THE MESSENGER ENTERED.THE MESSENGER ENTERED.
A minute later, a knock sounded on my door. 'Come in!' I said, faintly; and the messenger entered.
I turned and faced him. The blood rushed to my cheek. 'Harold!' I cried, darting forward. My joy overcame me. He folded me in his arms. I allowed him, unreproved. For the first time he kissed me. I did not shrink from it.
Then I stood away a little and gazed at him. Even at that crucial moment of doubt and fear, I could not helpnoticing how admirably he made up as a handsome young Rajput. Three years earlier, at Schlangenbad, I remembered he had struck me as strangely Oriental-looking: he had the features of a high-born Indian gentleman, without the complexion. His large, poetical eyes, his regular, oval face, his even teeth, his mouth and moustache, all vaguely recalled the highest type of the Eastern temperament. Now, he had blackened his face and hands with some permanent stain—Indian ink, I learned later—and the resemblance to a Rajput chief was positively startling. In his gold brocade and ample white turban, no passer-by, I felt sure, would ever have dreamt of doubting him.
'Then you knew me at once?' he said, holding my face between his hands. 'That's bad, darling! I flattered myself I had transformed my face into the complete Indian.'
'Love has sharp eyes,' I answered. 'It can see through brick walls. But the disguise is perfect. No one else would detect you.'
'Love is blind, I thought.'
'Not where it ought to see. There, it pierces everything. I knew you instantly, Harold. But all London, I am sure, would pass you by, unknown. You are absolute Orient.'
'That's well; for all London is looking for me,' he answered, bitterly. 'The streets bristle with detectives. Southminster's knaveries have won the day. So I have tried this disguise. Otherwise, I should have been arrested the moment the jury brought in their verdict.'
'And why were you not?' I asked, drawing back. 'Oh, Harold, I trust you; but why did you disappear and make all the world believe you admitted yourself guilty?'
He opened his arms. 'Can't you guess?' he cried, holding them out to me.
I nestled in them once more; but I answered through my tears—I had found tears now—'No Harold; it baffles me.'
'You remember what you promised me?' he murmured, leaning over me and clasping me. 'If ever I were poor, friendless, hunted—you would marry me. Now the opportunity has come when we can both prove ourselves. To-day, except you and dear Georgey, I haven't a friend in the world. Everyone else has turned against me. Southminster holds the field. I am a suspected forger; in a very few days I shall doubtless be a convicted felon. Unjustly, as you know; yet still—we must face it—a convicted felon. So I have come to claim you. I have come to ask you now, in this moment of despair, will you keep your promise?'
I lifted my face to his. He bent over it trembling. I whispered the words in his ear. 'Yes, Harold, I will keep it. I have always loved you. And now I will marry you.'
'I knew you would!' he cried, and pressed me to his bosom.
We sat for some minutes, holding each other's hands, and saying nothing; we were too full of thought for words. Then suddenly, Harold roused himself. 'We must make haste, darling,' he cried. 'We are keeping Partab outside, and every minute is precious, every minute's delay dangerous. We ought to go down at once. Partab's carriage is waiting at the door for us.'
'Go down?' I exclaimed, clinging to him. 'How? Why? I don't understand. What is your programme?'
'Ah, I forgot I hadn't explained to you! Listen here, dearest—quick; I can waste no words over it. I said just now I had no friends in the world but you and Georgey. That's not true, for dear old Partab has stuck to me nobly.When all my English friends fell away, the Rajput was true to me. He arranged all this; it was his own idea; he foresaw what was coming. He urged me yesterday, just before the verdict (when he saw my acquaintances beginning to look askance), to slip quietly out of court, and make my way by unobtrusive roads to his house in Curzon Street. There, he darkened my face like his, and converted me to Hinduism. I don't suppose the disguise will serve me for more than a day or two; but it will last long enough for us to get safely away to Scotland.'
'Scotland?' I murmured. 'Then you mean to try a Scotch marriage?'
'It is the only thing possible. We must be married to-day, and in England, of course, we cannot do it. We would have to be called in church, or else to procure a license, either of which would involve disclosure of my identity. Besides, even the license would keep us waiting about for a day or two. In Scotland, on the other hand, we can be married at once. Partab's carriage is below, to take you to King's Cross. He is staunch as steel, dear fellow. Do you consent to go with me?'
My faculty for promptly making up such mind as I possess stood me once more in good stead. 'Implicitly,' I answered. 'Dear Harold, this calamity has its happy side—for without it, much as I love you, I could never have brought myself to marry you!'
'One moment,' he cried. 'Before you go, recollect, this step is irrevocable. You will marry a man who may be torn from you this evening, and from whom fourteen years of prison may separate you.'
'I know it,' I cried, through my tears. 'But— I shall be showing my confidence in you, my love for you.'
He kissed me once more, fervently. 'This makesamends for all,' he cried. 'Lois, to have won such a woman as you, I would go through it all a thousand times over. It was for this, and for this alone, that I hid myself last night. I wanted to give you the chance of showing me how much, how truly you loved me.'
