Chapter Ten.

Chapter Ten.On the Silent Highway.Whatever might have been Mary’s object in thus renewing my acquaintance at the very moment when I was about to seek her, one thing alone was apparent—she feared the revelation of the tragic affair at Kensington. There are times when men and women, whatever mastery they may possess over their countenances, must involuntarily betray joy or fear in a manner unmistakable. Those sudden and entirely unintentional words of Dick’s had, for the moment, frozen her heart. And yet it was incredible that she could have any connexion with this affair, so inexplicable that Superintendent Shaw, the chief of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard, had himself visited the house, and, according to what Boyd had told me, had expressed himself utterly bewildered.Next day passed uneventfully, but on the following afternoon we took train to Shepperton, where at the station we found Simpson, the chauffeur who had been at Shenley, awaiting us with a smart motor-car, in which we drove along the white winding road to Riverdene.Dick’s description of the place was certainly not in the least exaggerated when he had said that it was one of the most charming old places on the Thames. Approached from the highway by a long drive through a thick belt of elms and beeches, it stood, a long, old-fashioned house, covered with honeysuckle and roses, facing the river, with a broad, well-kept lawn sloping down to the water’s edge. The gardens on either side were filled with bright flowers, the high leafy trees overshadowed the house and kept it delightfully cool, and the tent on the lawn and the several hammocks slung in the shadow testified to the ease and repose of those who lived there. Many riparian residences had I seen during my frequent picnics and Sunday excursions up and down the various reaches, but for picturesqueness, perfect quiet and rural beauty, none could compare with this. I had expected to find a mere cottage, or at most a villa, the humble retreat of a half-ruined man; yet on the contrary it was a fine house, furnished with an elegance that was surprising, with men-servants and every evidence of wealth. City men, I reflected, made money fast, and without doubt old Henry Blain had regained long ago all that he had lost.How beautiful, how tranquil was that spot, how sweet-smelling that wealth of trailing roses which entirely hid one-half the house after the dust and stuffiness of Fleet Street, the incessant rattle of traffic, and the hoarse shouting of “the winners.” Beyond the lawn, which we now crossed to greet our hostess and her daughter, the river ran cool and deep, with its surface unruffled, so that the high poplars on the opposite bank were reflected into it with all their detail and colour as in a mirror. It was a warm afternoon, and during our drive the sun had beat down upon us mercilessly, but here in the shadow all was delightfully cool and refreshing. The porch of the house facing the river was one mass of yellow roses, which spread their fragrance everywhere.Mrs Blain was seated in a wicker chair with some needlework, while Mary was lying in achaise-longuereading the latest novel from Mudie’s, and our footsteps falling noiselessly upon the turf, neither noticed our approach until we stood before them.“I’m so very pleased you’ve come, Frank,” exclaimed the elder lady, starting forward enthusiastically as she put down her work, “and I’m delighted to meet your friend. I have heard of you both several times through your father. I wonder he doesn’t exchange his living with some one. He seems so very unwell of late. I’ve always thought that Harwell doesn’t suit him.”“He has tried on several occasions, but the offers he has had are in towns in the North of England, so he prefers Berkshire,” I answered.“Well,” she said, inviting us both to be seated in comfortable wicker chairs standing near, “it is really very pleasant to see you again. Mary has spoken of you, and wondered how you were so many, many times.”“I’m sure,” I said, “the pleasure is mutual.”Dick, after I had introduced him to Mrs Blain, had seated himself at Mary’s side and was chatting to her, while I, leaning back in my chair, looked at this woman before me and remembered the object of my visit. There was certainly nothing in her face to arouse suspicion. She was perhaps fifty, with just a sign of grey hairs, dark-eyed, with a nose of that type one associates with employers of labour. A trifle inclined toembonpoint, she was a typical, well-preserved Englishwoman of motherly disposition, even though by birth she was of one of the first Shropshire families, and in the days of Shenley she had been quite a prominent figure in the May flutter of London. I had liked her exceedingly, for she had shown me many kindnesses. Indeed, she had distinctly favoured the match between Mary and myself, although her husband, a bustling, busy man, had scouted the idea. This Mary herself had told me long ago in those dreamy days of sweet confidences. The thought that she was in any way implicated in the mysterious affair under investigation seemed absolutely absurd, and I laughed within myself.She was dressed, as she always had dressed after luncheon, in black satin duchesse, a quiet elegance which I think rather created an illusion that she was stout, and as she arranged her needlework aside in order to chat to me, she sighed as matronly ladies are wont to sigh during the drowsy after-luncheon hours.From time to time I turned and laughed with Mary as she gaily sought my opinion on this and on that. She was dressed in dark blue serge trimmed with narrow white braid, her sailor hat cast aside lying on the grass, a smart river costume of achicfamiliar to me in the fashion-plates of the ladies’ papers. As she lay back, her head pillowed on the cushion, there was in her eyes that coquettish smile, and she laughed that ringing musical laugh as of old.A boatful of merrymakers went by, looking across, and no doubt envying us our ease, for sculling out there in the blazing sun could scarcely be a pleasure. Judging from their appearance they were shop-assistants making the best of the Thursday early-closing movement—a movement which happily gives the slaves of suburban counters opportunity for healthful recreation. The boat was laden to overflowing, and prominent in the bows was the inevitable basket of provisions and the tin kettle for making tea.“It’s too hot, as yet, to go out,” Mary said, watching them. “We’ll go later.”“Very well,” Dick answered. “I shall be delighted. I love the river, but since my Cambridge days I’ve unfortunately had but little opportunity for sculling.”“You newspaper men,” observed Mrs Blain, addressing me, “must have very little leisure, I think. The newspapers are always full. Isn’t it very difficult to fill the pages?”“No,” I answered. “That’s a common error. To every newspaper in the kingdom there comes daily sufficient news of one sort or another to fill three sheets the same size. The duty of the journalist, if, of course, he is not a reporter or leader-writer, is to make a judicious selection as to what he shall publish and what he shall omit. It is this that wears out one’s brains.”“But the reporters,” she continued—“I mean those men who go and hunt up details of horrors, crimes and such things—are they well paid?”That struck me as a strange question, and I think I must have glanced at her rather inquiringly.“They are paid as well as most professions are paid nowadays,” I answered. “Better, perhaps, than some.”“And their duty is to make inquiries and scrape up all kinds of details, just like detectives, I’ve heard it said. Is that so?”“Exactly,” I replied. “One of the cleverest men in that branch of journalism is our friend here, Mr Cleugh.”She looked at the man I indicated, and I thought her face went slightly paler. It may, however, only have been in my imagination.“Is he really one of those?” she inquired in a low undertone.“Yes,” I responded. “In all Fleet Street, he’s the shrewdest man in hunting out the truth. He is theCometman, and may claim to have originated the reporter-investigation branch of journalism.”She was silent for a few moments. Lines appeared between her eyes. Then she took up her needlework, as if to divert her thoughts.“And Mr Blain?” I asked at last, in want of some better topic. “How is he?”“Oh, busy as usual. He’s in Paris. He went a fortnight ago upon business connected with some company he is bringing out, and has not been able to get back yet. We shall join him for a week or two, only I so much dislike the Channel crossing. Besides, it is really very pleasant here just now.”“Delightful,” I answered, looking round upon the peaceful scene. At the steps, opposite where we sat, was moored a motor-boat, together with Mary’s punt, a light wood one with crimson cushions, while behind us was a well-kept tennis-court.Tea was brought after we had gossiped nearly an hour, and while we were taking it a boat suddenly drew up at the landing-stage, being hailed by Mary, who jumped up enthusiastically to welcome its occupants. These were two young men of rather dandified air and a young girl of twenty, smartly dressed, but not at all good-looking, whom I afterwards learnt was sister to the elder of her companions. When the boat was at last moored, and the trio landed amid much shouting and merriment, I was introduced to them. The name of sister and brother was Moberly, a family who lived somewhere up beyond Bell Weir, and their companion was a guest at their house.“We thought we’d just catch you at tea, Mrs Blain,” cried Doris Moberly as she sprang ashore. “And we are so frightfully thirsty.”“Come along, then,” said the elder lady. “Sit down, my dear. We have it all ready.”And so the three joined us, and the circle quickly became a very merry one.“They kept us so long in the lock that I feared tea would be all over before we arrived,” young Moberly said, with a rather affected drawl. He appeared to be one of those young sprigs of the city who travel first-class, read theTimes, and ape the aristocrat.“Yes,” Doris went on, “there was a slight collision between a barge and a launch, resulting in lots of strong language, and that delayed us, otherwise we should have been here half an hour ago.”“Did you call on the Binsteads?” Mary asked. “You know their house-boat, theFlame? It’s moored just at the bend, half-way between the Lock and Staines Bridge.”“We passed it, but the blinds were down. They were evidently taking a nap. So we didn’t hail them,” Doris responded.Then the conversation drifted upon river topics, as it always drifts with those who spend the summer days idling about the upper reaches of the Thames—of punts, motor-launches, and sailing; of the prospects of regattas and the dresses at Sunbury Lock on the previous Sunday. They were all river enthusiasts, and river enthusiasm is a malady extremely contagious with those doomed to spend the dog-days gasping in a dusty office in stifled London.After tea followed tennis as a natural sequence, and while Moberly and his sister played with Dick and the youth who had accompanied the Moberlys, Mary and I wandered away into the wood which skirted the grounds of Riverdene. She was bright and merry, quite her old self of Shenley days, save perhaps for a graver look which now and then came to her eyes. She showed me the extent of their grounds and led me down a narrow path in the dark shadow to the bank to show me a nest of kingfishers. The spot was so peaceful and rural that one could scarcely believe one’s self but twenty miles from London. The kingfisher, startled by our presence, flashed by us like a living emerald in the sunlight; black-headed buntings flitted alongside among the reeds, and the shy sedge warbler poured out his chattering imitations, while here and there we caught sight of moor-hens down in the sedge.She had, I found, developed a love for fishing, for she took me further down where the willows trailed into the stream, and pointed out the swirl over the gravel where trout were known to lie, showed me a bush-shaped depth where she had caught many a big perch, and a long swim where, she said, were excellent roach.“And you are happier here than you were at Shenley?” I inquired, as we were strolling back together, both bareheaded, she with her hat swinging in her hand.“Happy? Oh, yes,” and she sighed, with her eyes cast upon the ground.“That sigh of yours does not denote happiness,” I remarked, glancing at her. “What troubles you?”“Nothing,” she declared, looking up at me with a forced smile.“It is puzzling to me, Mary,” I said seriously, “that in all this time you’ve not married. You were engaged, yet it was broken off. Why?”At my demand she answered, with a firmness that surprised me, “I will never marry a man I don’t love—never.”“Then it was at your father’s suggestion—that proposed marriage of yours?”“Of course, I hated him.”“Surely it was unwise to allow the announcement to get into the papers, wasn’t it?”“It was my father’s doing, not mine,” she responded. “When it was broken off I hastened to publish the contradiction.”“On reading the first announcement,” I said, “I imagined that you had at length found a man whom you loved, and that you would marry and be happy. I am sure I regret that it is not so.”“Why?” she asked, regarding me with some surprise. “Do you wish to see me married, then?”“Not to a man you cannot love,” I hastened to assure her. I was trying to learn from her the reason of her sudden renewed friendship and confidence, yet she was careful not to refer to it. Her extreme care in this particular was, in itself, suspicious.Her effort at coquetry when at my chambers two days before made it apparent that she was prepared to accept my love, if I so desired. Yet the remembrance of Eva Glaslyn was ever in my mind. This woman at my side had once played me false, and had caused a rent in my heart which was difficult to heal. She was pretty and charming, without doubt, yet she had never been frank, even in those long-past days at Shenley. Once again I told myself that the only woman I had looked upon with thoughts of real genuine affection was the mysterious Eva, whom once, with my own eyes, I had seen cold and dead. When I reflected upon the latter fact I became puzzled almost to the verge of madness.Yet upon me, situated as I was, devolved the duty of solving the enigma.Life, looked at philosophically, is a long succession of chances. It is a game of hazard played by the individual against the multiform forces to which we give the name of “circumstance,” with cards whose real strength is always either more or less than their face value, and which are “packed” and “forced” with an astuteness which would baffle the wiliest sharper. There are times in the game when the cards held by the mortal player have no value at all, when what seem to us kings, queens, and aces change to mere blanks; there are other moments when ignoble twos and threes flush into trumps and enable us to triumphantly sweep the board. Briefly, life is a game of roulette wherein we always playen plein.As, walking at her side, I looked into her handsome face there came upon me a feeling of mournful disappointment.Had we met like this a week before and she had spoken so softly to me I should, I verily believe, have repeated my declaration of love. But the time had passed, and all had changed. My gaze had been lost in the immensity of a pair of wondrous azure eyes. I, who tired before my time, world-weary, despondent and cynical, was angry and contemptuous at the success of my companions, had actually awakened to a new desire for life.So I allowed this woman I had once loved to chatter on, listening to her light gossip, and now and then putting a question to her with a view to learning something of her connexion with that house of mystery. Still she told me nothing—absolutely nothing. Without apparent intention she evaded any direct question I put to her, and seemed brimming over with good spirits and merriment.“It has been quite like old times to have a stroll and a chat with you, Frank,” she declared, as we emerged at last upon the lawn, where tennis was still in progress. The sun was now declining, the shadows lengthening, and a refreshing wind was already beginning to stir the tops of the elms.“Yes,” I laughed. “Of our long walks around Harwell I have many pleasant recollections. Do you remember how secretly we used to meet, fearing the anger of your people; how sometimes I used to wait hours for you, and how we used to imagine that our love would last always?”“Oh, yes,” she answered. “I recollect, too, how I used to send you notes down by one of the stable lads, and pay him with sweets.”I laughed again.“All that has gone by,” I said. “In those days of our experience we believed that our mutual liking was actual love. Even if we now smile at our recollections, they were, nevertheless, the happiest hours of all our lives. Love is never so fervent and devoted as in early youth.”“Ah!” she answered in a serious tone. “You are quite right. I have never since those days known what it is to really love.”I glanced at her sharply. Her eyes were cast upon the ground in sudden melancholy.Was that speech of hers a veiled declaration that she loved me still! I held my breath for an instant, then looking straight before me, saw, standing a few yards away, in conversation with Mrs Blain, a female figure in a boating costume of cream flannel braided with coral pink.“Look?” I exclaimed, glad to avoid responding. “You have another visitor, I think.”She glanced in the direction I indicated, then hastened forward to greet the new-comer.The slim-waisted figure turned, and next second I recognised the strikingly handsome profile of Eva Glaslyn, the mysterious woman I secretly loved with such passionate ardour and affection.“Come, Frank, let me introduce you,” Mary cried, after enthusiastically kissing her friend.I stepped forward, and as I did so, she turned and fixed on me her large, blue laughing eyes. Not a look, not an expression of her pure countenance was altered.As I gazed into those eyes I saw that they were as dear as the purest crystal, and that I could look through them straight into her very soul. I bowed and grasped the tiny, refined hand she held forth to me—that soft hand which I had once before touched—when it was cold and lifeless.

