Miss Jean Briggerland reached her home in Berkeley Street soon after nine o'clock. She did not ring, but let herself in with a key and went straight to the dining-room, where her father sat eating his breakfast, with a newspaper propped up before him.
He was the dark-skinned man whom Lydia had seen at the theatre, and he looked up over his gold-rimmed spectacles as the girl came in.
"You have been out very early," he said.
She did not reply, but slowly divesting herself of her sable coat she threw it on to a chair, took off the toque that graced her shapely head, and flung it after the coat. Then she drew out a chair, and sat down at the table, her chin on her palms, her blue eyes fixed upon her parent.
Nature had so favoured her that her face needed no artificial embellishment—the skin was clear and fine of texture, and the cold morning had brought only a faint pink to the beautiful face.
"Well, my dear," Mr. Briggerland looked up and beamed through his glasses, "so poor Meredith has committed suicide?"
She did not speak, keeping her eyes fixed on him.
"Very sad, very sad," Mr. Briggerland shook his head.
"How did it happen?" she asked quietly.
Mr. Briggerland shrugged his shoulders.
"I suppose at the sight of you he bolted back to his hiding place where—er—had been located by—er—interested persons during the night, then seeing me by the shed—he committed the rash and fatal act. Somehow I thought he would run back to his dug-out."
"And you were prepared for him?" she said.
He smiled.
"A clear case of suicide, my dear," he said.
"Shot through the left temple, and the pistol was found in his right hand," said the girl.
Mr. Briggerland started.
"Damn it," he said. "Who noticed that?"
"That good-looking young lawyer, Glover."
"Did the police notice?"
"I suppose they did when Glover called their attention to the fact," said the girl.
Mr. Briggerland took off his glasses and wiped them.
"It was done in such a hurry—I had to get back through the garden gate to join the police. When I got there, I found they'd been attracted by the shot and had entered the house. Still, nobody would know I was in the garden, and anyway my association with the capture of anescaped convict would not get into the newspapers."
"But a case of suicide would," said the girl. "Though I don't suppose the police will give away the person who informed them that James Meredith would be at Dulwich Grange."
Mr. Briggerland sat back in his chair, his thick lips pursed, and he was not a beautiful sight.
"One can't remember everything," he grumbled.
He rose from his chair, went to the door, and locked it. Then he crossed to a bureau, pulled open a drawer and took out a small revolver. He threw out the cylinder, glanced along the barrel and the chambers to make sure it was not loaded, then clicked it back in position, and standing before a glass, he endeavoured, the pistol in his right hand, to bring the muzzle to bear on his left temple. He found this impossible, and signified his annoyance with a grunt. Then he tried the pistol with his thumb on the trigger and his hand clasping the back of the butt. Here he was more successful.
"That's it," he said with satisfaction. "It could have been done that way."
She did not shudder at the dreadful sight, but watched him with the keenest interest, her chin still in the palm of her hand. He might have been explaining a new way of serving a tennis ball, for all the emotion he evoked.
Mr. Briggerland came back to the table, toyed with a piece of toast and buttered it leisurely.
"Everybody is going to Cannes this year," he said, "but I think I shall stick to Monte Carlo. There is a quiet about Monte Carlo which is very restful, especially if one can get a villa on the hill away from the railway. I told Morden yesterday to take the new car across and meet us at Boulogne. He says that the new body is exquisite. There is a micraphonic attachment for telephoning to the driver, the electrical heating apparatus is splendid and——"
"Meredith was married."
If she had thrown a bomb at him she could not have produced a more tremendous sensation. He gaped at her, and pushed himself back from the table.
"Married?" His voice was a squeak.
She nodded.
"It's a lie," he roared. All his suavity dropped away from him, his face was distorted and puckered with anger and grew a shade darker. "Married, you lying little beast! He couldn't have been married! It was only a few minutes after eight, and the parson didn't come till nine. I'll break your neck if you try to scare me! I've told you about that before...."
He raved on, and she listened unmoved.
"He was married at eight o'clock by a manthey brought down from Oxford, and who stayed the night in the house," she repeated with great calmness. "There's no sense in lashing yourself into a rage. I've seen the bride, and spoken to the clergyman."
From the bullying, raging madman, he became a whimpering, pitiable thing. His chin trembled, the big hands he laid on the tablecloth shook with a fever.
"What are we going to do?" he wailed. "My God, Jean, what are we going to do?"
She rose and went to the sideboard, poured out a stiff dose of brandy from a decanter and brought it across to him without a word. She was used to these tantrums, and to their inevitable ending. She was neither hurt, surprised, nor disgusted. This pale, ethereal being was the dominant partner of the combination. Nerves she did not possess, fears she did not know. She had acquired the precise sense of a great surgeon in whom pity was a detached emotion, and one which never intruded itself into the operating chamber. She was no more phenomenal than they, save that she did not feel bound by the conventions and laws which govern them as members of an ordered society. It requires no greater nerve to slay than to cure. She had had that matter out with herself, and had settled it to her own satisfaction.
"You will have to put off your trip to Monte Carlo," she said, as he drank the brandy greedily.
"We've lost everything now," he stuttered, "everything."
"This girl has no relations," said the daughter steadily. "Her heirs-at-law are ourselves."
He put down the glass, and looked at her, and became almost immediately his old self.
"My dear," he said admiringly, "you are really wonderful. Of course, it was childish of me. Now what do you suggest?"
"Unlock that door," she said in a low voice, "I want to call the maid."
As he walked to the door, she pressed the footbell, and soon after the faded woman who attended her came into the room.
"Hart," she said, "I want you to find my emerald ring, the small one, the little pearl necklet, and the diamond scarf pin. Pack them carefully in a box with cotton wool."
"Yes, madam," said the woman, and went out.
"Now what are you going to do, Jean?" asked her father.
"I am returning them to Mrs. Meredith," said the girl coolly. "They were presents given to me by her husband, and I feel after this tragic ending of my dream that I can no longer bear the sight of them."
"He didn't give you those things, he gave you the chain. Besides, you are throwing away good money?"