'And after we are married?' I asked, trembling.
'I shall give myself up at once to the police in Edinburgh.'
I clung to him wistfully. My heart half urged me to urge him to escape. But I knew that was wrong. 'Give yourself up, then,' I said, sobbing. 'It is a brave man's place. You must stand your trial; and, come what will, I will strive to bear it with you.'
'I knew you would,' he cried. 'I was not mistaken in you.'
We embraced again, just once. It was little enough after those years of waiting.
'Now, come!' he cried. 'Let us go.'
I drew back. 'Not with you, dearest,' I whispered. 'Not in the Maharajah's carriage. You must start by yourself. I will follow you at once, to King's Cross, in a hansom.'
He saw I was right. It would avoid suspicion, and it would prevent more scandal. He withdrew without a word. 'We meet,' I said, 'at ten, at King's Cross Station.'
I did not even wait to wash the tears from my eyes. All red as they were, I put on my hat and my little brown travelling jacket. I don't think I so much as glanced once at the glass. The seconds were precious. I saw the Maharajah drive away, with Harold in the dickey, arms crossed, imperturbable, Orientally silent. He looked the very counterpart of the Rajput by his side. Then I descended the stairs and walked out boldly. As I passed through the hall, the servants and the visitors stared at me and whispered.They spoke with nods and liftings of the eyebrows. I was aware that that morning I had achieved notoriety.
At Piccadilly Circus, I jumped of a sudden into a passing hansom. 'King's Cross!' I cried, as I mounted the step. 'Drive quick! I have no time to spare.' And, as the man drove off, I saw, by a convulsive dart of someone across the road, that I had given the slip to a disappointed reporter.
At the station I took a first-class ticket for Edinburgh. On the platform, the Maharajah and his attendants were waiting. He lifted his hat to me, though otherwise he took no overt notice. But I saw his keen eyes follow me down the train. Harold, in his Oriental dress, pretended not to observe me. One or two porters, and a few curious travellers, cast inquiring eyes on the Eastern prince, and made remarks about him to one another. 'That's the chap as was up yesterday in the Ashurst will kise!' said one lounger to his neighbour. But nobody seemed to look at Harold; his subordinate position secured him from curiosity. The Maharajah had always two Eastern servants, gorgeously dressed, in attendance; he had been a well-known figure in London society, and at Lord's and the Oval, for two or three seasons.
'Bloomin' fine cricketer!' one porter observed to his mate as he passed.
'Yuss; not so dusty for a nigger,' the other man replied. 'Fust-rite bowler; but, Lord, he can't 'old a candle to good old Ranji.'
As for myself, nobody seemed to recognise me. I set this fact down to the fortunate circumstance that the evening papers had published rough wood-cuts which professed to be my portrait, and which naturally led the public to look out for a brazen-faced, raw-boned, hard-featured termagant.
I took my seat in a ladies' compartment by myself. Asthe train was about to start, Harold strolled up as if casually for a moment. 'You think it better so?' he queried, without moving his lips or seeming to look at me.
'Decidedly,' I answered. 'Go back to Partab. Don't come near me again till we get to Edinburgh. It is dangerous still. The police may at any moment hear we have started and stop us half-way; and now that we have once committed ourselves to this plan it would be fatal to be interrupted before we have got married.'
'You are right,' he cried; 'Lois, you are always right, somehow.'
I wished I could think so myself; but 'twas with serious misgivings that I felt the train roll out of the station.
Oh, that long journey north, alone, in a ladies' compartment—with the feeling that Harold was so near, yet so unapproachable: it was an endless agony.Hehad the Maharajah, who loved and admired him, to keep him from brooding; but I, left alone, and confined with my own fears, conjured up before my eyes every possible misfortune that Heaven could send us. I saw clearly now that if we failed in our purpose this journey would be taken by everyone for a flight, and would deepen the suspicion under which we both laboured. It would make me still more obviously a conspirator with Harold.
Whatever happened, we must strain every nerve to reach Scotland in safety, and then to get married, in order that Harold might immediately surrender himself.
HE TOOK A LONG, CARELESS STARE AT ME.HE TOOK A LONG, CARELESS STARE AT ME.
At York, I noticed with a thrill of terror that a man in plain clothes, with the obtrusively unobtrusive air of a detective, looked carefully though casually into every carriage. I felt sure he was a spy, because of his marked outer jauntiness of demeanour, which hardly masked an underlying hang-dog expression of scrutiny. When he reached myplace, he took a long, careless stare at me—a seemingly careless stare, which was yet brim-full of the keenest observation. Then he paced slowly along the line of carriages, with a glance at each, till he arrived just opposite the Maharajah's compartment. There he stared hard once more. The Maharajah descended; so did Harold and the Hindu attendant, who was dressed just like him. The man I took for a detective indulged in a frank, long gaze at the unconscious Indian prince, but cast only a hasty eye on the two apparent followers. That touch of revelation relieved my mind a little. I felt convinced the police were watchingthe Maharajah and myself, as suspicious persons connected with the case; but they had not yet guessed that Harold had disguised himself as one of the two invariable Rajput servants.