Whatever might have been Mary’s object in thus renewing my acquaintance at the very moment when I was about to seek her, one thing alone was apparent—she feared the revelation of the tragic affair at Kensington. There are times when men and women, whatever mastery they may possess over their countenances, must involuntarily betray joy or fear in a manner unmistakable. Those sudden and entirely unintentional words of Dick’s had, for the moment, frozen her heart. And yet it was incredible that she could have any connexion with this affair, so inexplicable that Superintendent Shaw, the chief of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard, had himself visited the house, and, according to what Boyd had told me, had expressed himself utterly bewildered.

Next day passed uneventfully, but on the following afternoon we took train to Shepperton, where at the station we found Simpson, the chauffeur who had been at Shenley, awaiting us with a smart motor-car, in which we drove along the white winding road to Riverdene.

Dick’s description of the place was certainly not in the least exaggerated when he had said that it was one of the most charming old places on the Thames. Approached from the highway by a long drive through a thick belt of elms and beeches, it stood, a long, old-fashioned house, covered with honeysuckle and roses, facing the river, with a broad, well-kept lawn sloping down to the water’s edge. The gardens on either side were filled with bright flowers, the high leafy trees overshadowed the house and kept it delightfully cool, and the tent on the lawn and the several hammocks slung in the shadow testified to the ease and repose of those who lived there. Many riparian residences had I seen during my frequent picnics and Sunday excursions up and down the various reaches, but for picturesqueness, perfect quiet and rural beauty, none could compare with this. I had expected to find a mere cottage, or at most a villa, the humble retreat of a half-ruined man; yet on the contrary it was a fine house, furnished with an elegance that was surprising, with men-servants and every evidence of wealth. City men, I reflected, made money fast, and without doubt old Henry Blain had regained long ago all that he had lost.

How beautiful, how tranquil was that spot, how sweet-smelling that wealth of trailing roses which entirely hid one-half the house after the dust and stuffiness of Fleet Street, the incessant rattle of traffic, and the hoarse shouting of “the winners.” Beyond the lawn, which we now crossed to greet our hostess and her daughter, the river ran cool and deep, with its surface unruffled, so that the high poplars on the opposite bank were reflected into it with all their detail and colour as in a mirror. It was a warm afternoon, and during our drive the sun had beat down upon us mercilessly, but here in the shadow all was delightfully cool and refreshing. The porch of the house facing the river was one mass of yellow roses, which spread their fragrance everywhere.

Mrs Blain was seated in a wicker chair with some needlework, while Mary was lying in achaise-longuereading the latest novel from Mudie’s, and our footsteps falling noiselessly upon the turf, neither noticed our approach until we stood before them.

“I’m so very pleased you’ve come, Frank,” exclaimed the elder lady, starting forward enthusiastically as she put down her work, “and I’m delighted to meet your friend. I have heard of you both several times through your father. I wonder he doesn’t exchange his living with some one. He seems so very unwell of late. I’ve always thought that Harwell doesn’t suit him.”

“He has tried on several occasions, but the offers he has had are in towns in the North of England, so he prefers Berkshire,” I answered.

“Well,” she said, inviting us both to be seated in comfortable wicker chairs standing near, “it is really very pleasant to see you again. Mary has spoken of you, and wondered how you were so many, many times.”

“I’m sure,” I said, “the pleasure is mutual.”

Dick, after I had introduced him to Mrs Blain, had seated himself at Mary’s side and was chatting to her, while I, leaning back in my chair, looked at this woman before me and remembered the object of my visit. There was certainly nothing in her face to arouse suspicion. She was perhaps fifty, with just a sign of grey hairs, dark-eyed, with a nose of that type one associates with employers of labour. A trifle inclined toembonpoint, she was a typical, well-preserved Englishwoman of motherly disposition, even though by birth she was of one of the first Shropshire families, and in the days of Shenley she had been quite a prominent figure in the May flutter of London. I had liked her exceedingly, for she had shown me many kindnesses. Indeed, she had distinctly favoured the match between Mary and myself, although her husband, a bustling, busy man, had scouted the idea. This Mary herself had told me long ago in those dreamy days of sweet confidences. The thought that she was in any way implicated in the mysterious affair under investigation seemed absolutely absurd, and I laughed within myself.

She was dressed, as she always had dressed after luncheon, in black satin duchesse, a quiet elegance which I think rather created an illusion that she was stout, and as she arranged her needlework aside in order to chat to me, she sighed as matronly ladies are wont to sigh during the drowsy after-luncheon hours.

From time to time I turned and laughed with Mary as she gaily sought my opinion on this and on that. She was dressed in dark blue serge trimmed with narrow white braid, her sailor hat cast aside lying on the grass, a smart river costume of achicfamiliar to me in the fashion-plates of the ladies’ papers. As she lay back, her head pillowed on the cushion, there was in her eyes that coquettish smile, and she laughed that ringing musical laugh as of old.

A boatful of merrymakers went by, looking across, and no doubt envying us our ease, for sculling out there in the blazing sun could scarcely be a pleasure. Judging from their appearance they were shop-assistants making the best of the Thursday early-closing movement—a movement which happily gives the slaves of suburban counters opportunity for healthful recreation. The boat was laden to overflowing, and prominent in the bows was the inevitable basket of provisions and the tin kettle for making tea.

“It’s too hot, as yet, to go out,” Mary said, watching them. “We’ll go later.”

“Very well,” Dick answered. “I shall be delighted. I love the river, but since my Cambridge days I’ve unfortunately had but little opportunity for sculling.”

“You newspaper men,” observed Mrs Blain, addressing me, “must have very little leisure, I think. The newspapers are always full. Isn’t it very difficult to fill the pages?”

“No,” I answered. “That’s a common error. To every newspaper in the kingdom there comes daily sufficient news of one sort or another to fill three sheets the same size. The duty of the journalist, if, of course, he is not a reporter or leader-writer, is to make a judicious selection as to what he shall publish and what he shall omit. It is this that wears out one’s brains.”

“But the reporters,” she continued—“I mean those men who go and hunt up details of horrors, crimes and such things—are they well paid?”

That struck me as a strange question, and I think I must have glanced at her rather inquiringly.

“They are paid as well as most professions are paid nowadays,” I answered. “Better, perhaps, than some.”

“And their duty is to make inquiries and scrape up all kinds of details, just like detectives, I’ve heard it said. Is that so?”

“Exactly,” I replied. “One of the cleverest men in that branch of journalism is our friend here, Mr Cleugh.”

She looked at the man I indicated, and I thought her face went slightly paler. It may, however, only have been in my imagination.

“Is he really one of those?” she inquired in a low undertone.

“Yes,” I responded. “In all Fleet Street, he’s the shrewdest man in hunting out the truth. He is theCometman, and may claim to have originated the reporter-investigation branch of journalism.”

She was silent for a few moments. Lines appeared between her eyes. Then she took up her needlework, as if to divert her thoughts.

“And Mr Blain?” I asked at last, in want of some better topic. “How is he?”

“Oh, busy as usual. He’s in Paris. He went a fortnight ago upon business connected with some company he is bringing out, and has not been able to get back yet. We shall join him for a week or two, only I so much dislike the Channel crossing. Besides, it is really very pleasant here just now.”

“Delightful,” I answered, looking round upon the peaceful scene. At the steps, opposite where we sat, was moored a motor-boat, together with Mary’s punt, a light wood one with crimson cushions, while behind us was a well-kept tennis-court.

Tea was brought after we had gossiped nearly an hour, and while we were taking it a boat suddenly drew up at the landing-stage, being hailed by Mary, who jumped up enthusiastically to welcome its occupants. These were two young men of rather dandified air and a young girl of twenty, smartly dressed, but not at all good-looking, whom I afterwards learnt was sister to the elder of her companions. When the boat was at last moored, and the trio landed amid much shouting and merriment, I was introduced to them. The name of sister and brother was Moberly, a family who lived somewhere up beyond Bell Weir, and their companion was a guest at their house.

“We thought we’d just catch you at tea, Mrs Blain,” cried Doris Moberly as she sprang ashore. “And we are so frightfully thirsty.”

