream of ours is impossible of realisation.”“Then you do reciprocate my love?” I cried, in joyous eagerness. “Come, tell me. Do not keep me longer in suspense.”“I have already told you,” she answered in a low, intense voice. “Of what use is it to continue this painful discussion?”“Of every use,” I cried in desperation. “Give me one word of hope, Eva. Tell me that some day you will try and love me better than you do now; that some day in the future you will become my wife. Tell me—”“No! no!” she cried, snatching her hand away and receding from me. “No, Frank, I cannot—I will not lie to you.”“Then can you never love me—never?” I cried despairingly.“Never,” she answered hoarsely, and her answer struck deep into my heart. “I have sinned—sinned before God and before man—and love no longer knows a place in my heart,” and her fine head was bowed before me.“Sinned!” I gasped. “What do you mean?”“I am as a social leper,” she panted, raising her head and looking at me with wild, unnatural gaze. “If you knew the dark and awful truth you would shun me rather than kiss my hand. Yet you say you love me—you! who would have so great a cause to hate me if you knew the ghastly truth!”“But,” I cried, wondering at these strange words, and with my suspicions again aroused, “I do love you, nevertheless, Eva. I shall always love you, I swear it, for my very life is yours.”“Your life!” she echoed in a weird, harsh voice, as she stood, pale-faced, swaying before me, her hands clasped to her breast, her lips cold and white. “Yes,” she said, in a strange, half-hysterical tone. “Yes, it is true, too true, alas! that your future is in my hands. Only by a miracle have you come back to life, a grim shadow of a crime to taunt, to defy, to denounce. Ah! Frank, you do not know the terrible truth; you will never know—never!”I was bewildered. Horror possessed me. The darkness of an irreversible fact spread over her and made her terrible to me. All must be given up. Conscience pronounced this dread decree and multiplied the pain a thousand times.Destiny had once more taken me by the elbow.
Dick returned about eleven, and shortly afterwards Boyd swallowed another whisky-and-soda and left.
I thought my friend started slightly at finding the detective with me, but he betrayed not the slightest annoyance. Indeed, he himself started the discussion regarding the mystery, appearing in no way loth to discuss it in all its phases.
The detective’s suspicion was certainly a startling one, and of course accounted for his anxiety that Dick should in future remain in utter ignorance of our actions. When Boyd had gone he at once commenced to question me upon what theories he had expressed, and in what direction he was prosecuting inquiries. Although I would not allow myself to suspect my best friend, I nevertheless preserved the silence which Boyd had imposed upon me, evading giving him direct answers, preserving the secret of the identity of the man seen in St. James’s Park, and managing to put aside his questions by a declaration that personally I was sick of the whole matter, for I felt that it would now ever remain a mystery.
That night, however, I remained awake many hours thinking fondly of Eva, and calmly revolving in my mind all that had fallen from the lips of Boyd. He, one of the most skilful officers in London, had formed no theory. He only entertained certain suspicions, vague perhaps, yet by no means groundless. I had not seen Eva since that day when the strange, incomprehensible attempt had been made to take my life, and a strong desire again possessed me to stroll at her side, to hear her voice, to hold her hand. Was it, I wondered time after time, that hand, so soft, slim and delicate, that had actually attempted to secretly take my life?
The detective had calmly reviewed all the facts I had explained, and, as a professional investigator of crime, had openly expressed a suspicion in the affirmative.
Often had I wondered what kind of woman was Eva’s mother, whom I had never met. That she was somewhat eccentric was evident from her daughter’s words on the last occasion I had visited Riverdene. I lay there thinking of Eva, scouting every suspicion which the detective’s words had aroused within me, until with the first streak of dawn I fell asleep and dreamed of her.
Next afternoon, without mentioning anything to Dick save the sending of a telegram to say I should not dine at home, I left my office half an hour earlier, and full of conflicting thoughts travelled down to Riverdene.
Having been informed by the servant that Mrs Blain and Miss Mary were absent in London shopping, but that Miss Glaslyn was at home, I was shown into the long, pleasant drawing-room which opened upon the wide lawn sloping to the river’s brink. The great bowls of cut flowers diffused a pleasant odour, and the books and papers lying in the cosy-corner, with its soft cushions of pale-blue silk, betrayed signs of recent occupation.
It was a low-ceilinged, comfortable apartment, cool and restful after the dust and glare of the white road outside.
In a few moments the door opened and Eva entered, fresh and charming in a cool dress of cream flannel, her sweet face illumined by a smile of glad welcome.
“This is quite an unexpected pleasure, Mr Urwin!” she exclaimed, rushing towards me gladly with outstretched hand. “I had no idea that you’d come down to-day. The Blains are up in town, you know. I should have gone, only I had a rather bad headache. We went up to Windsor yesterday with the Thurleys on their launch, and I suppose the sun upset me. It was unbearably hot.”
“Why do you persist in calling me Mr Urwin?” I asked in a rather reproachful tone, still retaining possession of her hand. “Cannot you call me Frank?”
She blushed slightly, and drew her hand forcibly away. Then motioning me to a seat she cast herself into a low armchair near me, stretching forth her tiny foot, neat in its silk stocking and patent leather shoe. She made no response to my suggestion, so I repeated it.
“Why should I call you by your Christian name?” she asked.
“Because I call you by yours, Eva,” I answered earnestly. “I really can’t bear this persistent formality.”
She smiled, a rather curious smile it was, I thought.
“So you’re staying as guest here?” I went on, after a moment’s pause.
“Yes,” she explained. “My Uncle Henry, in Inverness, is very ill and not expected to live; therefore they summoned mother by telegraph, with other members of the family. As the servants have had no holiday this year, she sent them away for a fortnight and closed the house, Mrs Blain having invited me here.”