"I know he never gave them to me, and I am not throwing away good money," she said patiently. "Mrs. Meredith will return them, and she will give me an opportunity of throwing a little light upon James Meredith, an opportunity which I very much desire."
Later she went up to her pretty little sitting-room on the first floor, and wrote a letter.
"Dear Mrs. Meredith.—I am sending you the few trinkets which James gave to me in happier days. They are all that I have of his, and you, as a woman, will realise that whilst the possession of them brings me many unhappy memories, yet they have been a certain comfort to me. I wish I could dispose of memory as easily as I send these to you (for I feel they are really your property) but more do I wish that I could recall and obliterate the occasion which has made Mr. Glover so bitter an enemy of mine."Thinking over the past, I see that I was at fault, but I know that you will sympathise with me when the truth is revealed to you. A young girl, unused to the ways of men, perhaps I attached too much importance to Mr. Glover's attentions, and resented them too crudely. In those days I thought it was unpardonable that a man who professed to be poor James's best friend, should make love to his fiancée, though I suppose that such things happen, and areendured by the modern girl. A man does not readily forgive a woman for making him feel a fool—it is the one unpardonable offence that a girl can commit. Therefore, I do not resent his enmity as much as you might think. Believe me, I feel for you very much in these trying days. Let me say again that I hope your future will be bright."
"Dear Mrs. Meredith.—I am sending you the few trinkets which James gave to me in happier days. They are all that I have of his, and you, as a woman, will realise that whilst the possession of them brings me many unhappy memories, yet they have been a certain comfort to me. I wish I could dispose of memory as easily as I send these to you (for I feel they are really your property) but more do I wish that I could recall and obliterate the occasion which has made Mr. Glover so bitter an enemy of mine.
"Thinking over the past, I see that I was at fault, but I know that you will sympathise with me when the truth is revealed to you. A young girl, unused to the ways of men, perhaps I attached too much importance to Mr. Glover's attentions, and resented them too crudely. In those days I thought it was unpardonable that a man who professed to be poor James's best friend, should make love to his fiancée, though I suppose that such things happen, and areendured by the modern girl. A man does not readily forgive a woman for making him feel a fool—it is the one unpardonable offence that a girl can commit. Therefore, I do not resent his enmity as much as you might think. Believe me, I feel for you very much in these trying days. Let me say again that I hope your future will be bright."
She blotted the letter, put it in an envelope, and addressed it, and taking down a book from one of the well-stocked shelves, drew her chair to the fire, and began reading.
Mr. Briggerland came in an hour after, looked over her shoulder at the title, and made a sound of disapproval.
"I can't understand your liking for that kind of book," he said.
The book was one of the two volumes of "Chronicles of Crime," and she looked up with a smile.
"Can't you? It's very easily explained. It is the most encouraging work in my collection. Sit down for a minute."
"A record of vulgar criminals," he growled. "Their infernal last dying speeches, their processions to Tyburn—phaugh!"
She smiled again, and looked down at the book. The wide margins were covered with pencilled notes in her writing.
"They're a splendid mental exercise," shesaid. "In every case I have written down how the criminal might have escaped arrest, but they were all so vulgar, and so stupid. Really the police of the time deserve no credit for catching them. It is the same with modern criminals...."
She went to the shelf, and took down two large scrap-books, carried them across to the fire, and opened one on her knees.
"Vulgar and stupid, every one of them," she repeated, as she turned the leaves rapidly.
"The clever ones get caught at times," said Briggerland gloomily.
"Never," she said, and closed the book with a snap. "In England, in France, in America, and in almost every civilised country, there are murderers walking about to-day, respected by their fellow citizens. Murderers, of whose crimes the police are ignorant. Look at these." She opened the book again. "Here is the case of Rell, who poisons a troublesome creditor with weed-killer. Everybody in the town knew he bought the weed-killer; everybody knew that he was in debt to this man. What chance had he of escaping? Here's Jewelville—he kills his wife, buries her in the cellar, and then calls attention to himself by running away. Here's Morden, who kills his sister-in-law for the sake of her insurance money, and who also buys the poison in broad daylight, and is foundwith a bottle in his pocket. Such people deserve hanging."
"I wish to heaven you wouldn't talk about hanging," said Briggerland tremulously, "you're inhuman, Jean, by God—"
"I'm an angel," she smiled, "and I have press cuttings to prove it! TheDaily Recorderhad half a column on my appearance in the box at Jim's trial."
He looked over toward the writing-table, saw the letter, and picked it up.
"So you've written to the lady. Are you sending her the jewels?"
She nodded.
He looked at her quickly.
"You haven't been up to any funny business with them, have you?" he asked suspiciously, and she smiled.
"My dear parent," drawled Jean Briggerland, "after my lecture on the stupidity of the average criminal, do you imagine I should do anything sogauche?"
"And now, Mrs. Meredith," said Jack Glover, "what are you going to do?"
He had spent the greater part of the morning with the new heiress, and Lydia had listened, speechless, as he recited a long and meaningless list of securities, of estates, of ground rents, balances and the like, which she had inherited.
"What am I going to do?" she said, shaking her head, hopelessly. "I don't know. I haven't the slightest idea, Mr. Glover. It is so bewildering. Do I understand that all this property is mine?"
"Not yet," said Jack with a smile, "but it is so much yours that on the strength of the will we are willing to advance you money to almost any extent. The will has to be proved, and probate must be taken, but when these legal formalities are settled, and we have paid the very heavy death duties, you will be entitled to dispose of your fortune as you wish. As a matter of fact," he added, "you could do that now. At any rate, you cannot live here in Brinksome Street, and I have taken the liberty of hiring a furnished flat on your behalf.One of our clients has gone away to the Continent and left the flat for me to dispose of. The rent is very low, about twenty guineas a week."
"Twenty guineas a week!" gasped the horrified girl, "why, I can't——"
And then she realised that she "could."
Twenty guineas a week was as nothing to her. This fact more than anything else, brought her to an understanding of her fortune.
"I suppose I had better move," she said dubiously. "Mrs. Morgan is giving up this house, and she asked me whether I had any plans. I think she'd be willing to come as my housekeeper."