“Come along, then,” said the elder lady. “Sit down, my dear. We have it all ready.”

And so the three joined us, and the circle quickly became a very merry one.

“They kept us so long in the lock that I feared tea would be all over before we arrived,” young Moberly said, with a rather affected drawl. He appeared to be one of those young sprigs of the city who travel first-class, read theTimes, and ape the aristocrat.

“Yes,” Doris went on, “there was a slight collision between a barge and a launch, resulting in lots of strong language, and that delayed us, otherwise we should have been here half an hour ago.”

“Did you call on the Binsteads?” Mary asked. “You know their house-boat, theFlame? It’s moored just at the bend, half-way between the Lock and Staines Bridge.”

“We passed it, but the blinds were down. They were evidently taking a nap. So we didn’t hail them,” Doris responded.

Then the conversation drifted upon river topics, as it always drifts with those who spend the summer days idling about the upper reaches of the Thames—of punts, motor-launches, and sailing; of the prospects of regattas and the dresses at Sunbury Lock on the previous Sunday. They were all river enthusiasts, and river enthusiasm is a malady extremely contagious with those doomed to spend the dog-days gasping in a dusty office in stifled London.

After tea followed tennis as a natural sequence, and while Moberly and his sister played with Dick and the youth who had accompanied the Moberlys, Mary and I wandered away into the wood which skirted the grounds of Riverdene. She was bright and merry, quite her old self of Shenley days, save perhaps for a graver look which now and then came to her eyes. She showed me the extent of their grounds and led me down a narrow path in the dark shadow to the bank to show me a nest of kingfishers. The spot was so peaceful and rural that one could scarcely believe one’s self but twenty miles from London. The kingfisher, startled by our presence, flashed by us like a living emerald in the sunlight; black-headed buntings flitted alongside among the reeds, and the shy sedge warbler poured out his chattering imitations, while here and there we caught sight of moor-hens down in the sedge.

She had, I found, developed a love for fishing, for she took me further down where the willows trailed into the stream, and pointed out the swirl over the gravel where trout were known to lie, showed me a bush-shaped depth where she had caught many a big perch, and a long swim where, she said, were excellent roach.

“And you are happier here than you were at Shenley?” I inquired, as we were strolling back together, both bareheaded, she with her hat swinging in her hand.

“Happy? Oh, yes,” and she sighed, with her eyes cast upon the ground.

“That sigh of yours does not denote happiness,” I remarked, glancing at her. “What troubles you?”

“Nothing,” she declared, looking up at me with a forced smile.

“It is puzzling to me, Mary,” I said seriously, “that in all this time you’ve not married. You were engaged, yet it was broken off. Why?”

At my demand she answered, with a firmness that surprised me, “I will never marry a man I don’t love—never.”

“Then it was at your father’s suggestion—that proposed marriage of yours?”

“Of course, I hated him.”

“Surely it was unwise to allow the announcement to get into the papers, wasn’t it?”

“It was my father’s doing, not mine,” she responded. “When it was broken off I hastened to publish the contradiction.”

“On reading the first announcement,” I said, “I imagined that you had at length found a man whom you loved, and that you would marry and be happy. I am sure I regret that it is not so.”

“Why?” she asked, regarding me with some surprise. “Do you wish to see me married, then?”

“Not to a man you cannot love,” I hastened to assure her. I was trying to learn from her the reason of her sudden renewed friendship and confidence, yet she was careful not to refer to it. Her extreme care in this particular was, in itself, suspicious.

Her effort at coquetry when at my chambers two days before made it apparent that she was prepared to accept my love, if I so desired. Yet the remembrance of Eva Glaslyn was ever in my mind. This woman at my side had once played me false, and had caused a rent in my heart which was difficult to heal. She was pretty and charming, without doubt, yet she had never been frank, even in those long-past days at Shenley. Once again I told myself that the only woman I had looked upon with thoughts of real genuine affection was the mysterious Eva, whom once, with my own eyes, I had seen cold and dead. When I reflected upon the latter fact I became puzzled almost to the verge of madness.

Yet upon me, situated as I was, devolved the duty of solving the enigma.

Life, looked at philosophically, is a long succession of chances. It is a game of hazard played by the individual against the multiform forces to which we give the name of “circumstance,” with cards whose real strength is always either more or less than their face value, and which are “packed” and “forced” with an astuteness which would baffle the wiliest sharper. There are times in the game when the cards held by the mortal player have no value at all, when what seem to us kings, queens, and aces change to mere blanks; there are other moments when ignoble twos and threes flush into trumps and enable us to triumphantly sweep the board. Briefly, life is a game of roulette wherein we always playen plein.

As, walking at her side, I looked into her handsome face there came upon me a feeling of mournful disappointment.

Had we met like this a week before and she had spoken so softly to me I should, I verily believe, have repeated my declaration of love. But the time had passed, and all had changed. My gaze had been lost in the immensity of a pair of wondrous azure eyes. I, who tired before my time, world-weary, despondent and cynical, was angry and contemptuous at the success of my companions, had actually awakened to a new desire for life.

So I allowed this woman I had once loved to chatter on, listening to her light gossip, and now and then putting a question to her with a view to learning something of her connexion with that house of mystery. Still she told me nothing—absolutely nothing. Without apparent intention she evaded any direct question I put to her, and seemed brimming over with good spirits and merriment.

“It has been quite like old times to have a stroll and a chat with you, Frank,” she declared, as we emerged at last upon the lawn, where tennis was still in progress. The sun was now declining, the shadows lengthening, and a refreshing wind was already beginning to stir the tops of the elms.

“Yes,” I laughed. “Of our long walks around Harwell I have many pleasant recollections. Do you remember how secretly we used to meet, fearing the anger of your people; how sometimes I used to wait hours for you, and how we used to imagine that our love would last always?”

“Oh, yes,” she answered. “I recollect, too, how I used to send you notes down by one of the stable lads, and pay him with sweets.”

I laughed again.

“All that has gone by,” I said. “In those days of our experience we believed that our mutual liking was actual love. Even if we now smile at our recollections, they were, nevertheless, the happiest hours of all our lives. Love is never so fervent and devoted as in early youth.”

“Ah!” she answered in a serious tone. “You are quite right. I have never since those days known what it is to really love.”

I glanced at her sharply. Her eyes were cast upon the ground in sudden melancholy.

Was that speech of hers a veiled declaration that she loved me still! I held my breath for an instant, then looking straight before me, saw, standing a few yards away, in conversation with Mrs Blain, a female figure in a boating costume of cream flannel braided with coral pink.

“Look?” I exclaimed, glad to avoid responding. “You have another visitor, I think.”

She glanced in the direction I indicated, then hastened forward to greet the new-comer.

The slim-waisted figure turned, and next second I recognised the strikingly handsome profile of Eva Glaslyn, the mysterious woman I secretly loved with such passionate ardour and affection.

“Come, Frank, let me introduce you,” Mary cried, after enthusiastically kissing her friend.

I stepped forward, and as I did so, she turned and fixed on me her large, blue laughing eyes. Not a look, not an expression of her pure countenance was altered.

As I gazed into those eyes I saw that they were as dear as the purest crystal, and that I could look through them straight into her very soul. I bowed and grasped the tiny, refined hand she held forth to me—that soft hand which I had once before touched—when it was cold and lifeless.