We steamed on northward. At Newcastle, the same detective strolled, with his hands in his pockets, along the train once more, and puffed a cigar with the nonchalant air of a sporting gentleman. But I was certain now, from the studious unconcern he was anxious to exhibit, that he must be a spy upon us. He overdid his mood of careless observation. It was too obvious an assumption. Precisely the same thing happened again when we pulled up at Berwick. I knew now that we were watched. It would be impossible for us to get married at Edinburgh if we were thus closely pursued. There was but one chance open; we must leave the train abruptly at the first Scotch stopping station.
The detective knew we were booked through for Edinburgh. So much I could tell, because I saw him make inquiries of the ticket examiner at York, and again at Berwick, and because the ticket-examiner thereupon entered a mental note of the fact as he punched my ticket each time: 'Oh, Edinburgh, miss? All right'; and then stared at me suspiciously. I could tell he had heard of the Ashurst will case. He also lingered long about the Maharajah's compartment, and then went back to confer with the detective. Thus, putting two and two together, as a woman will, I came to the conclusion that the spy did not expect us to leave the train before we reached Edinburgh. That told in our favour. Most men trust much to just such vague expectations. They form a theory, and then neglect the adverse chances. You can only get the better of a skilled detective by taking him thus, psychologically and humanly.
By this time, I confess, I felt almost like a criminal. Never in my life had danger loomed so near—not even when we returned with the Arabs from the oasis. For then we feared for our lives alone; now, we feared for our honour.
I drew a card from my case before we left Berwick station, and scribbled a few hasty words on it in German. 'We are watched. A detective! If we run through to Edinburgh, we shall doubtless be arrested or at least impeded. This train will stop at Dunbar for one minute. Just before it leaves again, get out as quietly as you can—at the last moment. I will also get out and join you. Let Partab go on; it will excite less attention. The scheme I suggest is the only safe plan. If you agree, as soon as we have well started from Berwick, shake your handkerchief unobtrusively out of your carriage window.'
I BECKONED A PORTER.I BECKONED A PORTER.
I beckoned a porter noiselessly without one word. The detective was now strolling along the fore-part of the train, with his back turned towards me, peering as he went into all the windows. I gave the porter a shilling. 'Take this to a black gentleman in the next carriage but one,' I said, in aconfidential whisper. The porter touched his hat, nodded, smiled, and took it.
Would Harold see the necessity for acting on my advice?— I wondered. I gazed out along the train as soon as we had got well clear of Berwick. A minute—two minutes—three minutes passed; and still no handkerchief. I began to despair. He was debating, no doubt. If he refused, all was lost, and we were disgraced for ever.
At last, after long waiting, as I stared still along the whizzing line, with the smoke in my eyes, and the dust half blinding me, I saw, to my intense relief, a handkerchief flutter. It fluttered once, not markedly, then a black hand withdrew it. Only just in time, for even as it disappeared, the detective's head thrust itself out of a farther window. He was not looking for anything in particular, as far as I could tell—just observing the signals. But it gave me a strange thrill to think even now we were so nearly defeated.
My next trouble was—would the train draw up at Dunbar? The 10 A.M. from King's Cross is not set down to stop there in Bradshaw, for no passengers are booked to or from the station by the day express; but I remembered from of old when I lived at Edinburgh, that it used always to wait about a minute for some engine-driver's purpose. This doubt filled me with fresh fear; did it draw up there still?—they have accelerated the service so much of late years, and abolished so many old accustomed stoppages. I counted the familiar stations with my breath held back. They seemed so much farther apart than usual. Reston—Grant's House—Cockburnspath—Innerwick.
The next was Dunbar. If we rolled pastthat, then all was lost. We could never get married. I trembled and hugged myself.
The engine screamed. Did that mean she was runningthrough? Oh, how I wished I had learned the interpretation of the signals!
Then gradually, gently, we began to slow. Were we slowing to pass the station only? No; with a jolt she drew up. My heart gave a bound as I read the word 'Dunbar' on the station notice-board.
I rose and waited, with my fingers on the door. Happily it had one of those new-fashioned slip-latches which open from inside. No need to betray myself prematurely to the detective by a hand displayed on the outer handle. I glanced out at him cautiously. His head was thrust through his window, and his sloping shoulders revealed the spy, but he was looking the other way—observing the signals, doubtless, to discover why we stopped at a place not mentioned in Bradshaw.
Harold's face just showed from another window close by. Too soon or too late might either of them be fatal. He glanced inquiry at me. I nodded back, 'Now!' The train gave its first jerk, a faint backward jerk, indicative of the nascent intention of starting. As it braced itself to go on, I jumped out; so did Harold. We faced one another on the platform without a word. 'Stand away there:' the station-master cried, in an angry voice. The guard waved his green flag. The detective, still absorbed on the signals, never once looked back. One second later, we were safe at Dunbar, and he was speeding away by the express for Edinburgh.