"Excellent," nodded Jack. "You'll want a maid as well and, of course, you will have to put up Jaggs for the nights."
"Jaggs?" she said in astonishment.
"Jaggs," repeated Jack solemnly. "You see, Miss—I beg your pardon, Mrs. Meredith, I'm rather concerned about you, and I want you to have somebody on hand I can rely on, sleeping in your flat at night. I dare say you think I am an old woman," he said as he saw her smile, "and that my fears are groundless, but you will agree that your own experience of last week will support the theory that anything may happen in London."
"But really, Mr. Glover, you don't mean that I am in any serious danger—from whom?"
"From a lot of people," he said diplomatically.
"From poor Miss Briggerland?" she challenged, and his eyes narrowed.
"Poor Miss Briggerland," he said softly. "She certainly is poorer than she expected to be."
"Nonsense," scoffed the girl. She was irritated, which was unusual in her. "My dear Mr. Glover, why do you pursue your vendetta against her? Do you think it is playing the game, honestly now? Isn't it a case of wounded vanity on your part?"
He stared at her in astonishment.
"Wounded vanity? Do you mean pique?"
She nodded.
"Why should I be piqued?" he asked slowly.
"You know best," replied Lydia, and then a light dawned on him.
"Have I been making love to Miss Briggerland by any chance?" he asked.
"You know best," she repeated.
"Good Lord!" and then he began to laugh, and she thought he would never stop.
"I suppose I made love to her, and she was angry because I dared to commit such an act of treachery to her fiancé! Yes, that was it. I made love to her behind poor Jim's back, and she 'ticked me off,' and that's why I'm so annoyed with her?"
"You have a very good memory," said Lydia, with a scornful little smile.
"My memory isn't as good as Miss Briggerland's power of invention," said Jack. "Doesn't it strike you, Mrs. Meredith, that if I had made love to that young lady, I should not be seen here to-day?"
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I mean," said Jack Glover soberly, "that it would not have been Bulford, but I, who would have been lured from his club by a telephone message, and told to wait outside the door in Berkeley Street. It would have been I, who would have been shot dead by Miss Briggerland's father from the drawing-room window."
The girl looked at him in amazement.
"What a preposterous charge to make!" she said at last indignantly. "Do you suggest that this girl has connived at a murder?"
"I not only suggest that she connived at it, but I stake my life that she planned it," said Jack carefully.
"But the pistol was found near Mr. Bulford's body," said Lydia almost triumphantly, as she conceived this unanswerable argument.
Jack nodded.
"From Bulford's body to the drawing-room window was exactly nine feet. It was possible to pitch the pistol so that it fell near him.Bulford was waiting there by the instructions of Jean Briggerland. We have traced the telephone call that came through to him from the club—it came from the Briggerlands' house in Berkeley Street, and the attendant at the club was sure it was a woman's voice. We didn't find that out till after the trial. Poor Meredith was in the hall when the shot was fired. The signal was given when he turned the handle to let himself out. He heard the shot, rushed down the steps and saw the body. Whether he picked up the pistol or not, I do not know. Jean Briggerland swears he had it in his hand, but, of course, Jean Briggerland is a hopeless liar!"
"You can't know what you're saying," said Lydia in a low voice. "It is a dreadful charge to make, dreadful, against a girl whose very face refutes such an accusation."
"Her face is her fortune," snapped Jack, and then penitently, "I'm sorry I'm rude, but somehow the very mention of Jean Briggerland arouses all that is worst in me. Now, you will accept Jaggs, won't you?"
"Who is he?" she asked.
"He is an old army pensioner. A weird bird, as shrewd as the dickens, in spite of his age a pretty powerful old fellow."
"Oh, he's old," she said with some relief.
"He's old, and in some ways, incapacitated. He hasn't the use of his right arm, and he's abit groggy in one of his ankles as the result of a Boer bullet."
She laughed in spite of herself.
"He doesn't sound a very attractive kind of guardian. He's a perfectly clean old bird, though I confess he doesn't look it, and he won't bother you or your servants. You can give him a room where he can sit, and you can give him a bit of bread and cheese, and a glass of beer, and he'll not bother you."
Lydia was amused now. It was absurd that Jack Glover should imagine she needed a guardian at all, but if he insisted, as he did, it would be better to have somebody as harmless as the unattractive Jaggs.
"What time will he come?"
"At about ten o'clock every night, and he'll leave you at about seven in the morning. Unless you wish, you need never see him," said Jack.
"How did you come to know him?" she asked curiously.
"I know everybody," said the boastful young man, "you mustn't forget that I am a lawyer and have to meet very queer people."
He gathered up his papers and put them into his little bag.
"And now what are your plans for to-day?" he demanded.
She resented the self-imposed guardianshipwhich he had undertaken, yet she could not forget what she owed him.
By some extraordinary means he had kept her out of the Meredith case and she had not been called as a witness at the inquest. Incidentally, in as mysterious a way he had managed to whitewash his partner and himself, although the Law Society were holding an inquiry of their own (this the girl did not know) it seemed likely that he would escape the consequence of an act which was a flagrant breach of the law.
"I am going to Mrs. Cole-Mortimer's to tea," she said.
"Mrs. Cole-Mortimer?" he said quickly. "How do you come to know that lady?"
"Really, Mr. Glover, you are almost impertinent," she smiled in spite of her annoyance. "She came to call on me two or three days after that dreadful morning. She knew Mr. Meredith and was an old friend of the family's."
"As a matter of fact," said Jack icily, "she did not know Meredith, except to say 'how-do-you-do' to him, and she was certainly not a friend of the family. She is, however, a friend of Jean Briggerland."
"Jean Briggerland!" said the exasperated girl. "Can't you forget her? You are like the man in Dickens's books—she's your King Charles's head! Really, for a respectable anda responsible lawyer, you're simply eaten up with prejudices. Of course, she was a friend of Mr. Meredith's. Why, she brought me a photograph of him taken when he was at Eton."