“Have you heard from your mother?”
“Yes, I had a wire yesterday to say that she had arrived, safely,” she answered, not, however, without a second’s hesitation, as though she were debating whether or no to tell me the truth.
“And Mr Blain has not returned from Paris yet?” I asked.
“No,” she responded. “The Blains are talking of joining him next week, or perhaps the week after, and have invited me to accompany them. I should be delighted, for I love Paris.”
“You find the shops interesting?” I laughed.
“Yes,” she answered. “All women do, I suppose. At least I’ve met very few who, having been in Paris, haven’t hunted for bargains at the Louvre, the Printemps, or the Bon Marché. Paris is worth visiting if only for one’s hats, for you can often buy a hat for twenty francs exactly the same style and of better material than that for which you pay three or four guineas in Regent Street.”
“I’m not much of an expert in such things,” I laughed, nevertheless recollecting how curious it was that Blain remained still in London. Might not his wife and daughter have gone up that day to visit him in his hiding-place?
“But you’ve been awfully queer, I hear,” she said concernedly. “You really don’t look quite yourself even now. What has been the matter? We were all so concerned when we heard about it.”
Our eyes met. In hers there was a deep, earnest look as though she were really solicitous of my welfare, yet I fancied somehow that those clear blue eyes wavered beneath my steady, searching glance. She watched me, reading me as easily as she would have read black letters on a white page.
“I was taken suddenly ill—the heat perhaps,” I answered with affected carelessness. “I had run down, the doctor said. It was nothing very serious.” She gave vent to a perceptible sigh of relief, then smiling sweetly as she ever did, said: “Well, it is indeed a pleasure to welcome you here again to-day.” She still wore that brooch, the quaint little playing-card which had betrayed her visit to Morris Lowry. Its sight sent a strange thrill through me, for I remembered the object of her visit to that dark, dirty, obscure herbalist’s.
“The pleasure is mutual, believe me, Eva,” I answered, putting away from me instantly the gruesome thought oppressing me. “Through this whole month I have thought only of you.”
She sighed, in an instant serious. Then glancing back to assure herself that there were no eavesdroppers, she said, “It would be far better, Mr Urwin—Frank—if you could leave me and forget.”
“But I can’t,” I said, rising quickly and again taking her soft white hand. “You know, Eva, how deeply, how sincerely, how devotedly I love you; how I am entirely yours for ever.”
I spoke simply and directly what I felt; I was calmer than I had been when I rowed her beneath the willows’ shade.
“Ah, no!” she cried in a pained voice, rising to her feet with sudden resolution. “You really must not say this. I will not let you sacrifice yourself. I will not allow you to thus—”
“It is no sacrifice,” I protested, quickly interrupting. “I love you, Eva, with all my soul. One woman alone in all the world holds me beneath the spell of her grace, her charm and her sweetness. It is yourself. Every hour I think only of you; ever before me your face rises in my day-dreams, and in those moments when I see your sweet smiles I tell myself that no other woman can ever have a place in my heart. Ah! you cannot know how fondly I love you,” I said, raising the hand tenderly to my lips and imprinting a kiss upon it. “If you could only know you would never treat me with this cold, calm indifference.”
Her bosom rose and fell slowly, and she was silent. I fancied that she shuddered slightly.
At that moment my position struck me as an extremely strange one, declaring love to one whom an expert detective suspected of having made a cowardly attempt upon my life. Was it just? I asked myself. Yes, in this I was justified, for I loved her, even though I had more than once been inclined to agree with Boyd in his misgivings.
“I was not aware of any indifference,” she faltered at last, raising her great eyes, so clear and earnest, for an instant to mine. “I had merely urged you to reflect.”
“Reflection is unnecessary,” I answered quickly. “I know that I love you truly. That surely is sufficient.”
“It might be if I were free,” she responded in a low, hoarse voice. “But I tell you to-day, Frank, as I told you before, this love dream of ours is impossible of realisation.”
“Then you do reciprocate my love?” I cried, in joyous eagerness. “Come, tell me. Do not keep me longer in suspense.”
“I have already told you,” she answered in a low, intense voice. “Of what use is it to continue this painful discussion?”
“Of every use,” I cried in desperation. “Give me one word of hope, Eva. Tell me that some day you will try and love me better than you do now; that some day in the future you will become my wife. Tell me—”
“No! no!” she cried, snatching her hand away and receding from me. “No, Frank, I cannot—I will not lie to you.”
“Then can you never love me—never?” I cried despairingly.
“Never,” she answered hoarsely, and her answer struck deep into my heart. “I have sinned—sinned before God and before man—and love no longer knows a place in my heart,” and her fine head was bowed before me.
“Sinned!” I gasped. “What do you mean?”
“I am as a social leper,” she panted, raising her head and looking at me with wild, unnatural gaze. “If you knew the dark and awful truth you would shun me rather than kiss my hand. Yet you say you love me—you! who would have so great a cause to hate me if you knew the ghastly truth!”
“But,” I cried, wondering at these strange words, and with my suspicions again aroused, “I do love you, nevertheless, Eva. I shall always love you, I swear it, for my very life is yours.”
“Your life!” she echoed in a weird, harsh voice, as she stood, pale-faced, swaying before me, her hands clasped to her breast, her lips cold and white. “Yes,” she said, in a strange, half-hysterical tone. “Yes, it is true, too true, alas! that your future is in my hands. Only by a miracle have you come back to life, a grim shadow of a crime to taunt, to defy, to denounce. Ah! Frank, you do not know the terrible truth; you will never know—never!”
I was bewildered. Horror possessed me. The darkness of an irreversible fact spread over her and made her terrible to me. All must be given up. Conscience pronounced this dread decree and multiplied the pain a thousand times.
Destiny had once more taken me by the elbow.