Chapter Eleven.Beauty at the Helm.Together we stood on the lawn near the river-bank gossiping, and as I looked into Eva’s flawless face, whereon the expression had now become softened, I longed to tell her the most sacred secret of my heart. Had she, I wondered, recognised in me the man she encountered in St. James’s Park when on that mysterious errand of hers? What could have been the nature of that errand? Whom did she go there to meet?One fact was at that moment to me more curious than all others, namely, her friendship with Mrs Blain, the woman who, according to the landlord, rented that house of mystery. By the exercise of care and discretion, I might, I told myself, learn something which would perhaps lead, if not to the solution of the enigma, then to some clue upon which the police might work. But to accomplish this I should be compelled to exercise the most extreme caution, for both mother and daughter were evidently acute to detect any attempt to gain their secret, while it seemed more than probable that Eva herself—if actually aware of the affair, which was, of course, not quite certain—had some motive in keeping all knowledge of it concealed.Who, a hundred times I wondered, was the man who, after lingering opposite Buckingham Palace, had entered the house in Ebury Street? Without doubt Eva had gone to the park to meet him, but it seemed that, growing impatient, or fearful of recognition by others, she had left before his arrival.True, the police had watched the house wherein the man disappeared, but up to the present he had not been seen again. Boyd had told me, when I had seen him that very morning, that he had left by some exit at the rear, and that his entry there was only to throw any watcher off the scent.It was evident that the man, whoever he was, had very ingeniously got clear away.Dick, who was playing tennis, at last came forward to be introduced to my divinity, and presently whispered to me his great admiration for her. I was about to tell him who she really was, but on reflection felt that I could act with greater discretion if the truth remained mine alone, together with the secret of my love for her. Therefore I held my peace, and he, in ignorance that she was the missing victim of that amazing tragedy, walked at her side along the water’s edge, laughing merrily, and greatly enjoying her companionship.Mrs Blain invited us all to dine, but the Moberlys were compelled to decline, they having a party of friends at home. Therefore, we saw them off amid many shouts, hand-wavings and peals of laughter, and when they had gone we sat again on the lawn, now brilliant in the golden blaze of sundown.It still wanted an hour to dinner, therefore Mary suggested that we all four should go out on the water, a proposal accepted with mutual enthusiasm. As I was not an expert in punting, Mary and Dick pushed off in the punt, the former handling the long pole with a deftness acquired by constant practice, while, with Eva Glaslyn in the stern of a gig, I rolled up my sleeves and bent to the oars.The sunset was one of those gorgeous combinations of crimson and gold which those who frequent the Thames know so well. Upstream the flood of crimson of the dying day caused the elms and willows to stand out black against the cloudless sky, while every ripple caused by the boat caught the sun-glow until the water seemed red as blood.A great peace was there. Not a single boat was in sight, not a sound save the quiet lapping of the water against the bows and the slight dripping of the oars as I feathered them. We were rowing upstream, so that the return would be easier, while Dick and his companion had punted down towards Chertsey. For the first time I was now alone with her. She was lovely.She had settled herself lazily among the cushions, lying back at her ease and enjoying to the full the calm of the sunset hour, remarking now and then upon the beauty of the scene and the charm of summer days upstream. Her countenance was animated and perfect in feature, distinctly more beautiful than it had been on that well-remembered night when I had found her lying back cold and lifeless. How strange it all was, I thought, that I should actually be rowing her there, when only a few days before I had beheld her stiff and dead. Alone, with no one to overhear, I would have put a direct inquiry to her regarding the past, but I feared that such question, if put prematurely, might prevent the elucidation of the secret. To get at the truth I must act diplomatically, and exercise the greatest caution.I sat facing her, bending with the oars, while she chatted on in a voice that sounded as music to my ears.“I love the river,” she said. “Last year we had a house-boat up beyond Boulter’s, and it was delightful. There is really great fun in being boxed up in so small a space, and one can also make one’s place exceedingly artistic and comfortable at very small expense. We had a ripping time.”“It is curious,” I remarked, “that most owners of house-boats go in for the same style of external decoration—rows of geraniums along the roof, and strings of Chinese lanterns—look at that one over there.”“Yes,” she laughed, glancing in the direction I indicated. “I fear we were also sinners in that respect. It’s so difficult to devise anything new.” And she added, “Are you up the river much?”“No,” I responded, “not much, unfortunately. My profession keeps me in London, and I generally like to spend my three weeks’ vacation on the Continent. I’m fond of getting a glance at other cities, and one travels so quickly that the thing is quite easy.”“There are always more girls than men up the river,” she said. “I suppose it is because men are at business and girls have to kill time. We live down at Hampton, not far from the river. It’s a quiet, dead-alive sort of place, and if it were not for boating and punting it would be horribly dull.”“And in winter?”“Oh, in winter we are always on the Riviera. We go to Cannes each December and stay till the end of April. Mother declares she could not live through an English winter.”This statement did not coincide with what the innkeeper’s wife had told me, namely, that the Glaslyns were much pressed for money.“I spent one season in Nice a few years ago,” I said. “It is certainly charming, and I hope to go there again.”“But is not our own Thames, with all its natural picturesqueness, quite as beautiful in its way?” she asked, looking around. “I love it. People who have been up the Rhine and the Rhone, the Moselle and the Loire, say that for picturesque scenery none of those great European rivers compare with ours.”“I believe that to be quite true,” I answered. “Like yourself, I am extremely fond of boating and picnicking.”“We often have picnics,” she said. “I’ll get mother to invite you to the next—if you’ll come.”“Certainly,” I answered, much gratified. “I shall be only too delighted.”We were at that moment passing two fine house-boats moored near one another, one of which my companion explained belonged to a well-known City stockbroker, and the other to a barrister of repute at the Chancery Bar. Both were gay with the usual geraniums and creepers, having inviting-looking deck-chairs on the roof and canaries in gilded cages hanging at the windows.“Shall we go up the backwater?” she suddenly suggested. “It is more beautiful there than the main stream. We might get some lilies.”“Of course,” I answered, and with a pull to the left turned the boat into the narrower stream branching out at the left, a stream that wound among fertile meadows yellow with buttercups, and where long lines of willows trailed in the water.I was hot after a pretty stiff pull; therefore, when we had gone some distance, I leaned on the oars, allowing the boat to drift on under the bank where the long rushes waved in the stream and the pure white of the water-lilies showed against the dark green of floating leaves. Heedless of the rudder-lines, Eva leaned over and gathered some, trailing her hand in the water.“How quiet and pleasant it is here,” she remarked, her calm, sweet, beautiful face showing what a great peace had come to her at that moment. It may not have been quite in keeping with theconvenancesthat she should have gone out like this alone with me, a comparative stranger, yet girls of to-day think little of such things, and she was nothing if not modern in dress, speech and frankness of manner.We were far from the haunts of men in that calm hour of the dying day. Indeed, already the crimson of the sun was fading into the rose of the afterglow, and the stillness precursory of nightfall was complete save for the rustle of some water-rat or otter among the sedge, or the swift flight of a night-bird across the bosom of the stream. The shadows were changing and the glow on the water was turning from one colour to another. The cattle had come down to the brink, and wading to their knees, whisked the flies away with their tails as they slowly chewed the cud.“Yes,” I agreed. “There is rest, perfect and complete, here. How different to London!”“Ah, yes,” she answered. “I hate London, and very seldom go there, except when necessity compels us to do shopping.”“Why do you hate it?” I asked, at once pricking up my ears. “Have you any especial reason for disliking it?”“Well, no,” she laughed. “I suppose it’s the noise and bustle and hurry that I don’t like. I’m essentially a lover of the country. Even theatres, concerts and such-like amusements have but little attraction for me. I know it sounds rather absurd that a girl should make such a declaration, but I assure you I speak the truth.”I did not doubt her. Any one with an open face like hers could not be guilty of lying. That statement was, in itself, an index to her character. She possessed a higher mind than most women, and was something of a philosopher. Truth to tell, this fact surprised me, for I had until then regarded her as of the usual type of the educated woman of to-day, a woman with a penchant for smartness in dress, freedom of language, and the entertainment of the modern music-hall in preference to opera.I was gratified by my discovery. She was a woman with a soul beyond these things, with a sweet, lovable disposition—a woman far above all others. She was my idol. In those moments my love increased to a mad passion, and I longed to imprint a kiss upon those smiling lips, and to take her in my arms to tell her the secret that I dared not allow to pass my lips.She leaned backwards on the cushions; her hands were tightly clasped behind her head; her sleeves fell back, showing her well-moulded arms; her sweet, childlike face was turned upward, with her blue eyes watching me through half-closed lids; her small mouth was but half shut; she smiled a little.It entranced me to look upon her. For the first time the loveliness of a woman had made me blind and stupid.I wanted to know more of the cause of her dislike of London, for I had scented suspicion in her words. Nevertheless, through all, she preserved a slight rigidity of manner, and I feared to put any further question at that moment.Thus we rested in silence, dreaming in the darkening hour.I sat facing her, glancing furtively at her countenance and wondering how she had become a victim in that inexplicable tragedy. By what means had she been spirited from that mysterious house and another victim placed there in her stead? All was an enigma, insoluble, inscrutable.To be there with her, to exchange confidences as we had done, and to chat lightly upon river topics all gave me the greatest gratification. To have met her thus was an unexpected stroke of good fortune, and I was overjoyed by her spontaneous promise to invite me to one of their own river-parties.Joy is the sunshine of the soul. At that restful hour I drank in the sweetness of her eyes, for I was in glamour-land, and my companion was truly enchanting.We must have remained there fully half an hour, for when I suddenly looked at my watch and realised that we must in any case be late for dinner, the light in the wild red heavens had died away, the soft pale rose-pink had faded, and in the stillness of twilight there seemed a wide, profound mystery.“We must be getting back,” I said quickly, pulling the boat out into mid-stream with a long stroke.“Yes. The Blains will wonder wherever we’ve been,” she laughed. “Mary will accuse you of flirting with me.”“Would that be such a very grave accusation?” I asked, smiling.“Ah, that I really don’t know,” she answered gaily. “You would be the accused.”“But neither of us are guilty, therefore we can return with absolutely clear consciences, can’t we?”“Certainly,” she laughed. Then, after a brief pause, she asked, “Why did you not bring Mary out in preference to me?”“Why do you ask?” I inquired in surprise.“Well—it would be only natural, as you are engaged to her.”“Engaged to her?” I echoed. “I’m certainly not engaged to Mary Blain.”“Aren’t you?” she exclaimed. “I always understood you were.”“Oh, no,” I said. “We are old friends. We were boy and girl together, but that is all.”Her great blue eyes opened with a rather bewildered air, and she exclaimed—“How strange that people should make such a mistake! I had long ago heard of you as Mary’s future husband.”Then again we were silent, both pondering deeply. Had this remark of hers been mere guess-work? Was this carefully-concealed question but a masterstroke of woman’s ingenuity to ascertain whether I loved Mary Blain? It seemed very likely to be so. But she was so frank in all that I could not believe it of her. No doubt she had heard some story of our long-past love, and it had been exaggerated into an engagement, as such stories are so often apt to be.Soon we emerged from the backwater into the main stream, and with our bow set in the direction of Laleham I rowed down with the current without loss of time. The twilight had fast deepened into dusk; the high poplars and drooping willows along the bank had grown dark, though the broad surface of the stream, eddying here and there where a fish rose, was still of a blue steely hue, and far away upstream only a long streak of grey showed upon the horizon. The stars shone down in the first faint darkness of the early night. Presently I glanced behind me, and in the distance saw a yellow ray, which my companion, well versed in river geography, told me was a light in one of the windows of Riverdene.It had grown quite chilly, and the meadows were wreathed in faint white mist, therefore I spurted forward, and soon brought the boat up to the steps.I knew that the world now held nothing for me but Eva.When we entered the dining-room, a fine apartment with the table laid with shining plate, decorated with flowers, and illuminated with red-shaded candles, we were greeted, as we expected, by a loud and rather boisterous welcome by Dick and Mary. We were, of course, full of apologies, being nearly half an hour late. But up-river dinner is a somewhat movable feast, so Mrs Blain quickly forgave us, and while I sat by Mary on her one hand, Dick seated himself at Eva’s side.Gaily we gossiped through a merry meal, washed down with a real Berncastel, and followed by old port, coffee, and curaçoa. Yet my mind was full of strange apprehensions. What possible connexion could these three women have with that crime which the police were withholding from the public? That they were all three aware that a tragedy had taken place seemed quite clear. Yet all remained silent.I had detected in Mrs Blain’s manner an anxiety and nervousness which I had never before noticed, yet I refrained from putting any further question to her, lest I might, by doing so, show my hand. She could not keep from her tone when she spoke to me a note of insincerity, which my ear did not fail to detect.Our conversation over dessert turned upon dogs, the performances of Mary’s pug having started the discussion, and quite inadvertently Dick, whose mind seemed always centred upon his work, for he was nothing if not an enthusiast, suddenly said—“Dogs are now being used by the police to trace criminals. There is no better method when it can be accomplished, for a bloodhound will follow a trail anywhere with unfailing accuracy, even after some hours.”“Do they actually use them now?” asked Mrs Blain in a strained, faltering voice, her wine-glass poised in her hand.“Yes,” he responded. “They’ve been utilised with entire success in two or three cases this week, not only in London, but in the provinces also. They are unfailing, and will track the guilty one with an accuracy that’s absolutely astounding.”Eva and Mary exchanged quick glances across the table, while Mrs Blain sipped her wine and stirred uneasily in her chair.I noticed that the colour had died out from the faces of all three, and that in their blanched countenances was a look of mingled fear and suspicion.My friend had led that conversation with remarkable tact to quite an unlooked-for result.He lifted his eyes to mine for an instant and read my thoughts. My mind became filled with a presentiment of future ill.

Together we stood on the lawn near the river-bank gossiping, and as I looked into Eva’s flawless face, whereon the expression had now become softened, I longed to tell her the most sacred secret of my heart. Had she, I wondered, recognised in me the man she encountered in St. James’s Park when on that mysterious errand of hers? What could have been the nature of that errand? Whom did she go there to meet?

One fact was at that moment to me more curious than all others, namely, her friendship with Mrs Blain, the woman who, according to the landlord, rented that house of mystery. By the exercise of care and discretion, I might, I told myself, learn something which would perhaps lead, if not to the solution of the enigma, then to some clue upon which the police might work. But to accomplish this I should be compelled to exercise the most extreme caution, for both mother and daughter were evidently acute to detect any attempt to gain their secret, while it seemed more than probable that Eva herself—if actually aware of the affair, which was, of course, not quite certain—had some motive in keeping all knowledge of it concealed.

Who, a hundred times I wondered, was the man who, after lingering opposite Buckingham Palace, had entered the house in Ebury Street? Without doubt Eva had gone to the park to meet him, but it seemed that, growing impatient, or fearful of recognition by others, she had left before his arrival.

True, the police had watched the house wherein the man disappeared, but up to the present he had not been seen again. Boyd had told me, when I had seen him that very morning, that he had left by some exit at the rear, and that his entry there was only to throw any watcher off the scent.

It was evident that the man, whoever he was, had very ingeniously got clear away.

Dick, who was playing tennis, at last came forward to be introduced to my divinity, and presently whispered to me his great admiration for her. I was about to tell him who she really was, but on reflection felt that I could act with greater discretion if the truth remained mine alone, together with the secret of my love for her. Therefore I held my peace, and he, in ignorance that she was the missing victim of that amazing tragedy, walked at her side along the water’s edge, laughing merrily, and greatly enjoying her companionship.

Mrs Blain invited us all to dine, but the Moberlys were compelled to decline, they having a party of friends at home. Therefore, we saw them off amid many shouts, hand-wavings and peals of laughter, and when they had gone we sat again on the lawn, now brilliant in the golden blaze of sundown.