"Supplied by Jean Briggerland," said the unperturbed Jack calmly, "and if she'd brought you a pair of socks he wore when he was a baby I suppose you would have accepted those too."
"Now you are being really abominable," said the girl, "and I've got a lot to do."
He paused at the door.
"Don't forget you can move into Cavendish Mansions to-morrow. I'll send the key round, and the day you move in, Jaggs will turn up for duty, bright and smiling. He doesn't talk a great deal——"
"I don't suppose you ever give the poor man a chance," she said cuttingly.
Mrs. Cole-Mortimer was a representative of a numerous class of women who live so close to the border-line which separates good society from society which is not quite as good, that the members of either set thought she was in the other. She had a small house where she gave big parties, and nobody quite knew how this widow of an Indian colonel made both ends meet. It was the fact that her menage was an expensive one to maintain; she had a car, she entertained in London in the season, and disappeared from the metropolis when it was the correct thing to disappear, a season of exile which comes between the Goodwood Race Meeting in the south and the Doncaster Race Meeting in the north.
Lydia had been surprised to receive a visit from this elegant lady, and had readily accepted the story of her friendship with James Meredith. Mrs. Cole-Mortimer's invitation she had welcomed. She needed some distraction, something which would smooth out the ravelled threads of life which were now even more tangled than she had ever expected they could be.
Mr. Rennett had handed to her a thousand pounds the day after the wedding, and when she had recovered from the shock of possessing such a large sum, she hired a taxicab and indulged herself in a wild orgy of shopping.
The relief she experienced when he informed her he was taking charge of her affairs and settling the debts which had worried her for three years was so great that she felt as though a heavy weight had been lifted from her heart.
It was in one of her new frocks that Lydia, feeling more confident than usual, made her call. She had expected to find a crowd at the house in Hyde Park Crescent, and she was surprised when she was ushered into the drawing-room to find only four people present.
Mrs. Cole-Mortimer was a chirpy, pale little woman of forty-something. It would be ungallant to say how much that "something" represented. She came toward Lydia with outstretched hands.
"My dear," she said with extravagant pleasure, "I am glad you were able to come. You know Miss Briggerland and Mr. Briggerland?"
Lydia looked up at the tall figure of the man she had seen in the stalls the night before her wedding and recognised him instantly.
"Mr. Marcus Stepney, I don't think you have met."
Lydia bowed to a smart looking man ofthirty, immaculately attired. He was very handsome, she thought, in a dark way, but he was just a little too "new" to please her. She did not like fashion-plate men, and although the most captious of critics could not have found fault with his correct attire, he gave her the impression of being over-dressed.
Lydia had not expected to meet Miss Briggerland and her father, although she had a dim recollection that Mrs. Cole-Mortimer had mentioned her name. Then in a flash she recalled the suspicions of Jack Glover, which she had covered with ridicule. The association made her feel a little uncomfortable, and Jean Briggerland, whose intuition was a little short of uncanny, must have read the doubt in her face.
"Mrs. Meredith expected to see us, didn't she, Margaret?" she said, addressing the twittering hostess. "Surely you told her we were great friends?"
"Of course I did, my dear. Knowing your dear cousin and his dear father, it was not remarkable that I should know the whole of the family," and she smiled wisely from one to the other.
Of course! How absurd she was, thought Lydia. She had almost forgotten, and probably Jack Glover had forgotten too, that the Briggerlands and the Merediths were related.
She found herself talking in a corner of the room with the girl, and fell to studying her face anew. A closer inspection merely consolidated her earlier judgment. She smiled inwardly as she remembered Jack Glover's ridiculous warning. It was like killing a butterfly with a steam hammer, to loose so much vengeance against this frail piece of china.
"And how do you feel now that you're very rich?" asked Jean kindly.
"I haven't realised it yet," smiled Lydia.
Jean nodded.
"I suppose you have yet to settle with the lawyers. Who are they? Oh yes, of course Mr. Glover was poor Jim's solicitor." She sighed. "I dislike lawyers," she said with a shiver, "they are so heavily paternal! They feel that they and they only are qualified to direct your life and your actions. I suppose it is second nature with them. Then, of course, they make an awful lot of money out of commissions and fees, though I'm sure Jack Glover wouldn't worry about that. He's really a nice boy," she said earnestly, "and I don't think you could have a better friend."
Lydia glowed at the generosity of this girl whom the man had so maligned.
"He has been very good to me," she said, "although, of course, he is a little fussy."
Jean's lips twitched with amusement.
"Has he warned you against me?" sheasked solemnly. "Has he told you what a terrible ogre I am?" And then without waiting for a reply: "I sometimes think poor Jack is just a little—well, I wouldn't say mad, but a little queer. His dislikes are so violent. He positively loathes Margaret, though why I have never been able to understand."
"He doesn't hate me," laughed Lydia, and Jean looked at her strangely.
"No, I suppose not," she said. "I can't imagine anybody hating you, Lydia. May I call you by your Christian name?"
"I wish you would," said Lydia warmly.
"I can't imagine anybody hating you," repeated the girl thoughtfully. "And, of course, Jack wouldn't hate you because you're his client—a very rich and attractive client too, my dear." She tapped the girl's cheek and Lydia, for some reason, felt foolish.
But as though unconscious of the embarrassment she had caused, Jean went on.
"I don't really blame him, either. I've a shrewd suspicion that all these warnings against me and against other possible enemies will furnish a very excellent excuse for seeing you every day and acting as your personal bodyguard!"
Lydia shook her head.
"That part of it he has relegated already," she said, giving smile for smile. "He has appointed Mr. Jaggs as my bodyguard."
"Mr. Jaggs?" The tone was even, the note of inquiry was not strained.
"He's an old gentleman in whom Mr. Glover is interested, an old army pensioner. Beyond the fact that he hasn't the use of his right arm, and limps with his left leg, and that he likes beer and cheese, he seems an admirable watch dog," said Lydia humorously.
"Jaggs?" repeated the girl. "I wonder where I've heard that name before. Is he a detective?"
"No, I don't think so. But Mr. Glover thinks I ought to have some sort of man sleeping in my new flat and Jaggs was duly engaged."