It gave us a breathing space of about an hour.
YOU CAN'T GET OUT HERE, HE SAID, CRUSTILY.YOU CAN'T GET OUT HERE, HE SAID, CRUSTILY.
For half a minute I could not speak. My heart was in my mouth. I hardly even dared to look at Harold. Then the station-master stalked up to us with a threatening manner. 'You can't get out here,' he said, crustily, in a gruff Scotch voice. 'This train is not timed to set down before Edinburgh.'
'Wehavegot out,' I answered, taking it upon me to speak for my fellow-culprit, the Hindu—as he was to all seeming. 'The logic of facts is with us. We were booked through to Edinburgh, but we wanted to stop at Dunbar; and as the train happened to pull up, we thought we needn't waste time by going on all that way and then coming back again.'
'Ye should have changed at Berwick,' the station-master said, still gruffly, 'and come on by the slow train.' I couldsee his careful Scotch soul was vexed (incidentally) at our extravagance in paying the extra fare to Edinburgh and back again.
In spite of agitation, I managed to summon up one of my sweetest smiles—a smile that ere now had melted the hearts of rickshaw coolies and of Frenchdouaniers. He thawed before it visibly. 'Time was important to us,' I said—oh, he guessed not how important; 'and besides, you know, it is so good for the company!'
'That's true,' he answered, mollified. He could not tilt against the interests of the North British shareholders. 'But how about yer luggage? It'll have gone on to Edinburgh, I'm thinking.'
'Wehaveno luggage,' I answered boldly.
He stared at us both, puckered his brow a moment, and then burst out laughing. 'Oh, ay, I see,' he answered, with a comic air of amusement. 'Well, well, it's none of my business, no doubt, and I will not interfere with ye; though why a lady like you——' He glanced curiously at Harold.
I saw he had guessed right, and thought it best to throw myself unreservedly on his mercy. Time was indeed important. I glanced at the station clock. It was not very far from the stroke of six, and we must manage to get married before the detective could miss us at Edinburgh, where he was due at 6.30.
So I smiled once more, that heart-softening smile. 'We have each our own fancies,' I said blushing—and, indeed (such is the pride of race among women), I felt myself blush in earnest at the bare idea that I was marrying a black man, in spite of our good Maharajah's kindness. 'He is a gentleman, and a man of education and culture.' I thought that recommendation ought to tell with a Scotchman. 'We are in sore straits now, but our case is a just one. Can you tellme who in this place is most likely to sympathise—most likely to marry us?'
He looked at me—and surrendered at discretion. 'I should think anybody would marry ye who saw yer pretty face and heard yer sweet voice,' he answered. 'But, perhaps, ye'd better present yerself to Mr. Schoolcraft, the U.P. minister at Little Kirkton. He was aye soft-hearted.'
'How far from here?' I asked.
'About two miles,' he answered.
'Can we get a trap?'
'Oh ay, there's machines always waiting at the station.'
WE TOLD OUR TALE.WE TOLD OUR TALE.
We interviewed a 'machine,' and drove out to Little Kirkton. There, we told our tale in the fewest words possible to the obliging and good-natured U.P. minister. He looked, as the station-master had said, 'soft-hearted'; but he dashed our hopes to the ground at once by telling us candidly that unless we had had our residence in Scotland for twenty-one days immediately preceding the marriage, it would not be legal. 'If you were Scotch,' he added, 'I could go through the ceremony at once, of course; and then you could apply to the sheriff to-night for leave to register the marriage in proper form afterward: but as one of you is English, and the other I judge'—he smiled and glanced towards Harold—'an Indian-born subject of Her Majesty, it would be impossible for me to do it: the ceremony would be invalid, under Lord Brougham's Act, without previous residence.'
This was a terrible blow. I looked away appealingly. 'Harold,' I cried in despair, 'do you think we could manage to hide ourselves safely anywhere in Scotland for twenty-one days?'
His face fell. 'How could I escape notice? All the world is hunting for me. And then the scandal! No matter where you stopped—however far from me—no, Lois darling, I could never expose you to it.'
The minister glanced from one to the other of us, puzzled. 'Harold?' he said, turning over the word on his tongue. 'Harold? That doesn't sound like an Indian name, does it? And——' he hesitated, 'you speak wonderful English!'
I saw the safest plan was to make a clean breast of it. He looked the sort of man one could trust on an emergency. 'You have heard of the Ashurst will case?' I said, blurting it out suddenly.
'I have seen something about it in the newspapers; yes. But it did not interest me: I have not followed it.'
I told him the whole truth; the case against us—the facts as we knew them. Then I added, slowly, 'This is Mr. Harold Tillington, whom they accuse of forgery. Does he look like a forger? I want to marry him before he is tried. It is the only way by which I can prove my implicit trust in him. As soon as we are married, he will give himself up at once to the police—if you wish it, before your eyes. But married we must be.Can'tyou manage it somehow?'