It still wanted an hour to dinner, therefore Mary suggested that we all four should go out on the water, a proposal accepted with mutual enthusiasm. As I was not an expert in punting, Mary and Dick pushed off in the punt, the former handling the long pole with a deftness acquired by constant practice, while, with Eva Glaslyn in the stern of a gig, I rolled up my sleeves and bent to the oars.

The sunset was one of those gorgeous combinations of crimson and gold which those who frequent the Thames know so well. Upstream the flood of crimson of the dying day caused the elms and willows to stand out black against the cloudless sky, while every ripple caused by the boat caught the sun-glow until the water seemed red as blood.

A great peace was there. Not a single boat was in sight, not a sound save the quiet lapping of the water against the bows and the slight dripping of the oars as I feathered them. We were rowing upstream, so that the return would be easier, while Dick and his companion had punted down towards Chertsey. For the first time I was now alone with her. She was lovely.

She had settled herself lazily among the cushions, lying back at her ease and enjoying to the full the calm of the sunset hour, remarking now and then upon the beauty of the scene and the charm of summer days upstream. Her countenance was animated and perfect in feature, distinctly more beautiful than it had been on that well-remembered night when I had found her lying back cold and lifeless. How strange it all was, I thought, that I should actually be rowing her there, when only a few days before I had beheld her stiff and dead. Alone, with no one to overhear, I would have put a direct inquiry to her regarding the past, but I feared that such question, if put prematurely, might prevent the elucidation of the secret. To get at the truth I must act diplomatically, and exercise the greatest caution.

I sat facing her, bending with the oars, while she chatted on in a voice that sounded as music to my ears.

“I love the river,” she said. “Last year we had a house-boat up beyond Boulter’s, and it was delightful. There is really great fun in being boxed up in so small a space, and one can also make one’s place exceedingly artistic and comfortable at very small expense. We had a ripping time.”

“It is curious,” I remarked, “that most owners of house-boats go in for the same style of external decoration—rows of geraniums along the roof, and strings of Chinese lanterns—look at that one over there.”

“Yes,” she laughed, glancing in the direction I indicated. “I fear we were also sinners in that respect. It’s so difficult to devise anything new.” And she added, “Are you up the river much?”

“No,” I responded, “not much, unfortunately. My profession keeps me in London, and I generally like to spend my three weeks’ vacation on the Continent. I’m fond of getting a glance at other cities, and one travels so quickly that the thing is quite easy.”

“There are always more girls than men up the river,” she said. “I suppose it is because men are at business and girls have to kill time. We live down at Hampton, not far from the river. It’s a quiet, dead-alive sort of place, and if it were not for boating and punting it would be horribly dull.”

“And in winter?”

“Oh, in winter we are always on the Riviera. We go to Cannes each December and stay till the end of April. Mother declares she could not live through an English winter.”

This statement did not coincide with what the innkeeper’s wife had told me, namely, that the Glaslyns were much pressed for money.

“I spent one season in Nice a few years ago,” I said. “It is certainly charming, and I hope to go there again.”

“But is not our own Thames, with all its natural picturesqueness, quite as beautiful in its way?” she asked, looking around. “I love it. People who have been up the Rhine and the Rhone, the Moselle and the Loire, say that for picturesque scenery none of those great European rivers compare with ours.”

“I believe that to be quite true,” I answered. “Like yourself, I am extremely fond of boating and picnicking.”

“We often have picnics,” she said. “I’ll get mother to invite you to the next—if you’ll come.”

“Certainly,” I answered, much gratified. “I shall be only too delighted.”

We were at that moment passing two fine house-boats moored near one another, one of which my companion explained belonged to a well-known City stockbroker, and the other to a barrister of repute at the Chancery Bar. Both were gay with the usual geraniums and creepers, having inviting-looking deck-chairs on the roof and canaries in gilded cages hanging at the windows.

“Shall we go up the backwater?” she suddenly suggested. “It is more beautiful there than the main stream. We might get some lilies.”

“Of course,” I answered, and with a pull to the left turned the boat into the narrower stream branching out at the left, a stream that wound among fertile meadows yellow with buttercups, and where long lines of willows trailed in the water.

I was hot after a pretty stiff pull; therefore, when we had gone some distance, I leaned on the oars, allowing the boat to drift on under the bank where the long rushes waved in the stream and the pure white of the water-lilies showed against the dark green of floating leaves. Heedless of the rudder-lines, Eva leaned over and gathered some, trailing her hand in the water.

“How quiet and pleasant it is here,” she remarked, her calm, sweet, beautiful face showing what a great peace had come to her at that moment. It may not have been quite in keeping with theconvenancesthat she should have gone out like this alone with me, a comparative stranger, yet girls of to-day think little of such things, and she was nothing if not modern in dress, speech and frankness of manner.

We were far from the haunts of men in that calm hour of the dying day. Indeed, already the crimson of the sun was fading into the rose of the afterglow, and the stillness precursory of nightfall was complete save for the rustle of some water-rat or otter among the sedge, or the swift flight of a night-bird across the bosom of the stream. The shadows were changing and the glow on the water was turning from one colour to another. The cattle had come down to the brink, and wading to their knees, whisked the flies away with their tails as they slowly chewed the cud.

“Yes,” I agreed. “There is rest, perfect and complete, here. How different to London!”

“Ah, yes,” she answered. “I hate London, and very seldom go there, except when necessity compels us to do shopping.”

“Why do you hate it?” I asked, at once pricking up my ears. “Have you any especial reason for disliking it?”

“Well, no,” she laughed. “I suppose it’s the noise and bustle and hurry that I don’t like. I’m essentially a lover of the country. Even theatres, concerts and such-like amusements have but little attraction for me. I know it sounds rather absurd that a girl should make such a declaration, but I assure you I speak the truth.”

I did not doubt her. Any one with an open face like hers could not be guilty of lying. That statement was, in itself, an index to her character. She possessed a higher mind than most women, and was something of a philosopher. Truth to tell, this fact surprised me, for I had until then regarded her as of the usual type of the educated woman of to-day, a woman with a penchant for smartness in dress, freedom of language, and the entertainment of the modern music-hall in preference to opera.

I was gratified by my discovery. She was a woman with a soul beyond these things, with a sweet, lovable disposition—a woman far above all others. She was my idol. In those moments my love increased to a mad passion, and I longed to imprint a kiss upon those smiling lips, and to take her in my arms to tell her the secret that I dared not allow to pass my lips.

She leaned backwards on the cushions; her hands were tightly clasped behind her head; her sleeves fell back, showing her well-moulded arms; her sweet, childlike face was turned upward, with her blue eyes watching me through half-closed lids; her small mouth was but half shut; she smiled a little.

It entranced me to look upon her. For the first time the loveliness of a woman had made me blind and stupid.

I wanted to know more of the cause of her dislike of London, for I had scented suspicion in her words. Nevertheless, through all, she preserved a slight rigidity of manner, and I feared to put any further question at that moment.

Thus we rested in silence, dreaming in the darkening hour.

I sat facing her, glancing furtively at her countenance and wondering how she had become a victim in that inexplicable tragedy. By what means had she been spirited from that mysterious house and another victim placed there in her stead? All was an enigma, insoluble, inscrutable.

To be there with her, to exchange confidences as we had done, and to chat lightly upon river topics all gave me the greatest gratification. To have met her thus was an unexpected stroke of good fortune, and I was overjoyed by her spontaneous promise to invite me to one of their own river-parties.

Joy is the sunshine of the soul. At that restful hour I drank in the sweetness of her eyes, for I was in glamour-land, and my companion was truly enchanting.

We must have remained there fully half an hour, for when I suddenly looked at my watch and realised that we must in any case be late for dinner, the light in the wild red heavens had died away, the soft pale rose-pink had faded, and in the stillness of twilight there seemed a wide, profound mystery.

“We must be getting back,” I said quickly, pulling the boat out into mid-stream with a long stroke.

“Yes. The Blains will wonder wherever we’ve been,” she laughed. “Mary will accuse you of flirting with me.”

“Would that be such a very grave accusation?” I asked, smiling.

“Ah, that I really don’t know,” she answered gaily. “You would be the accused.”

“But neither of us are guilty, therefore we can return with absolutely clear consciences, can’t we?”

“Certainly,” she laughed. Then, after a brief pause, she asked, “Why did you not bring Mary out in preference to me?”

“Why do you ask?” I inquired in surprise.

“Well—it would be only natural, as you are engaged to her.”

“Engaged to her?” I echoed. “I’m certainly not engaged to Mary Blain.”

“Aren’t you?” she exclaimed. “I always understood you were.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “We are old friends. We were boy and girl together, but that is all.”

Her great blue eyes opened with a rather bewildered air, and she exclaimed—

“How strange that people should make such a mistake! I had long ago heard of you as Mary’s future husband.”

Then again we were silent, both pondering deeply. Had this remark of hers been mere guess-work? Was this carefully-concealed question but a masterstroke of woman’s ingenuity to ascertain whether I loved Mary Blain? It seemed very likely to be so. But she was so frank in all that I could not believe it of her. No doubt she had heard some story of our long-past love, and it had been exaggerated into an engagement, as such stories are so often apt to be.

Soon we emerged from the backwater into the main stream, and with our bow set in the direction of Laleham I rowed down with the current without loss of time. The twilight had fast deepened into dusk; the high poplars and drooping willows along the bank had grown dark, though the broad surface of the stream, eddying here and there where a fish rose, was still of a blue steely hue, and far away upstream only a long streak of grey showed upon the horizon. The stars shone down in the first faint darkness of the early night. Presently I glanced behind me, and in the distance saw a yellow ray, which my companion, well versed in river geography, told me was a light in one of the windows of Riverdene.

It had grown quite chilly, and the meadows were wreathed in faint white mist, therefore I spurted forward, and soon brought the boat up to the steps.

I knew that the world now held nothing for me but Eva.

When we entered the dining-room, a fine apartment with the table laid with shining plate, decorated with flowers, and illuminated with red-shaded candles, we were greeted, as we expected, by a loud and rather boisterous welcome by Dick and Mary. We were, of course, full of apologies, being nearly half an hour late. But up-river dinner is a somewhat movable feast, so Mrs Blain quickly forgave us, and while I sat by Mary on her one hand, Dick seated himself at Eva’s side.

Gaily we gossiped through a merry meal, washed down with a real Berncastel, and followed by old port, coffee, and curaçoa. Yet my mind was full of strange apprehensions. What possible connexion could these three women have with that crime which the police were withholding from the public? That they were all three aware that a tragedy had taken place seemed quite clear. Yet all remained silent.

I had detected in Mrs Blain’s manner an anxiety and nervousness which I had never before noticed, yet I refrained from putting any further question to her, lest I might, by doing so, show my hand. She could not keep from her tone when she spoke to me a note of insincerity, which my ear did not fail to detect.

Our conversation over dessert turned upon dogs, the performances of Mary’s pug having started the discussion, and quite inadvertently Dick, whose mind seemed always centred upon his work, for he was nothing if not an enthusiast, suddenly said—

“Dogs are now being used by the police to trace criminals. There is no better method when it can be accomplished, for a bloodhound will follow a trail anywhere with unfailing accuracy, even after some hours.”

“Do they actually use them now?” asked Mrs Blain in a strained, faltering voice, her wine-glass poised in her hand.

“Yes,” he responded. “They’ve been utilised with entire success in two or three cases this week, not only in London, but in the provinces also. They are unfailing, and will track the guilty one with an accuracy that’s absolutely astounding.”

Eva and Mary exchanged quick glances across the table, while Mrs Blain sipped her wine and stirred uneasily in her chair.