Soon after this Mr. Marcus Stepney came over and Lydia found him rather uninteresting. Less boring was Briggerland, for he had a fund of stories and experiences to relate, and he had, too, one of those soft soothing voices that are so rare in men.
It was dark when she came out with Mr. and Miss Briggerland, and she felt that the afternoon had not been unprofitably spent.
For she had a clearer conception of the girl's character, and was getting Jack Glover's interest into better perspective. The mercenary part of it made her just a little sick. There was something so mysterious, so ugly in his outlook on life, and there might not be a little self-interest in his care for her.
She stood on the step of the house talkingto the girl, whilst Mr. Briggerland lit a cigarette with a patent lighter. Hyde Park Crescent was deserted save for a man who stood near the railings which protected the area of Mrs. Cole-Mortimer's house. He was apparently tying his shoe laces.
They went down on the sidewalk, and Mr. Briggerland looked for his car.
"I'd like to take you home. My chauffeur promised to be here at four o'clock. These men are most untrustworthy."
From the other end of the Crescent appeared the lights of a car. At first Lydia thought it might be Mr. Briggerland's, and she was going to make her excuses for she wanted to go home alone. The car was coming too, at a tremendous pace. She watched it as it came furiously toward her, and she did not notice that Mr. Briggerland and his daughter had left her standing alone on the sidewalk and had withdrawn a few paces.
Suddenly the car made a swerve, mounted the sidewalk and dashed upon her. It seemed that nothing could save her, and she stood fascinated with horror, waiting for death.
Then an arm gripped her waist, a powerful arm that lifted her from her feet and flung her back against the railings, as the car flashed past, the mud-guard missing her by an inch. The machine pulled up with a jerk, and thewhite-faced girl saw Briggerland and Jean running toward her.
"I should never have forgiven myself if anything had happened. I think my chauffeur must be drunk," said Briggerland in an agitated voice.
She had no words. She could only nod, and then she remembered her preserver, and she turned to meet the solemn eyes of a bent old man, whose pointed, white beard and bristling white eyebrows gave him a hawk-like appearance. His right hand was thrust into his pocket. He was touching his battered hat with the other.
"Beg pardon, miss," he said raucously, "name of Jaggs! And I have reported for dooty!"
Jack Glover listened gravely to the story which the girl told. He had called at her lodgings on the following morning to secure her signature to some documents, and breathlessly and a little shamefacedly, she told him what had happened.
"Of course it was an accident," she insisted, "in fact, Mr. and Miss Briggerland were almost knocked down by the car. But you don't know how thankful I am your Mr. Jaggs was on the spot."
"Where is he now?" asked Jack.
"I don't know," replied the girl. "He just limped away without another word and I did not see him again, though I thought I caught a glimpse of him as I came into this house last night. How did he come to be on the spot?" she asked curiously.
"That is easily explained," replied Jack. "I told the old boy not to let you out of his sight from sundown to sun up."
"Then you think I'm safe during the day?" she rallied him.
He nodded.
"I don't know whether to laugh at you or to be very angry," she said, shaking her head reprovingly. "Of course it was an accident!"
"I disagree with you," said Jack. "Did you catch a glimpse of the chauffeur?"
"No," she said in surprise. "I didn't think of looking at him."
He nodded.
"If you had, you would probably have seen an old friend, namely, the gentleman who carried you off from the Erving Theatre," he said quietly.
It was difficult for Lydia to analyse her own feelings. She knew that Jack Glover was wrong, monstrously wrong. She was perfectly confident that his fantastic theory had no foundation, and yet she could not get away from his sincerity. Remembering Jean's description of him as "a little queer" she tried to fit that description into her knowledge of him, only to admit to herself that he had been exceptionally normal as far as she was concerned. The suggestion that his object was mercenary, and that he looked upon her as a profitable match for himself, she dismissed without consideration.
"Anyway, I like your Mr. Jaggs," she said.
"Better than you like me, I gather from your tone," smiled Jack. "He's not a bad old boy."
"He is a very strong old boy," she said."He lifted me as though I were a feather—I don't know now how I escaped. The steering gear went wrong," she explained unnecessarily.
"Dear me," said Jack politely, "and it went right again in time to enable the chauffeur to keep clear of Briggerland and his angel daughter!"
She gave a gesture of despair.
"You're hopeless," she said. "These things happened in the dark ages; men and women do not assassinate one another in the twentieth century."
"Who told you that?" he demanded. "Human nature hasn't changed for two thousand years. The instinct to kill is as strong as ever, or wars would be impossible. If any man or woman could commit one cold-blooded murder, there is no reason why he or she should not commit a hundred. In England, America, and France fifty cold-blooded murders are detected every year. Twice that number are undetected. It does not make the crime more impossible because the criminal is good looking."
"You're hopeless," she said again, and Jack made no further attempt to convince her.
On the Thursday of that week she exchanged her lodgings for a handsome flat in Cavendish Place, and Mrs. Morgan had promised to join her a week later, when she had settled up her own business affairs.
Lydia was fortunate enough to get two maids from one of the agencies, one of whom was to sleep on the premises. The flat was not illimitable, and she regretted that she had promised to place a room at the disposal of the aged Mr. Jaggs. If he was awake all night as she presumed he would be, and slept in the day, he might have been accommodated in the kitchen, and she hinted as much to Jack. To her surprise the lawyer had turned down that idea.
"You don't want your servants to know that you have a watchman."
"What do you imagine they will think he is?" she asked scornfully. "How can I have an old gentleman in the flat without explaining why he is there?"
"Your explanation could be that he did the boots."
"It wouldn't take him all night to do the boots. Of course, I'm too grateful to him to want him to do anything."
Mr. Jaggs reported again for duty that night. He came at half-past nine, a shabby-looking old man, and Lydia, who had not yet got used to her new magnificence, came out into the hall to meet him.
He was certainly not a prepossessing object, and Lydia discovered that, in addition to his other misfortunes, he had a slight squint.
"I hadn't an opportunity of thanking youthe other day, Mr. Jaggs," she said. "I think you saved my life."
