There was one thing which rather puzzled and almost piqued Lydia Meredith, and that was the failure of Jean Briggerland's prophecy to materialise. Jean had said half jestingly that Jack Glover would be a frequent visitor at the flat; in point of fact, he did not come at all. Even when she visited the offices of Rennett, Glover and Simpson, it was Mr. Rennett who attended to her, and Jack was invisible. Mr. Rennett sometimes explained that he was at the courts, for Jack did all the court work, sometimes that he had gone home.
She caught a glimpse of him once as she was driving past the Law Courts in the Strand. He was standing on the pavement talking to a be-wigged counsel, so possibly Mr. Rennett had not stated more than the truth when he said that the young man's time was mostly occupied by the processes of litigation.
She was curious enough to look through the telephone directory to discover where he lived. There were about fifty Glovers, and ten of these were John Glovers, and she was enough of a woman to call up six of the most likely only todiscover that her Mr. Glover was not amongst them. She did not know till later that his full name was Bertram John Glover, or she might have found his address without difficulty.
Mrs. Morgan had now arrived, to Lydia's infinite relief, and had taken control of the household affairs. The new maid was as perfect as a new maid could be, and but for the nightly intrusion of the taciturn Jaggs, to whom, for some reason, Mrs. Morgan took a liking, the current of her domestic life ran smoothly.
She was already becoming accustomed to the possession of wealth. The habit of being rich is one of the easiest acquired, and she found herself negotiating for a little house in Curzon Street and a more pretentious establishment in Somerset, with a sangfroid which astonished and frightened her.
The purchase and arrival of her first car, and the engagement of her chauffeur had been a thrilling experience. It was incredible, too, that her new bankers should, without hesitation, deliver to her enormous sums of money at the mere affixing of her signature to an oblong slip of paper.
She had even got over the panic feeling which came to her on her first few visits to the bank. On these earlier occasions she had felt rather like an inexpert forger, who was endeavouring to get money by false pretence, and it was both a relief and a wonder to herwhen the nonchalant cashier thrust thick wads of bank-notes under the grille, without so much as sending for a policeman.
"It's a lovely flat," said Jean Briggerland, looking round the pink drawing-room approvingly, "but of course, my dear, this is one that was already furnished for you. I'm dying to see what you will make of your own home when you get one."
She had telephoned that morning to Lydia saying that she was paying a call, asking if it was convenient, and the two girls were alone.
"Itisa nice flat, and I shall be sorry to leave it," agreed Lydia. "It is so extraordinarily quiet. I sleep like a top. There is no noise to disturb one, except that there was rather an unpleasant happening the other morning."
"What was that?" asked Jean, stirring her tea.
"I don't know really what happened," said Lydia. "I heard an awful groaning very early in the morning and I got up and looked out of the window. There were two men in the courtyard. One, I think, had hurt himself very badly. I never discovered what happened."
"They must have been workmen, I should think," said Jean, "or else they were drunk. Personally, I have never liked taking furnished flats," she went on. "One always breaks things, and there's such a big bill to pay atthe end. And then I always lose the keys. One usually has two or three. You should be very careful about that, my dear, they make an enormous charge for lost keys," she prattled on.
"I think the house agent gave me three," said Lydia. She walked to her little secretaire, opened it and pulled out a drawer.
"Yes, three," she said, "there is one here, one I carry, and Mrs. Morgan has one."
"Have you seen Jack Glover lately?"
Jean never pursued an enquiry too far, by so much as one syllable.
"No, I haven't seen him," smiled Lydia, "You weren't a good prophet."
"I expect he is busy," said the girl carelessly. "I think I could like Jack awfully—if he hadn't such a passion for ordering people about. How careless of me!" She had tipped over her teacup and its contents were running across the little tea table. She pulled out her handkerchief quickly and tried to stop the flow.
"Oh, please, please don't spoil your beautiful handkerchief," said Lydia, rising hurriedly, "I will get a duster."
She ran out of the room and was back almost immediately, to find Jean standing with her back to the secretaire examining the ruins of her late handkerchief with a smile.
"Let me put your handkerchief in wateror it will be stained," said Lydia, putting out her hand.
"I would rather do it myself," laughed Jean Briggerland, and pushed the handkerchief into her bag.
There were many reasons why Lydia should not handle that flimsy piece of cambric and lace, the most important of which was the key which Jean had taken from the secretaire in Lydia's absence, and had rolled inside the tea-stained handkerchief.
A few days later Mr. Bertram John Glover interviewed a high official at Scotland Yard, and the interview was not a particularly satisfactory one to the lawyer. It might have been worse, had not the police commissioner been a friend of Jack's partner.
The official listened patiently whilst the lawyer, with professional skill, marshalled all his facts, attaching to them the suspicions which had matured to convictions.