I noticed that the colour had died out from the faces of all three, and that in their blanched countenances was a look of mingled fear and suspicion.

My friend had led that conversation with remarkable tact to quite an unlooked-for result.

He lifted his eyes to mine for an instant and read my thoughts. My mind became filled with a presentiment of future ill.

Chapter Twelve.The Deformed Man’s Statement.Youth is as short as joy, and happiness vanishes like all else. In the mad hurry of life, however, we heed not such things. We live only for to-day.On our way back to Waterloo that night Dick earnestly discussed the situation.“And what’s your opinion now?” I inquired, as he sat opposite me in the corner of the railway carriage.Dick smiled slightly. “Both mother and daughter are connected with the affair, and are in deadly fear,” he replied decisively. “While in the punt with Mary Blain I had a long chat with her, and the conclusion I’ve formed is that she knows all about it. Besides, she was very anxious to know your recent movements—what you had been doing during the past week or so.”“I wonder whether she suspects?”“No, I don’t think so,” he answered. “Neither mother nor daughter dream that we are in possession of the secret. You see no one has returned to the place since the fatal night, and, as nothing has appeared in the papers, they naturally conclude that the affair has not yet been discovered.”“They evidently devour almost every morning and evening paper as it arrives down there. Did you notice the heap of papers in the morning-room?” I asked.“Of course. I kept my eyes well open while there,” he replied. “Did it strike you that the plate used at dinner was of exactly the same pattern as that on the table at Phillimore Place, and further, that among a pile of novels in the drawing-room was a book which one would not expect to find in such a place—a work known mainly to toxicologists, for it deals wholly with the potency of poisons?”“No,” I said in surprise, “I didn’t notice either of those things.”“But I did,” he went on reflectively. “All these facts go to convince me.”“Of what?”“That we are working in the right direction to obtain a key to the mystery,” he responded. Then suddenly he added: “By the way, that girl Glaslyn is certainly very beautiful. I envied you, old fellow, when you took her for a row.”I smiled. I had determined not to reveal to him her identity as the woman whom I had first discovered lifeless, but his natural shrewdness was far greater than mine. He was a born investigator of crime, and had not Fate placed him in a newspaper office, he would, I believe, have become a renowned detective.“Glaslyn? Eva Glaslyn?” he repeated, as if to himself. “Why, surely that’s the name of the girl you met in St. James’s Park and followed to Hampton—the woman whom you found dead on your first visit to the house with Patterson? Is that really so?” he cried, in sudden amazement.I nodded, without replying.“Then, Frank, old chap,” he answered in the low, hoarse voice of one utterly staggered, “this affair has assumed such a devilishly complicated phase that I fear we shall never get at the truth. To approach any of those three women would only be to place them on their guard, and without their assistance we can’t possibly act with success.”“Then what do you suggest?” I asked.“Suggest? I can suggest nothing,” he answered. “The complications on every side are too great—far too great.”“Only Eva Glaslyn can assist us,” I observed. “Yes. She alone can most probably tell us the truth, but her friendship for the Blains is proof positive that her secret is a guilty one, even though she was so near being a victim.”“She was a victim,” I declared. “When I saw her she was apparently lifeless, lying cold and still in the chair, with every appearance of one dead. But what causes you to think that her secret is a guilty one?” I asked hastily.“The Blains undoubtedly are implicated in the matter, and she, their friend, is in possession of their secret,” he argued. “As a victim, she would be prompted to expose them if she did not fear exposure herself. She’s therefore held to enforced silence.”His argument was a very forcible one, and during the remainder of the journey to London I sat back calmly reflecting upon it. It was a theory which had not before occurred to me, but I hesitated to accept it, because I could not believe that upon this woman who held me beneath the spell of her marvellous beauty could there rest any such hideous shadow of guilt. I remembered those clear blue eyes, that fair open countenance, and that frank manner of speech, and refused to give credence to my friend’s allegation.Slowly passed the days. Summer heat increased and in London the silk-hatted world had already turned their thoughts towards the open fields and the sea-beach. The summer holidays were drawing near at hand. How much that brief vacation of a week or fortnight means to the toiling Londoner! and how much more to his ailing wife and puny family, doomed to live year after year in the smoke-halo of some black, grimy street into which the sun never seems to shine, or in some cheap, crowded suburb where the jerry-built houses stand in long, inartistic, parallel rows and the cheap streets swarm with unwashed, shouting offspring! I had arranged to take my holiday in winter and go down to the Riviera, a treat I had long since promised myself, therefore both Dick and I continued our work through those stifling days, obtaining from Boyd every now and then the results of his latest inquiries. These results, it must be said, were absolutely nil.I had agreed with Dick to keep our suspicions entirely to ourselves, therefore we gave no information to Boyd, preferring to carry out our inquiries in our own method rather than seeking his aid. It was well, perhaps, that we did this, for the police too often blunder by displaying too great an energy. I was determined if possible to protect Eva.At Riverdene, Dick and I were welcome guests and were often invited to Sunday river-parties, thus showing that any suspicions entertained of us in that quarter had been removed. Time after time I had met Eva, and we had on lots of occasions gone out on the river together, exploring over and over again that winding shaded backwater, and picking lilies and forget-me-nots at the spot where on that memorable evening we had first exchanged confidences.I had received no invitation to The Hollies, but she had apologised, saying that the unusual heat had prostrated her mother, and that for the present they had been compelled to abandon their picnics. Many were the afternoons and evenings I idled away in a deck-chair on that well-kept lawn, or, accompanied by Mary, Eva, Cleugh and Fred Langdale, who, by the way, turned out to be an insufferable, over-dressed “bounder” who was continually dangling at Eva’s skirts, we would go forth and pay visits to various house-boats up and down stream.Langdale looked upon me with a certain amount of jealousy, I think, and, truth to tell, was not, as I had imagined, of the milk-and-water genus. Eva seemed to regard him as a necessary evil, and used him as a tame cat, a kind of body servant to fetch and carry for her. From her remarks to me, however, I had known full well from the first that there was not a shadow of affection on her side. She had explained how she simply tolerated him because companions were few at Hampton and he was a fairly good tennis player, while he, on his part, was unconsciously making an arrant ass of himself in the eyes of all by his efforts to cultivate a drawl that he deemed aristocratic, and to carefully caressing his moustache in an upward direction.Dick Cleugh, thorough-going Bohemian that he was, cared but little, I believe, for those riparian gatherings. True, he played tennis, rowed, punted and ate the strawberries and cream with as great a zest as any of us; nevertheless, I knew that he accepted the invitation with but one object, and that he would far rather have strolled in one of the parks with Lily Lowry than row Mary Blain up and down the stream.Lily often came to our chambers. She was about twenty-two, of a rather Southern type of beauty, with a good figure, a graceful gait, and a decidedly Londonchic. She spoke, however, with that nasal twang which stamps the true South Londoner, and her expressions were not absolutely devoid of the slang of the Newington Butts. Yet withal she was a quiet, pleasant girl.Thus half the month of July went by practically without incident, until one blazing day at noon, when, I went forth into Fleet Street for lunch, I unexpectedly encountered Dick, hot and hurrying, his hat tilted back. He had left home very early that morning to work up some “startling discovery” that had been made out at Plaistow, and already hoarse-voiced men were crying the “FourthComet” with the “latest details” he had unearthed.In reply to his question as to where I was going, I told him that after luncheon I had to go down to Walworth to make some trifling inquiry, whereupon he said—“Then I wish you’d do a favour for me, old fellow.”“Of course,” I answered promptly. “What is it?”“Call at the Lowrys and tell Lily to meet me at Loughborough Junction at eight to-night, at the usual place. I want to take her to the Crystal Palace to see the fireworks. I was going to wire, but you’ll pass her father’s place. Will you give her the message?”“Certainly,” I answered. “But is she at home?”“Yes. She’s got her holidays. Tell her I’m very busy, or I’d have come down myself. Sorry to trouble you.”I promised him to deliver the message, and after eating a chop at theCock, I walked along to the Gaiety and there took a blue motor-bus, which deposited me outside a small, very dingy shop, a few doors up the Walworth Road from theElephant and Castle, which bore over the little, old-fashioned window the sign, “Morris Lowry, Herbalist.” Displayed to the gaze of the passer-by were various assortments of lozenges and bunches of dried herbs, boxes of pills guaranteed to cure every ill, and a row of dirty glass bottles filled with yellow liquids, containing filthy-looking specimens of various repulsive objects. The glaring cards in the window advertised such desirable commodities as “Lowry’s Wind Pills,” “Lowry’s Cough Tablets,” and “Lowry’s Herbal Ointment,” while the window itself and the whole shop-front was dirt-encrusted, one pane being cracked across.As I entered the dark little shop, a mere box of a place smelling strongly of camomile, sarsaparilla and such-like herbs, which hung in dried and dusty confusion all over the ceiling, there arose from a chair the queerest, oddest creature that one might ever meet, even in the diverse crowds of lower London. Morris Lowry, the herbalist, was a strange specimen of distorted humanity, hunch-backed, with an abnormally large, semi-bald head, a scrubby grey beard, and wearing large, old-fashioned, steel-rimmed spectacles, which imparted to him an appearance of learning and distinction. His legs were short and stumpy, his body rather stout, and his arms of inordinate length, while the whole appearance of his sickly, yellow, wizened face was such as might increase one’s belief in the Darwinian theory. Indeed, it was impossible to look upon him without one’s mind reverting to monkeys, for his high cheek bones and square jaws bore a striking resemblance to the facial expression of the ancestral gorilla.Dressed in black cloak and conical hat he would have made an ideal stage wizard; but attired as he was in greasy black frock coat, and trousers that had long ago passed the glossy stage, he was certainly as curious-looking an individual as one could have found on the Surrey side of the Thames. He was no stranger to me, for on several occasions I had called there with Dick, and had chatted with him. Trade in herbs had dwindled almost to nothing. Nowadays, with all sorts and varieties of well-advertised medicines, the people of Newington, Walworth, and the New Kent Road did not patronise the old-fashioned herbal remedies, which, if truth be told, are perhaps more potent and wholesome than any of the quack nostrums flaunted in the daily papers and on the hoardings. Ten years ago the herbalists did a brisk trade in London, especially among lower class housewives who, having come up from the country, were glad enough to obtain the old-world decoctions; but nowadays the herbalists’ only source of profit seems to be in the sale of skin soaps and worm tablets.Old Morris, with his ugly, deformed figure and shining bald head, welcomed me warmly as I entered, and at once invited me into the little shop-parlour beyond, a mere dark cupboard which still retained the odour of the midday meal—Irish stew it must have been—and seemed infested with a myriad of flies. Possibly the fragrance of the herbs attracted them, or else they revelled among the succulent tablets exposed in the open boxes upon the narrow counter. These lozenges, together with his various bottled brews, tinctures of this and of that, the old man manufactured in a kind of dilapidated shed at the rear, which, be it said, often offended the olfactory nerves of the whole neighbourhood when certain herbs were in the process of stewing.“Lily is out,” croaked the weird old fellow, in response to my inquiry, “but I’ll, of course, give her the message. She don’t get much chance nowadays, poor child! When her mother was alive we used to manage to run down to Margit for a week or fortnight in the hot weather. But now—” and he shrugged his shoulders with quite a foreign air. “Well, there’s only me to look after the shop,” he added. “And things are not so brisk as they were a few years ago.” He spoke with a slight accent, due, Cleugh had told me, to the fact that his mother was French, and he had lived in France a number of years. Few people, however, noticed it, for by many he was believed to be a Jew.I nodded. I could see that the trade done there was infinitesimal and quite insufficient to pay the rent; besides, was not the fact that Lily had been compelled to go out and earn her own living proof in itself that the strange-looking old fellow was the reverse of prosperous? The herbal trade in London is nearly as dead as the manufacture of that once popular metal known as German silver.“Lily has gone to see an aunt of hers over at Battersea,” the old man explained. “But she’ll be home at five. She’s got her holidays now, and, poor girl, she’s been sadly disappointed. She expected to go down to her married sister at Huntingdon, but couldn’t go because her sister’s laid up with rheumatic fever. So she has to stay at home this year. And this place isn’t much of a change for her.”I glanced around at the dark, close little den, and at the strong-smelling shop beyond, and was fain to admit that he spoke the truth.“I suppose your friend, Mr Cleugh, is busy as usual with his murders and his horrors?” he remarked, smiling. “He’s a wonderful acute fellow. I always read the paper every day, and am generally interested in the results of the inquiries by theCometman. Half London reads his interviews and latest details.”“Yes,” I answered. “He’s kept hard at work always. There seems to be a never-ceasing string of sensations nowadays. As soon as one mystery is elucidated another springs up somewhere else.”“Ah,” he answered, his dark eyes gazing at me through his heavy-rimmed glasses, “it was always so. Never a day goes past without a mystery of some sort or another.”“I suppose,” I said, “if the truth were told, more people are poisoned in London than ever the police or the public imagine.” I knew that all herbalists were versed in toxicology more or less, and had a vague idea that I might learn something from him.“Of course,” he answered, “there are several poisons, the results of which bear such strong resemblance to symptoms of disease, that doctors are very frequently misled, and the verdict is ‘Death from natural causes.’ In dozens of cases every year the post-mortem proves disease, and thus the poisoner escapes.”“What causes you to think this?” I inquired eagerly, recollections of the tragedy in Kensington vividly in my mind.“Well,” he said, “I only make that allegation because every herbalist in London sells poisons in smaller or greater quantity. If he’s an unwise man, he asks no questions.—If he’s wise, he makes the usual inquiry.”“And then?”“Well,” the old man croaked with his small eyes twinkling in the semi-darkness, “the customer generally jays pretty dearly for the article.”“Which means that an entry is made in the poison-register which is not altogether the truth—eh?”He smiled and nodded.“When poisons are sold at a high price,” the old herbalist answered, “the vendor has no desire to know for what purpose the drug is to be used. It is generally supposed that it is to kill vermin—you understand.”“And human beings are more often the victims?” I hazarded.He raised his grey, shaggy brows with an expression of affected ignorance, answering—“Who can tell? The herbs or drugs are sold unlabelled, and wrapped in blank paper. As far as the herbalist is concerned, his liability is at an end, just as a cutler sells razors, or a gun-maker revolvers.”“And do you really believe that there is much secret poisoning in London at this moment?” I inquired, greatly interested.“Believe it?” he echoed. “Why, there’s no doubt of it. Why do people buy certain herbs which can be used for no other purpose than the destruction of human life?”“Do they actually buy poisons openly?” I exclaimed in surprise.“Well, no, not exactly openly,” he responded. “They are most of them very wary how they approach the subject, and all are prepared to pay heavily.”I looked at the odd, ugly figure before me. For the first time I had learned the secret of this trade. Perhaps even he retailed poisons to those who wanted such undesirable commodities, charging exorbitant prices for them, and entering fictitious sales in the poison-book which, by law, he was compelled to keep.“Have you actually ever had dealings with any poisoners?” I inquired. “Remember,” I added laughing, “that I’m not interviewing you, that we are friends, and that I don’t intend to publish this conversation in the newspapers.”“That’s rather a difficult question,” he responded, with a look of mystery upon his face. “Perhaps I’d best reply that I’ve before now sold poisons to people who could want them for no other purpose than the removal of superfluous friends.”“But do they actually ask openly for this herb or that?”“Certainly—with excuses for its use, of course,” and he went on to remark how lucidly the science of poisoning was explained in a certain book which might be purchased anywhere for seven-and-sixpence, a work which had undoubtedly cost thousands of human lives. Then instantly I recollected. It was a copy of this same book that Dick had noticed in the morning-room at Riverdene.“In this very room,” the old fellow went on, “I’ve had some queer inquiries made by all sorts and conditions of people. Only the other day a young girl called to consult me, having heard, she said, that I sold for a consideration a certain deadly herb. By her voice she was evidently a lady.”His final observation increased my interest in this remarkable conversation.“What was she like?” I inquired with eagerness, for since the affair at Phillimore Place I took the keenest interest in anything appertaining to poisons.“She was rather tall and slim, dressed in black. But my eyes are not so good as they used to be, and, in the dark here, I couldn’t see much of her face through her veil. She was pretty, I think.”“And did you actually sell her what she wanted?”He hesitated a moment.“Certainly, and at my own price,” he answered at last in his thin, rasping voice. “The stuff, one of the most dangerous and little-known compounds, not obtainable through any ordinary channel, is most difficult to handle. But I saw that it was not the first time she’d had azotics in her possession,” and he smiled grimly, rendering his face the more hideous. “From her attitude and conversation I should imagine her to be a very ingenious, but not altogether desirable acquaintance,” he added.“And didn’t you note anything by which you might recognise her again?” I inquired. “Surely young girls are not in the habit of buying poison in that manner!”“Well,” croaked the distorted old fellow, with a grin, “I did notice one thing, certainly. She wore a brooch of rather uncommon pattern. It was a playing-card in gold and enamel—a tiny five of diamonds.”“A five of diamonds!” I gasped.At that instant the truth became plain, although I hesitated to believe it. The brooch was Eva Glaslyn’s; one that she had worn only three days before when I was last down at Riverdene, and while on the water with her I had remarked its quaintness.Could it be possible that she had actually purchased a deadly drug of this hideous old man? Or were there other brooches of similar pattern and design? Thus were increased the shadows which seemed to envelop her. My soul seemed killed within me.