"That's all right, miss," he said, in his hoarse voice. "Dooty is dooty!"
She thought he was looking past her, till she realised that his curious slanting line of vision was part of his infirmity.
"I'll show you to your room," she said hastily.
She led the way down the corridor, opened the door of a small room which had been prepared for him, and switched on the light.
"Too much light for me, miss," said the old man, shaking his head. "I like to sit in the dark and listen, that's what I like, to sit in the dark and listen."
"But you can't sit in the dark, you'll want to read, won't you?"
"Can't read, miss," said Jaggs cheerfully. "Can't write, either. I don't know that I'm any worse off."
Reluctantly she switched out the light.
"But you won't be able to see your food."
"I can feel for that, miss," he said with a hoarse chuckle. "Don't you worry about me. I'll just sit here and have a big think."
If she was uncomfortable before, she was really embarrassed now. The very sight of the door behind which old Jaggs sat having his "big think" was an irritation to her. She could not sleep for a long time that nightfor thinking of him sitting in the darkness, and "listening" as he put it, and had firmly resolved on ending a condition of affairs which was particularly distasteful to her, when she fell asleep.
She woke when the maid brought her tea, to learn that Jaggs had gone.
The maid, too, had her views on the "old gentleman." She hadn't slept all night for the thought of him, she said, though probably this was an exaggeration.
The arrangement must end, thought Lydia, and she called at Jack Glover's office that afternoon to tell him so. Jack listened without comment until she had finished.
"I'm sorry he is worrying you, but you'll get used to him in time, and I should be obliged if you kept him for a month. You would relieve me of a lot of anxiety."
At first she was determined to have her way, but he was so persistent, so pleading, that eventually she surrendered.
Lucy, the new maid, however, was not so easily convinced.
"I don't like it, miss," she said, "he's just like an old tramp, and I'm sure we shall be murdered in our beds."
"How cheerful you are, Lucy," laughed Lydia. "Of course, there is no danger from Mr. Jaggs, and he really was very useful to me."
The girl grumbled and assented a littlesulkily, and Lydia had a feeling that she was going to lose a good servant. In this she was not mistaken.
Old Jaggs called at half-past nine that night, and was admitted by the maid, who stalked in front of him and opened his door.
"There's your room," she snapped, "and I'd rather have your room than your company."
"Would you, miss?" wheezed Jaggs, and Lydia, attracted by the sound of voices, came to the door and listened with some amusement.
"Lord, bless me life, it ain't a bad room, either. Put the light out, my dear, I don't like light. I like 'em dark, like them little cells in Holloway prison, where you were took two years ago for robbing your missus."
Lydia's smile left her face. She heard the girl gasp.
"You old liar!" she hissed.
"Lucy Jones you call yourself—you used to be Mary Welch in them days," chuckled old Jaggs.
"I'm not going to be insulted," almost screamed Lucy, though there was a note of fear in her strident voice. "I'm going to leave to-night."
"No you ain't, my dear," said old Jaggs complacently. "You're going to sleep here to-night, and you're going to leave in the morning. If you try to get out of that door before I let you, you'll be pinched."
"They've got nothing against me," the girl was betrayed into saying.
"False characters, my dear. Pretending to come from the agency, when you didn't. That's another crime. Lord bless your heart, I've got enough against you to put you in jail for a year."
Lydia came forward.
"What is this you're saying about my maid?"
"Good evening, ma'am."
The old man knuckled his forehead.
"I'm just having an argument with your young lady."
"Do you say she is a thief?"
"Of course she is, miss," said Jaggs scornfully. "You ask her!"
But Lucy had gone into her room, slammed the door and locked it.
The next morning when Lydia woke, the flat was empty, save for herself. But she had hardly finished dressing when there came a knock at the door, and a trim, fresh-looking country girl, with an expansive smile and a look of good cheer that warmed Lydia's heart, appeared.
"You're the lady that wants a maid, ma'am, aren't you?"
"Yes," said Lydia in surprise. "But who sent you?"
"I was telegraphed for yesterday, ma'am, from the country."
"Come in," said Lydia helplessly.
"Isn't it right?" asked the girl a little disappointedly. "They sent me my fare. I came up by the first train."
"It is quite all right," said Lydia, "only I'm wondering who is running this flat, me or Mr. Jaggs?"
Jean Briggerland had spent a very busy afternoon. There had been a string of callers at the handsome house in Berkeley Street.
Mr. Briggerland was of a philanthropic bent, and had instituted a club in the East End of London which was intended to raise the moral tone of Limehouse, Wapping, Poplar and the adjacent districts. It was started without ostentation with a man named Faire as general manager. Mr. Faire had had in his lifetime several hectic contests with the police, in which he had been invariably the loser. And it was in his role as a reformed character that he undertook the management of this social uplift club.
Well-meaning police officials had warned Mr. Briggerland that Faire had a bad character. Mr. Briggerland listened, was grateful for the warning, but explained that Faire had come under the influence of the new uplift movement, and from henceforward he would be an exemplary citizen. Later, the police had occasion to extend their warning to its founder. The club was being used by known criminalcharacters; men who had already been in jail and were qualifying for a return visit.
Again Mr. Briggerland pointed to the object of the institution which was to bring bad men into the society of good men and women, and to arouse in them a desire for better things. He quoted a famous text with great effect. But still the police were unconvinced.
It was the practice of Miss Jean Briggerland to receive selected members of the club and to entertain them at tea in Berkeley Street. Her friends thought it was very "sweet" and very "daring," and wondered whether she wasn't afraid of catching some kind of disease peculiar to the East End of London. But Jean did not worry about such things. On this afternoon, after the last of her callers had gone, she went down to the little morning-room where such entertainments occurred and found two men, who rose awkwardly as she entered.
The gentle influence of the club had not made them look anything but what they were. "Jail-bird" was written all over them.
"I'm very glad you men have come," said Jean sweetly. "Mr. Hoggins——"
"That's me, miss," said one, with a grin.
"And Mr. Talmot."
The second man showed his teeth.