My pleading voice touched him. 'Harold Tillington?' he murmured. 'I know of his forebears. Lady Guinevere Tillington's son, is it not? Then you must be Younger of Gledcliffe.' For Scotland is a village: everyone in it seems to have heard of every other.'
'What does he mean?' I asked. 'Younger of Gledcliffe?' I remembered now that the phrase had occurred in Mr. Ashurst's will, though I never understood it.
'A Scotch fashion,' Harold answered. 'The heir to a laird is called Younger of so-and-so. My father has a small estate of that name in Dumfriesshire; averysmall estate: I was born and brought up there.'
'Then you are a Scotchman?' the minister asked.
'Yes,' Harold answered frankly: 'by remote descent. We are trebly of the female line at Gledcliffe; still, I am no doubt more or less Scotch by domicile.'
'Younger of Gledcliffe! Oh, yes, that ought certainly to be quite sufficient for our purpose. Do you live there?'
'I have been living there lately. I always live there when I'm in Britain. It is my only home. I belong to the diplomatic service.'
'But then—the lady?'
'She is unmitigatedly English,' Harold admitted, in a gloomy voice.
'Not quite,' I answered. 'I lived four years in Edinburgh. And I spent my holidays there while I was at Girton. I keep my boxes still at my old rooms in Maitland Street.'
'Oh, that will do,' the minister answered, quite relieved; for it was clear that our anxiety and the touch of romance in our tale had enlisted him in our favour. 'Indeed, now I come to think of it, it suffices for the Act if one only of the parties is domiciled in Scotland. And as Mr. Tillington lives habitually at Gledcliffe, that settles the question. Still, I can do nothing save marry you now by religious service in the presence of my servants—which constitutes what we call an ecclesiastical marriage—it becomes legal if afterwards registered; and then you must apply to the sheriff for a warrant to register it. But I will do what I can; later on, if you like, you can be re-married by the rites of your own Church in England.'
'Are you quite sure our Scotch domicile is good enough in law?' Harold asked, still doubtful.
'I can turn it up, if you wish. I have a legal handbook. Before Lord Brougham's Act, no formalities were necessary. But the Act was passed to prevent Gretna Green marriages. The usual phrase is that such a marriage does not hold good unless one or other of the parties either has had his or her usual residence in Scotland, or else has lived there for twenty-one days immediately preceding the date of the marriage. If you like, I will wait to consult the authorities.'
'No, thank you,' I cried. 'There is no time to lose. Marry us first, and look it up afterwards. "One or other" will do, it seems. Mr. Tillington is Scotch enough, I amsure; he has no address in Britain but Gledcliffe: we will rest our claim upon that. Even if the marriage turns out invalid, we only remain where we were. This is a preliminary ceremony to prove good faith, and to bind us to one another. We can satisfy the law, if need be, when we return to England.'
The minister called in his wife and servants, and explained to them briefly. He exhorted us and prayed. We gave our solemn consent in legal form before two witnesses. Then he pronounced us duly married. In a quarter of an hour more, we had made declaration to that effect before the sheriff, the witnesses accompanying us, and were formally affirmed to be man and wife before the law of Great Britain. I asked if it would hold in England as well.
'You couldn't be firmer married,' the sheriff said, with decision, 'by the Archbishop of Canterbury in Westminster Abbey.'
Harold turned to the minister. 'Will you send for the police?' he said, calmly. 'I wish to inform them that I am the man for whom they are looking in the Ashurst will case.'
Our own cabman went to fetch them. It was a terrible moment. But Harold sat in the sheriff's study and waited, as if nothing unusual were happening. He talked freely but quietly. Never in my life had I felt so proud of him.
At last the police came, much inflated with the dignity of so great a capture, and took down our statement. 'Do you give yourself in charge on a confession of forgery?' the superintendent asked, as Harold ended.
I HAVE FOUND A CLUE.I HAVE FOUND A CLUE.
'Certainly not,' Harold answered. 'I have not committed forgery. But I do not wish to skulk or hide myself. I understand a warrant is out against me in London. I have come to Scotland, hurriedly, for the sake of gettingmarried, not to escape apprehension. I am here, openly, under my own name. I tell you the facts; 'tis for you to decide; if you choose, you can arrest me.'
The superintendent conferred for some time in another room with the sheriff. Then he returned to the study. 'Very well, sir,' he said, in a respectful tone, 'I arrest you.'
So that was the beginning of our married life. More than ever, I felt sure I could trust in Harold.
The police decided, after hearing by telegram from London, that we must go up at once by the night express, which they stopped for the purpose. They were forced to divide us. I took the sleeping-car; Harold travelled with two constables in a ordinary carriage. Strange to say, notwithstanding all this, so great was our relief from the tension of our flight, that we both slept soundly.