Youth is as short as joy, and happiness vanishes like all else. In the mad hurry of life, however, we heed not such things. We live only for to-day.

On our way back to Waterloo that night Dick earnestly discussed the situation.

“And what’s your opinion now?” I inquired, as he sat opposite me in the corner of the railway carriage.

Dick smiled slightly. “Both mother and daughter are connected with the affair, and are in deadly fear,” he replied decisively. “While in the punt with Mary Blain I had a long chat with her, and the conclusion I’ve formed is that she knows all about it. Besides, she was very anxious to know your recent movements—what you had been doing during the past week or so.”

“I wonder whether she suspects?”

“No, I don’t think so,” he answered. “Neither mother nor daughter dream that we are in possession of the secret. You see no one has returned to the place since the fatal night, and, as nothing has appeared in the papers, they naturally conclude that the affair has not yet been discovered.”

“They evidently devour almost every morning and evening paper as it arrives down there. Did you notice the heap of papers in the morning-room?” I asked.

“Of course. I kept my eyes well open while there,” he replied. “Did it strike you that the plate used at dinner was of exactly the same pattern as that on the table at Phillimore Place, and further, that among a pile of novels in the drawing-room was a book which one would not expect to find in such a place—a work known mainly to toxicologists, for it deals wholly with the potency of poisons?”

“No,” I said in surprise, “I didn’t notice either of those things.”

“But I did,” he went on reflectively. “All these facts go to convince me.”

“Of what?”

“That we are working in the right direction to obtain a key to the mystery,” he responded. Then suddenly he added: “By the way, that girl Glaslyn is certainly very beautiful. I envied you, old fellow, when you took her for a row.”

I smiled. I had determined not to reveal to him her identity as the woman whom I had first discovered lifeless, but his natural shrewdness was far greater than mine. He was a born investigator of crime, and had not Fate placed him in a newspaper office, he would, I believe, have become a renowned detective.

“Glaslyn? Eva Glaslyn?” he repeated, as if to himself. “Why, surely that’s the name of the girl you met in St. James’s Park and followed to Hampton—the woman whom you found dead on your first visit to the house with Patterson? Is that really so?” he cried, in sudden amazement.

I nodded, without replying.

“Then, Frank, old chap,” he answered in the low, hoarse voice of one utterly staggered, “this affair has assumed such a devilishly complicated phase that I fear we shall never get at the truth. To approach any of those three women would only be to place them on their guard, and without their assistance we can’t possibly act with success.”

“Then what do you suggest?” I asked.

“Suggest? I can suggest nothing,” he answered. “The complications on every side are too great—far too great.”

“Only Eva Glaslyn can assist us,” I observed. “Yes. She alone can most probably tell us the truth, but her friendship for the Blains is proof positive that her secret is a guilty one, even though she was so near being a victim.”

“She was a victim,” I declared. “When I saw her she was apparently lifeless, lying cold and still in the chair, with every appearance of one dead. But what causes you to think that her secret is a guilty one?” I asked hastily.

“The Blains undoubtedly are implicated in the matter, and she, their friend, is in possession of their secret,” he argued. “As a victim, she would be prompted to expose them if she did not fear exposure herself. She’s therefore held to enforced silence.”

His argument was a very forcible one, and during the remainder of the journey to London I sat back calmly reflecting upon it. It was a theory which had not before occurred to me, but I hesitated to accept it, because I could not believe that upon this woman who held me beneath the spell of her marvellous beauty could there rest any such hideous shadow of guilt. I remembered those clear blue eyes, that fair open countenance, and that frank manner of speech, and refused to give credence to my friend’s allegation.

Slowly passed the days. Summer heat increased and in London the silk-hatted world had already turned their thoughts towards the open fields and the sea-beach. The summer holidays were drawing near at hand. How much that brief vacation of a week or fortnight means to the toiling Londoner! and how much more to his ailing wife and puny family, doomed to live year after year in the smoke-halo of some black, grimy street into which the sun never seems to shine, or in some cheap, crowded suburb where the jerry-built houses stand in long, inartistic, parallel rows and the cheap streets swarm with unwashed, shouting offspring! I had arranged to take my holiday in winter and go down to the Riviera, a treat I had long since promised myself, therefore both Dick and I continued our work through those stifling days, obtaining from Boyd every now and then the results of his latest inquiries. These results, it must be said, were absolutely nil.

I had agreed with Dick to keep our suspicions entirely to ourselves, therefore we gave no information to Boyd, preferring to carry out our inquiries in our own method rather than seeking his aid. It was well, perhaps, that we did this, for the police too often blunder by displaying too great an energy. I was determined if possible to protect Eva.

At Riverdene, Dick and I were welcome guests and were often invited to Sunday river-parties, thus showing that any suspicions entertained of us in that quarter had been removed. Time after time I had met Eva, and we had on lots of occasions gone out on the river together, exploring over and over again that winding shaded backwater, and picking lilies and forget-me-nots at the spot where on that memorable evening we had first exchanged confidences.

I had received no invitation to The Hollies, but she had apologised, saying that the unusual heat had prostrated her mother, and that for the present they had been compelled to abandon their picnics. Many were the afternoons and evenings I idled away in a deck-chair on that well-kept lawn, or, accompanied by Mary, Eva, Cleugh and Fred Langdale, who, by the way, turned out to be an insufferable, over-dressed “bounder” who was continually dangling at Eva’s skirts, we would go forth and pay visits to various house-boats up and down stream.

Langdale looked upon me with a certain amount of jealousy, I think, and, truth to tell, was not, as I had imagined, of the milk-and-water genus. Eva seemed to regard him as a necessary evil, and used him as a tame cat, a kind of body servant to fetch and carry for her. From her remarks to me, however, I had known full well from the first that there was not a shadow of affection on her side. She had explained how she simply tolerated him because companions were few at Hampton and he was a fairly good tennis player, while he, on his part, was unconsciously making an arrant ass of himself in the eyes of all by his efforts to cultivate a drawl that he deemed aristocratic, and to carefully caressing his moustache in an upward direction.