"I'm always glad to see members of the club," said Jean busy with the teapot, "especially men who have had so bad a time as you have. Youhave only just come out of prison, haven't you, Mr. Hoggins?" she asked innocently.
Hoggins went red and coughed.
"Yes, miss," he said huskily and added inconsequently, "I didn't do it!"
"I'm sure you were innocent," she said with a smile of sympathy, "and really if you were guilty I don't think you men are so much to blame. Look what a bad time you have! What disadvantages you suffer, whilst here in the West End people are wasting money that really ought to go to your wives and children."
"That's right," said Mr. Hoggins.
"There's a girl I know who is tremendously rich," Jean prattled on. "She lives at 84, Cavendish Mansions, just on the top floor, and, of course, she's very foolish to sleep with her windows open, especially as people could get down from the roof—there is a fire escape there. She always has a lot of jewellery—keeps it under her pillow I think, and there is generally a few hundred pounds scattered about the bedroom. Now that is what I call putting temptation in the way of the weak."
She lifted her blue eyes, saw the glitter in the man's eyes and went on.
"I've told her lots of times that there is danger, but she only laughs. There is an old man who sleeps in the house—quite a feeble old man who has only the use of one arm. Of course, if she cried out, I suppose he wouldcome to her rescue, but then a real burglar wouldn't let her cry out, would he?" she asked.
The two men looked at one another.
"No," breathed one.
"Especially as they could get clean away if they were clever," said Jean, "and it isn't likely that they would leave her in a condition to betray them, is it?"
Mr. Hoggins cleared his throat.
"It's not very likely, miss," he said.
Jean shrugged her shoulders.
"Women do these things, and then they blame the poor man to whom a thousand pounds would be a fortune because he comes and takes it. Personally, I should not like to live at 84, Cavendish Mansions."
"84, Cavendish Mansions," murmured Mr. Hoggins absent-mindedly.
His last sentence had been one of ten years' penal servitude. His next sentence would be for life. Nobody knew this better than Jean Briggerland as she went on to talk of the club and of the wonderful work which it was doing.
She dismissed her visitors and went back to her sitting-room. As she turned to go up the stairway her maid intercepted her.
"Mary is in your room, miss," she said in a low voice.
Jean frowned but made no reply.
The woman who stood awkwardly in the centre of the room awaiting the girl, greeted her with an apologetic smile.
"I'm sorry, miss," she said, "but I lost my job this morning. That old man spotted me. He's a split—a detective."
Jean Briggerland regarded her with an unmoved face save that her beautiful mouth took on the pathetic little droop which had excited the pity of a judge and an army of lawyers.
"When did this happen?" she asked.
"Last night, miss. He came and I got a bit cheeky to him, and he turned on me, the old devil, and told me my real name and that I'd got the job by forging recommendations."
Jean sat down slowly in the padded Venetian chair before her writing table.
"Jaggs?" she asked.
"Yes, miss."
"And why didn't you come here at once?"
"I thought I might be followed, miss."
The girl bit her lip and nodded.
"You did quite right," she said, and then after a moment's reflection, "We shall be in Paris next week. You had better go by the night train and wait for us at the flat."
She gave the maid some money and after she had gone, sat for an hour before the fire looking into its red depths.
She rose at last a little stiffly, pulled the heavy silken curtain across the windows andswitched on the light, and there was a smile on her face that was very beautiful to see. For in that hour came an inspiration.
She sought her father in his study and told him her plan, and he blanched and shivered with the very horror of it.
Mr. Briggerland, it seemed, had some other object in life than the regeneration of the criminal classes. He was a sociologist—a loose title which covers a great deal of inquisitive investigation into other people's affairs. Moreover, he had published a book on the subject. His name was on the title page and the book had been reviewed to his credit; though in truth he did no more than suggest the title, the work in question having been carried out by a writer on the subject who, for a consideration, had allowed Mr. Briggerland to adopt the child of his brain.
On a morning when pale yellow sunlight brightened his dining-room, Mr. Briggerland put down his newspaper and looked across the table at his daughter. He had a club in the East End of London and his manager had telephoned that morning sending a somewhat unhappy report.
"Do you remember that man Talmot, my dear?" he asked.
She nodded, and looked up quickly.
"Yes, what about him?"
"He's in hospital," said Mr. Briggerland. "I fear that he and Hoggins were engaged in some nefarious plan and that in making an attempt to enter—as, of course, they had no right to enter—a block of flats in Cavendish Place, poor Talmot slipped and fell from the fourth floor window-sill, breaking his leg. Hoggins had to carry him to hospital."
The girl reached for bacon from the hot plate.
"He should have broken his neck," she said calmly. "I suppose now the police are making tender inquiries?"
"No, no," Mr. Briggerland hastened to assure her. "Nobody knows anything about it, not even the—er—fortunate occupant of the flat they were evidently trying to burgle. I only learnt of it because the manager of the club, who gets information of this character, thought I would be interested."
"Anyway I'm glad they didn't succeed," said Jean after a while. "The possibility of their trying rather worried me. The Hoggins type is such a bungler that it was almost certain they would fail."
It was a curious fact that whilst her father made the most guarded references to all their exploits and clothed them with garments of euphemism, his daughter never attempted any such disguise. The psychologist would find in Mr. Briggerland's reticence the embryo of aonce dominant rectitude, no trace of which remained in his daughter's moral equipment.
"I have been trying to place this man Jaggs," she went on with a little puzzled frown, "and he completely baffles me. He arrives every night in a taxicab, sometimes from St. Pancras, sometimes from Euston, sometimes from London Bridge Station."
"Do you think he is a detective?"
"I don't know," she said thoughtfully. "If he is, he has been imported from the provinces. He is not a Scotland Yard man. He may, of course, be an old police pensioner, and I have been trying to trace him from that source."
"It should not be difficult to find out all about him," said Mr. Briggerland easily. "A man with his afflictions should be pretty well-known."
He looked at his watch.
"My appointment at Norwood is at eleven o'clock," he said. He made a little grimace of disgust.
"Would you rather I went?" asked the girl.
Mr. Briggerland would much rather that she had undertaken the disagreeable experience which lay before him, but he dare not confess as much.