Next morning we arrived in London, Harold guarded.The police had arranged that the case should come up at Bow Street that afternoon. It was not an ideal honeymoon, and yet, I was somehow happy.
At King's Cross, they took him away from me. Still, I hardly cried. All the way up in the train, whenever I was awake, an idea had been haunting me—a possible clue to this trickery of Lord Southminster's. Petty details cropped up and fell into their places. I began to unravel it all now. I had an inkling of a plan to set Harold right again.
The will we had proved——but I must not anticipate.
When we parted, Harold kissed me on the forehead, and murmured rather sadly, 'Now, I suppose it's all up. Lois, I must go. These rogues have been too much for us.'
'Not a bit of it,' I answered, new hope growing stronger and stronger within me. 'I see a way out. I have found a clue. I believe, dear Harold, the right will still be vindicated.'
And red-eyed as I was, I jumped into a hansom, and called to the cabman to drive at once to Lady Georgina's.
'Is Lady Georgina at home?' The discreet man-servant in sober black clothes eyed me suspiciously. 'No, miss,' he answered. 'That is to say—no, ma'am. Her ladyship is still at Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst's—the late Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst, I mean—in Park Lane North. You know the number, ma'am?'
'Yes, I know it,' I replied, with a gasp; for this was indeed a triumph. My one fear had been lest Lord Southminster should already have taken possession—why, you will see hereafter; and it relieved me to learn that Lady Georgina was still at hand to guard my husband's interests. She had been living at the house, practically, since her brother's death. I drove round with all speed, and flung myself into my dear old lady's arms.
'Kiss me,' I cried, flushed. 'I am your niece!' But she knew it already, for our movements had been fully reported by this time (with picturesque additions) in the morning papers. Imagination, ill-developed in the English race, seems to concentrate itself in the lower order of journalists.
She kissed me on both cheeks with unwonted tenderness. 'Lois,' she cried, with tears in her eyes, 'you're a brick!'It was not exactly poetical at such a moment, but from her it meant more than much gushing phraseology.
'And you're here in possession!' I murmured.
I'VE HELD THE FORT BY MAIN FORCE.I'VE HELD THE FORT BY MAIN FORCE.
The Cantankerous Old Lady nodded. She was in her element, I must admit. She dearly loved a row—above all, a family row; but to be in the thick of a family row, and to feel herself in the right, with the law against her—that was joy such as Lady Georgina had seldom before experienced. 'Yes, dear,' she burst out volubly, 'I'm in possession, thank Heaven. And what's more, they won't oust me without a legal process. I've been here, off and on, you know, ever since poor dear Marmy died, looking after things for Harold;and I shall look after them still, till Bertie Southminster succeeds in ejecting me, which won't be easy. Oh, I've held the fort by main force, I can tell you; held it like a Trojan. Bertie's in a precious great hurry to move in, I can see; but I won't allow him. He's been down here this morning, fatuously blustering, and trying to carry the post by storm, with a couple of policemen.'
'Policemen!' I cried. 'To turn you out?'
'Yes, my dear, policemen: but (the Lord be praised) I was too much for him. There are legal formalities to fulfil yet; and I won't budge an inch, Lois, not one inch, my dear, till he's fulfilled every one of them. Mark my words, child, that boy's up to some devilry.'
'He is,' I answered.
'Yes, he wouldn't be in such a rampaging hurry to get in—being as lazy as he's empty-headed—takes after Gwendoline in that—if he hadn't some excellent reason for wishing to take possession: and depend upon it, the reason is that he wants to get hold of something or other that's Harold's. But he sha'n't if I can help it; and, thank my stars, I'm a dour woman to reckon with. If he comes, he comes over my old bones, child. I've been overhauling everything of Marmy's, I can tell you, to checkmate the boy if I can; but I've found nothing yet, and till I've satisfied myself on that point, I'll hold the fort still, if I have to barricade that pasty-faced scoundrel of a nephew of mine out by piling the furniture against the front door— I will, as sure as my name's Georgina Fawley!'
'I know you will, dear,' I assented, kissing her, 'and so I shall venture to leave you, while I go out to institute another little enquiry.'
'What enquiry?'
I shook my head. 'It's only a surmise,' I said, hesitating.'I'll tell you about it later. I've had time to think while I've been coming back in the train, and I've thought of many things. Mount guard till I return, and mind you don't let Lord Southminster have access to anything.'
'I'll shoot him first, dear.' And I believe she meant it.
I drove on in the same cab to Harold's solicitor. There I laid my fresh doubts at once before him. He rubbed his bony hands. 'You've hit it!' he cried, charmed. 'My dear madam, you've hit it! I never did like that will. I never did like the signatures, the witnesses, the look of it. But whatcould I do? Mr. Tillington propounded it. Of course it wasn't my business to go dead against my own client.'
'Then you doubted Harold's honour, Mr. Hayes?' I cried, flushing.
NEVER! HE ANSWERED. NEVER!NEVER! HE ANSWERED. NEVER!