Dick Cleugh, thorough-going Bohemian that he was, cared but little, I believe, for those riparian gatherings. True, he played tennis, rowed, punted and ate the strawberries and cream with as great a zest as any of us; nevertheless, I knew that he accepted the invitation with but one object, and that he would far rather have strolled in one of the parks with Lily Lowry than row Mary Blain up and down the stream.

Lily often came to our chambers. She was about twenty-two, of a rather Southern type of beauty, with a good figure, a graceful gait, and a decidedly Londonchic. She spoke, however, with that nasal twang which stamps the true South Londoner, and her expressions were not absolutely devoid of the slang of the Newington Butts. Yet withal she was a quiet, pleasant girl.

Thus half the month of July went by practically without incident, until one blazing day at noon, when, I went forth into Fleet Street for lunch, I unexpectedly encountered Dick, hot and hurrying, his hat tilted back. He had left home very early that morning to work up some “startling discovery” that had been made out at Plaistow, and already hoarse-voiced men were crying the “FourthComet” with the “latest details” he had unearthed.

In reply to his question as to where I was going, I told him that after luncheon I had to go down to Walworth to make some trifling inquiry, whereupon he said—

“Then I wish you’d do a favour for me, old fellow.”

“Of course,” I answered promptly. “What is it?”

“Call at the Lowrys and tell Lily to meet me at Loughborough Junction at eight to-night, at the usual place. I want to take her to the Crystal Palace to see the fireworks. I was going to wire, but you’ll pass her father’s place. Will you give her the message?”

“Certainly,” I answered. “But is she at home?”

“Yes. She’s got her holidays. Tell her I’m very busy, or I’d have come down myself. Sorry to trouble you.”

I promised him to deliver the message, and after eating a chop at theCock, I walked along to the Gaiety and there took a blue motor-bus, which deposited me outside a small, very dingy shop, a few doors up the Walworth Road from theElephant and Castle, which bore over the little, old-fashioned window the sign, “Morris Lowry, Herbalist.” Displayed to the gaze of the passer-by were various assortments of lozenges and bunches of dried herbs, boxes of pills guaranteed to cure every ill, and a row of dirty glass bottles filled with yellow liquids, containing filthy-looking specimens of various repulsive objects. The glaring cards in the window advertised such desirable commodities as “Lowry’s Wind Pills,” “Lowry’s Cough Tablets,” and “Lowry’s Herbal Ointment,” while the window itself and the whole shop-front was dirt-encrusted, one pane being cracked across.

As I entered the dark little shop, a mere box of a place smelling strongly of camomile, sarsaparilla and such-like herbs, which hung in dried and dusty confusion all over the ceiling, there arose from a chair the queerest, oddest creature that one might ever meet, even in the diverse crowds of lower London. Morris Lowry, the herbalist, was a strange specimen of distorted humanity, hunch-backed, with an abnormally large, semi-bald head, a scrubby grey beard, and wearing large, old-fashioned, steel-rimmed spectacles, which imparted to him an appearance of learning and distinction. His legs were short and stumpy, his body rather stout, and his arms of inordinate length, while the whole appearance of his sickly, yellow, wizened face was such as might increase one’s belief in the Darwinian theory. Indeed, it was impossible to look upon him without one’s mind reverting to monkeys, for his high cheek bones and square jaws bore a striking resemblance to the facial expression of the ancestral gorilla.

Dressed in black cloak and conical hat he would have made an ideal stage wizard; but attired as he was in greasy black frock coat, and trousers that had long ago passed the glossy stage, he was certainly as curious-looking an individual as one could have found on the Surrey side of the Thames. He was no stranger to me, for on several occasions I had called there with Dick, and had chatted with him. Trade in herbs had dwindled almost to nothing. Nowadays, with all sorts and varieties of well-advertised medicines, the people of Newington, Walworth, and the New Kent Road did not patronise the old-fashioned herbal remedies, which, if truth be told, are perhaps more potent and wholesome than any of the quack nostrums flaunted in the daily papers and on the hoardings. Ten years ago the herbalists did a brisk trade in London, especially among lower class housewives who, having come up from the country, were glad enough to obtain the old-world decoctions; but nowadays the herbalists’ only source of profit seems to be in the sale of skin soaps and worm tablets.

Old Morris, with his ugly, deformed figure and shining bald head, welcomed me warmly as I entered, and at once invited me into the little shop-parlour beyond, a mere dark cupboard which still retained the odour of the midday meal—Irish stew it must have been—and seemed infested with a myriad of flies. Possibly the fragrance of the herbs attracted them, or else they revelled among the succulent tablets exposed in the open boxes upon the narrow counter. These lozenges, together with his various bottled brews, tinctures of this and of that, the old man manufactured in a kind of dilapidated shed at the rear, which, be it said, often offended the olfactory nerves of the whole neighbourhood when certain herbs were in the process of stewing.

“Lily is out,” croaked the weird old fellow, in response to my inquiry, “but I’ll, of course, give her the message. She don’t get much chance nowadays, poor child! When her mother was alive we used to manage to run down to Margit for a week or fortnight in the hot weather. But now—” and he shrugged his shoulders with quite a foreign air. “Well, there’s only me to look after the shop,” he added. “And things are not so brisk as they were a few years ago.” He spoke with a slight accent, due, Cleugh had told me, to the fact that his mother was French, and he had lived in France a number of years. Few people, however, noticed it, for by many he was believed to be a Jew.

I nodded. I could see that the trade done there was infinitesimal and quite insufficient to pay the rent; besides, was not the fact that Lily had been compelled to go out and earn her own living proof in itself that the strange-looking old fellow was the reverse of prosperous? The herbal trade in London is nearly as dead as the manufacture of that once popular metal known as German silver.

“Lily has gone to see an aunt of hers over at Battersea,” the old man explained. “But she’ll be home at five. She’s got her holidays now, and, poor girl, she’s been sadly disappointed. She expected to go down to her married sister at Huntingdon, but couldn’t go because her sister’s laid up with rheumatic fever. So she has to stay at home this year. And this place isn’t much of a change for her.”

I glanced around at the dark, close little den, and at the strong-smelling shop beyond, and was fain to admit that he spoke the truth.

“I suppose your friend, Mr Cleugh, is busy as usual with his murders and his horrors?” he remarked, smiling. “He’s a wonderful acute fellow. I always read the paper every day, and am generally interested in the results of the inquiries by theCometman. Half London reads his interviews and latest details.”

“Yes,” I answered. “He’s kept hard at work always. There seems to be a never-ceasing string of sensations nowadays. As soon as one mystery is elucidated another springs up somewhere else.”

“Ah,” he answered, his dark eyes gazing at me through his heavy-rimmed glasses, “it was always so. Never a day goes past without a mystery of some sort or another.”

“I suppose,” I said, “if the truth were told, more people are poisoned in London than ever the police or the public imagine.” I knew that all herbalists were versed in toxicology more or less, and had a vague idea that I might learn something from him.

“Of course,” he answered, “there are several poisons, the results of which bear such strong resemblance to symptoms of disease, that doctors are very frequently misled, and the verdict is ‘Death from natural causes.’ In dozens of cases every year the post-mortem proves disease, and thus the poisoner escapes.”

“What causes you to think this?” I inquired eagerly, recollections of the tragedy in Kensington vividly in my mind.

“Well,” he said, “I only make that allegation because every herbalist in London sells poisons in smaller or greater quantity. If he’s an unwise man, he asks no questions.—If he’s wise, he makes the usual inquiry.”

“And then?”

“Well,” the old man croaked with his small eyes twinkling in the semi-darkness, “the customer generally jays pretty dearly for the article.”

“Which means that an entry is made in the poison-register which is not altogether the truth—eh?”

He smiled and nodded.

“When poisons are sold at a high price,” the old herbalist answered, “the vendor has no desire to know for what purpose the drug is to be used. It is generally supposed that it is to kill vermin—you understand.”

“And human beings are more often the victims?” I hazarded.

He raised his grey, shaggy brows with an expression of affected ignorance, answering—

“Who can tell? The herbs or drugs are sold unlabelled, and wrapped in blank paper. As far as the herbalist is concerned, his liability is at an end, just as a cutler sells razors, or a gun-maker revolvers.”

“And do you really believe that there is much secret poisoning in London at this moment?” I inquired, greatly interested.

“Believe it?” he echoed. “Why, there’s no doubt of it. Why do people buy certain herbs which can be used for no other purpose than the destruction of human life?”

“Do they actually buy poisons openly?” I exclaimed in surprise.

“Well, no, not exactly openly,” he responded. “They are most of them very wary how they approach the subject, and all are prepared to pay heavily.”

I looked at the odd, ugly figure before me. For the first time I had learned the secret of this trade. Perhaps even he retailed poisons to those who wanted such undesirable commodities, charging exorbitant prices for them, and entering fictitious sales in the poison-book which, by law, he was compelled to keep.

“Have you actually ever had dealings with any poisoners?” I inquired. “Remember,” I added laughing, “that I’m not interviewing you, that we are friends, and that I don’t intend to publish this conversation in the newspapers.”

“That’s rather a difficult question,” he responded, with a look of mystery upon his face. “Perhaps I’d best reply that I’ve before now sold poisons to people who could want them for no other purpose than the removal of superfluous friends.”

“But do they actually ask openly for this herb or that?”

“Certainly—with excuses for its use, of course,” and he went on to remark how lucidly the science of poisoning was explained in a certain book which might be purchased anywhere for seven-and-sixpence, a work which had undoubtedly cost thousands of human lives. Then instantly I recollected. It was a copy of this same book that Dick had noticed in the morning-room at Riverdene.

“In this very room,” the old fellow went on, “I’ve had some queer inquiries made by all sorts and conditions of people. Only the other day a young girl called to consult me, having heard, she said, that I sold for a consideration a certain deadly herb. By her voice she was evidently a lady.”

His final observation increased my interest in this remarkable conversation.

“What was she like?” I inquired with eagerness, for since the affair at Phillimore Place I took the keenest interest in anything appertaining to poisons.

“She was rather tall and slim, dressed in black. But my eyes are not so good as they used to be, and, in the dark here, I couldn’t see much of her face through her veil. She was pretty, I think.”

“And did you actually sell her what she wanted?”

He hesitated a moment.

“Certainly, and at my own price,” he answered at last in his thin, rasping voice. “The stuff, one of the most dangerous and little-known compounds, not obtainable through any ordinary channel, is most difficult to handle. But I saw that it was not the first time she’d had azotics in her possession,” and he smiled grimly, rendering his face the more hideous. “From her attitude and conversation I should imagine her to be a very ingenious, but not altogether desirable acquaintance,” he added.

“And didn’t you note anything by which you might recognise her again?” I inquired. “Surely young girls are not in the habit of buying poison in that manner!”

“Well,” croaked the distorted old fellow, with a grin, “I did notice one thing, certainly. She wore a brooch of rather uncommon pattern. It was a playing-card in gold and enamel—a tiny five of diamonds.”

“A five of diamonds!” I gasped.

At that instant the truth became plain, although I hesitated to believe it. The brooch was Eva Glaslyn’s; one that she had worn only three days before when I was last down at Riverdene, and while on the water with her I had remarked its quaintness.

Could it be possible that she had actually purchased a deadly drug of this hideous old man? Or were there other brooches of similar pattern and design? Thus were increased the shadows which seemed to envelop her. My soul seemed killed within me.

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