"You, my dear? Of course not! I would not allow you to have such an experience. No, no, I don't mind it a bit."
Nevertheless, he tossed down two long glasses of brandy before he left.
His car set him down before the iron gates of a squat and ugly stucco building, surrounded by high walls, and the uniformed attendant, having examined his credentials, admitted him. He had to wait a little while before a second attendant arrived to conduct him to the medical superintendent, an elderly man who did not seem overwhelmed with joy at the honour Mr. Briggerland was paying him.
"I'm sorry I shan't be able to show you round, Mr. Briggerland," he said. "I have an engagement in town, but my assistant, Dr. Carew, will conduct you over the asylum and give you all the information you require. This, of course, as you know, is a private institution. I should have thought you would have got more material for your book in one of the big public asylums. The people who are sent to Norwood, you know, are not the mild cases, and you will see some rather terrible sights. You are prepared for that?"
Mr. Briggerland nodded. He was prepared to the extent of two full noggins of brandy. Moreover, he was well aware that Norwood was the asylum to which the more dangerous of lunatics were transferred.
Dr. Carew proved to be a young and enthusiastic alienist whose heart and soul was in his work.
"I suppose you are prepared to see jumpy things," he said with a smile, as he conducted Mr. Briggerland along a stone-vaulted corridor.
He opened a steel gate, the bars of which were encased with thick layers of rubber, crossed a grassy plot (there were no stone-flagged paths at Norwood) and entered one of the three buildings which constituted the asylum proper.
It was a harrowing, heart-breaking, and to some extent, a disappointing experience for Mr. Briggerland. True, his heart did not break, because it was made of infrangible material, and his disappointment was counter-balanced by a certain vague relief.
At the end of two hours' inspection they were standing out on the big playing fields, watching the less violent of the patients wandering aimlessly about. Except one, they were unattended by keepers, but in the case of this one man, two stalwart uniformed men walked on either side of him.
"Who is he?" asked Briggerland.
"That is rather a sad case," said the alienist cheerfully. He had pointed out many "sad cases" in the same bright manner. "He's a doctor and a genuine homicide. Luckily they detected him before he did any mischief or he would have been in Broadmoor."
"Aren't you ever afraid of these men escaping?" asked Mr. Briggerland.
"You asked that before," said the doctorin surprise. "No. You see, an insane asylum is not like a prison; to make a good get-away from prison you have to have outside assistance. Nobody wants to help a lunatic escape, otherwise it would be easier than getting out of prison, because we have no patrols in the grounds, the wards can be opened from the outside without a key and the night patrol who visits the wards every half-hour has no time for any other observation. Would you like to talk to Dr. Thun?"
Mr. Briggerland hesitated only for a second.
"Yes," he said huskily.
There was nothing in the appearance of the patient to suggest that he was in any way dangerous. A fair, bearded man, with pale blue eyes, he held out his hand impulsively to the visitor, and after a momentary hesitation, Mr. Briggerland took it and found his hand in a grip like a vice. The two attendants exchanged glances with the asylum doctor and strolled off.
"I think you can talk to him without fear," said the doctor in a low voice, not so low, however, that the patient did not hear it, for he laughed.
"Without fear, favour or prejudice, eh? Yes, that was how they swore the officers at my court martial."
"The doctor was the general who was responsible for the losses at Caperetto," explainedDr. Carew. "That was where the Italians lost so heavily."
Thun nodded.
"Of course, I was perfectly innocent," he explained to Briggerland seriously, and taking the visitor's arm he strolled across the field, the doctor and the two attendants following at a distance. Mr. Briggerland breathed a little more quickly as he felt the strength of the patient's biceps.
"My conviction," said Dr. Thun seriously, "was due to the fact that women were sitting on the court martial, which is, of course, against all regulations."
"Certainly," murmured Mr. Briggerland.
"Keeping me here," Thun went on, "is part of the plot of the Italian government. Naturally, they do not wish me to get at my enemies, who I have every reason to believe are in London."
Mr. Briggerland drew a long breath.
"They are in London," he said a little hoarsely. "I happen to know where they are."
"Really?" said the other easily, and then a cloud passed over his face and he shook his head.
"They are safe from my vengeance," he said a little sadly. "As long as they keep me in this place pretending that I am mad, there is no possible chance for me."
The visitor looked round and saw that the three men who were following were out of ear shot.
"Suppose I came to-morrow night," he said, lowering his voice, "and helped you to get away? What is your ward?"
"No. 6," said the other in the same tone. His eyes were blazing.
"Do you think you will remember?" asked Briggerland.
Thun nodded.
"You will come to-morrow night—No. 6, the first cubicle on the left," he whispered, "you will not fail me? If I thought you'd fail me——" His eyes lit up again.
"I shall not fail you," said Mr. Briggerland hastily. "When the clock strikes twelve you may expect me."
"You must be Marshal Foch," murmured Thun, and then with all a madman's cunning, changed the conversation as the doctor and attendants, who had noticed his excitement, drew nearer. "Believe me, Mr. Briggerland," he went on airily, "the strategy of the Allies was at fault until I took up the command of the army...."
Ten minutes later Mr. Briggerland was in his car driving homeward, a little breathless, more than a little terrified at the unpleasant task he had set himself; jubilant, too, at his amazing success.
Jean had said he might have to visit a dozen asylums before he found his opportunity and the right man, and he had succeeded at the firstattempt. Yet—he shuddered at the picture he conjured—that climb over the high wall (he had already located the ward, for he had followed the General and the attendants and had seen him safely put away), the midnight association with a madman....
He burst in upon Jean with his news.
"At the first attempt, my dear, what do you think of that?" His dark face glowed with almost childish pride, and she looked at him with a half-smile.
"I thought you would," she said quietly. "That's the rough work done, at any rate."
"The rough work!" he said indignantly.
She nodded.
"Half the difficulty is going to be to cover up your visit to the asylum, because this man is certain to mention your name, and it will not all be dismissed as the imagination of a madman. Now I think I will make my promised call upon Mrs. Meredith."