'Never!' he answered. 'Never! I felt sure there must be some mistake somewhere, but not any trickery on—your husband's part. Now,yousupply the right clue. We must look into this, immediately.'
He hurried round with me at once in the same cab to the court. The incriminated will had been 'impounded,' as they call it; but, under certain restrictions, and subject to the closest surveillance, I was allowed to examine it with my husband's solicitor, before the eyes of the authorities. I looked at it long with the naked eye and also with a small pocket lens. The paper, as I had noted before, was the same kind of foolscap as that which I had been in the habit of using at my office in Florence; and the typewriting—was it mine? The longer I looked at it, the more I doubted it.
After a careful examination I turned round to our solicitor. 'Mr. Hayes,' I said, firmly, having arrived at my conclusion, 'this isnotthe document I type-wrote at Florence.'
'How do you know?' he asked. 'A different machine? Some small peculiarity in the shape of the letters?'
'No, the rogue who typed this will was too cunning for that. He didn't allow himself to be foiled by such a scholar's mate. It is written with a Spread Eagle, the same sort of machine precisely as my own. I know the type perfectly. But——' I hesitated.
'But what?'
'Well, it is difficult to explain. There is character in typewriting, just as there is in handwriting, only, of course, not quite so much of it. Every operator is liable to hisown peculiar tricks and blunders. If I had some of my own typewritten manuscript here to show you, I could soon make that evident.'
'I can easily believe it. Individuality runs through all we do, however seemingly mechanical. But are the points of a sort that you could make clear in court to the satisfaction of a jury?'
'I think so. Look here, for example. Certain letters get habitually mixed up in typewriting;candvstand next one another on the keyboard of the machine, and the person who typed this draft sometimes strikes acinstead of av, orvice versâ. I never do that. The letters I tend to confuse aresandw, or elseeandr, which also come very near one another in the arbitrary arrangement. Besides, when I type-wrote the original of this will, I made no errors at all; I took such very great pains about it.'
'And this person did make errors?'
'Yes; struck the wrong letter first, and then corrected it often by striking another rather hard on top of it. See, this was avto begin with, and he turned it into ac. Besides, the hand that wrote this will is heavier than mine: it comes downthump,thump,thump, while mine glides lightly. And the hyphens are used with a space between them, and the character of the punctuation is not exactly as I make it.'
'Still,' Mr. Hayes objected, 'we have nothing but your word. I'm afraid, in such a case, we could never induce a jury to accept your unsupported evidence.'
'I don't want them to accept it,' I answered. 'I am looking this up for my own satisfaction. I want to know, first, who wrote this will. And of one thing I am quite clear: it isnotthe document I drew up for Mr. Ashurst. Just look at thatx. Thexalone is conclusive. My typewriter had the upper right-hand stroke of the smallxbadlyformed, or broken, while this one is perfect. I remember it well, because I used always to improve all my lower-casex's with a pen when I re-read and corrected. I see their dodge clearly now. It is a most diabolical conspiracy. Instead of forging a will in Lord Southminster's favour, they have substituted a forgery for the real will, and then managed to make my poor Harold prove it.'
'In that case, no doubt, they have destroyed the real one, the original,' Mr. Hayes put in.
'I don't think so,' I answered, after a moment's deliberation. 'From what I know of Mr. Ashurst, I don't believe it is likely he would have left his will about carelessly anywhere. He was a secretive man, fond of mysteries and mystifications. He would be sure to conceal it. Besides, Lady Georgina and Harold have been taking care of everything in the house ever since he died.'
'But,' Mr. Hayes objected, 'the forger of this document, supposing it to be forged, must have had access to the original, since you say the terms of the two are identical; only the signatures are forgeries. And if he saw and copied it, why might he not also have destroyed it?'
A light flashed across me all at once. 'The forgerdidsee the original,' I cried, 'but not the fair copy. I have it all now! I detect their trick! It comes back to me vividly! When I had finished typing the copy at Florence from my first rough draft, which I had taken down on the machine before Mr. Ashurst's eyes, I remember now that I threw the original into the waste-paper basket. It must have been there that evening when Higginson called and asked for the will to take it back to Mr. Ashurst. He called for it, no doubt, hoping to open the packet before he delivered it and make a copy of the document for this very purpose. But I refused to let him have it. Before he sawme, however, he had been left by himself for ten minutes in the office; for I remember coming out to him and finding him there alone: and during that ten minutes, being what he is, you may be sure he fished out the rough draft and appropriated it!'
WE SHALL HAVE HIM IN OUR POWER.WE SHALL HAVE HIM IN OUR POWER.
'That is more than likely,' my solicitor nodded. 'You are tracking him to his lair. We shall have him in our power.'
I grew more and more excited as the whole cunning plot unravelled itself mentally step by step before me. 'Hemust then have gone to Lord Southminster,' I went on, 'and told him of the legacy he expected from Mr. Ashurst. It was five hundred pounds—a mere trifle to Higginson, who plays for thousands. So he must have offered to arrange matters for Lord Southminster if Southminster would consent to make good that sum and a great deal more to him. That odious little cad told me himself on theJumnathey were engaged in pulling off "a bigcoup" between them. He thought then I would marry him, and that he would so secure my connivance in his plans; but who would marry such a piece of moist clay? Besides, I could never have taken anyone but Harold.' Then another clue came home to me. 'Mr. Hayes,' I cried, jumping at it, 'Higginson, who forged this will, never saw the real document itself at all; he saw only the draft: for Mr. Ashurst altered one wordviva vocein the original at the last moment, and I made a pencil note of it on my cuff at the time: and see, it isn't here, though I inserted it in the final clean copy of the will—the word 'especially.' It grows upon me more and more each minute that the real instrument is hidden somewhere in Mr. Ashurst's house—Harold's house—our house; and thatbecauseit is there Lord Southminster is so indecently anxious to oust his aunt and take instant possession.'
'In that case,' Mr. Hayes remarked, 'we had better go back to Lady Georgina without one minute's delay, and, while she still holds the house, institute a thorough search for it.'
No sooner said than done. We jumped again into our cab and started. As we drove back, Mr. Hayes asked me where I thought we were most likely to find it.
'In a secret drawer in Mr. Ashurst's desk,' I answered, by a flash of instinct, without a second's hesitation.
'How do you know there's a secret drawer?'
'I don't know it. I infer it from my general knowledge of Mr. Ashurst's character. He loved secret drawers, ciphers, cryptograms, mystery-mongering.'
'But it was in that desk that your husband found the forged document,' the lawyer objected.
Once more I had a flash of inspiration or intuition. 'Because White, Mr. Ashurst's valet, had it in readiness in his possession,' I answered, 'and hid it there, in the most obvious and unconcealed place he could find, as soon as the breath was out of his master's body. I remember now Lord Southminster gave himself away to some extent in that matter. The hateful little creature isn't really clever enough, for all his cunning,—and with Higginson to back him,—to mix himself up in such tricks as forgery. He told me at Aden he had had a telegram from "Marmy's valet," to report progress; and he received another, the night Mr. Ashurst died, at Moozuffernuggar. Depend upon it, White was more or less in this plot; Higginson left him the forged will when they started for India; and, as soon as Mr. Ashurst died, White hid it where Harold was bound to find it.'
'If so,' Mr. Hayes answered, 'that's well; we have something to go upon. The more of them, the better. There is safety in numbers—for the honest folk. I never knew three rogues hold long together, especially when threatened with a criminal prosecution. Their confederacy breaks down before the chance of punishment. Each tries to screen himself by betraying the others.'
'Higginson was the soul of this plot,' I went on. 'Of that you may be sure. He's a wily old fox, but we'll run him to earth yet. The more I think of it, the more I feel sure, from what I know of Mr. Ashurst's character, he wouldnever have put that will in so exposed a place as the one where Harold says he found it.'
We drew up at the door of the disputed house just in time for the siege. Mr. Hayes and I walked in. We found Lady Georgina face to face with Lord Southminster. The opposing forces were still at the stage of preliminaries of warfare.
'Look heah,' the pea-green young man was observing, in his drawling voice, as we entered; 'it's no use your talking, deah Georgey. This house is mine, and I won't have you meddling with it.'
'This house is not yours, you odious little scamp,' his aunt retorted, raising her shrill voice some notes higher than usual; 'and while I can hold a stick you shall not come inside it.'
'Very well, then; you drive me to hostilities, don't yah know. I'm sorry to show disrespect to your gray hairs—if any—but I shall be obliged to call in the police to eject yah.'
'Call them in if you like,' I answered, interposing between them. 'Go out and get them! Mr. Hayes, while he's gone, send for a carpenter to break open the back of Mr. Ashurst's escritoire.'
'A carpentah?' he cried, turning several degrees whiter than his pasty wont. 'What for? A carpentah?'
I spoke distinctly. 'Because we have reason to believe Mr. Ashurst's real will is concealed in this house in a secret drawer, and because the keys were in the possession of White, whom we believe to be your accomplice in this shallow conspiracy.'
He gasped and looked alarmed. 'No, you don't,' he cried, stepping briskly forward. 'You don't, I tell yah! Break open Marmy's desk! Why, hang it all, it's my property.'
'We shall see about that after we've broken it open,' I answered grimly. 'Here, this screw-driver will do. The back's not strong. Now, your help, Mr. Hayes—one, two, three; we can prise it apart between us.'
Lord Southminster rushed up and tried to prevent us. But Lady Georgina, seizing both wrists, held him tight as in a vice with her dear skinny old hands. He writhed and struggled all in vain: he could not escape her. 'I've often spanked you, Bertie,' she cried, 'and if you attempt to interfere, I'll spank you again; that's the long and the short of it!'
He broke from her and rushed out, to call the police, I believe, and prevent our desecration of pooah Marmy's property.