"I have sat in this chair for twenty-five years," said the head of the C.I.D., "and I have heard stories which beat the best and the worst of detective stories hollow. I have listened to cranks, amateur detectives, crooks, parsons and expert fictionists, but never in my experience have I ever heard anything quite so improbable as your theory. It happens that I have met Briggerland and I've met his daughter too, and a more beautifulgirl I don't think it has been my pleasure to meet."
Jack groaned.
"Aren't you feeling well?" asked the chief unpleasantly.
"I'm all right, sir," said Jack, "only I'm so tired of hearing about Jean Briggerland's beauty. It doesn't seem a very good argument to oppose to the facts—"
"Facts!" said the other scornfully. "What facts have you given us?"
"The fact of the Briggerlands' history," said Jack desperately. "Briggerland was broke when he married Miss Meredith under the impression that he would get a fortune with his wife. He has lived by his wits all his life, and until this girl was about fifteen, they were existing in a state of poverty. They lived in a tiny house in Ealing, the rent of which was always in arrears, and then Briggerland became acquainted with a rich Australian of middle age who was crazy about his daughter. The rich Australian died suddenly."
"From an overdose of veronal," said the chief. "It was established at the inquest—I got all the documents out after I received your letter—that he was in the habit of taking veronal. You suggest he was murdered. If he was, for what? He left the girl about six thousand pounds."
"Briggerland thought she was going to get it all," said Jack.
"That is conjecture," interrupted the chief. "Go on."
"Briggerland moved up west," Jack went on, "and when the girl was seventeen she made the acquaintance of a man named Gunnesbury, who went just as mad about her. Gunnesbury was a midland merchant with a wife and family. He was so infatuated with her that he collected all the loose money he could lay his hands on—some twenty-five thousand pounds—and bolted to the continent. The girl was supposed to have gone on ahead, and he was to join her at Calais. He never reached Calais. The theory was that he jumped overboard. His body was found and brought in to Dover, but there was none of the money in his possession that he had drawn from the Midland Bank."
"That is a theory, too," said the chief, shaking his head. "The identity of the girl was never established. It was known that she was a friend of Gunnesbury's, but there was proof that she was in London on the night of his death. It was a clear case of suicide."
"A year later," Jack went on, "she forced a meeting with Meredith, her cousin. His father had just died—Jim had come back from Central Africa to put things in order. He was not a woman's man, and was a grave, retiring sort of fellow, who had no other interest in lifethan his shooting. The story of Meredith you know."
"And is that all?" asked the chief politely.
"All the facts I can gather. There must be other cases which are beyond the power of the investigator to unearth."
"And what do you expect me to do?"
Jack smiled.
"I don't expect you to do anything," he said frankly. "You are not exactly supporting my views with enthusiasm."
The chief rose, a signal that the interview was at an end.
"I'd like to help you if you had any real need for help," he said. "But when you come to me and tell me that Miss Briggerland, a girl whose innocence shows in her face, is a heartless criminal and murderess, and a conspirator—why, Mr. Glover, what do you expect me to say?"
"I expect you to give adequate protection to Mrs. Meredith," said Jack sharply. "I expect you, sir, to remember that I've warned you that Mrs. Meredith may die one of those accidental deaths in which Mr. and Miss Briggerland specialise. I'm going to put my warning in black and white, and if anything happens to Lydia Meredith, there is going to be serious trouble on the Thames Embankment."
The chief touched a bell, and a constable came in.
"Show Mr. Glover the way out," he said stiffly.
Jack had calmed down considerably by the time he reached the Thames Embankment, and was inclined to be annoyed with himself for losing his temper.
He stopped a newsboy, took a paper from his hand, and, hailing a cab, drove to his office.
There was little in the early edition save the sporting news, but on the front page a paragraph arrested his eye.
"DANGEROUS LUNATIC AT LARGE.""The Medical Superintendent at Norwood Asylum reports that Dr. Algernon John Thun, an inmate of the asylum, escaped last night, and is believed to be at large in the neighbourhood. Search parties have been organised, but no trace of the man has been found. He is known to have homicidal tendencies, a fact which renders his immediate recapture a very urgent necessity."
"DANGEROUS LUNATIC AT LARGE."
"The Medical Superintendent at Norwood Asylum reports that Dr. Algernon John Thun, an inmate of the asylum, escaped last night, and is believed to be at large in the neighbourhood. Search parties have been organised, but no trace of the man has been found. He is known to have homicidal tendencies, a fact which renders his immediate recapture a very urgent necessity."
There followed a description of the wanted man. Jack turned to another part of the paper, and dismissed the paragraph from his mind.
His partner, however, was to bring the matter up at lunch. Norwood Asylum was near Dulwich, and Mr. Rennett was pardonably concerned.
"The womenfolk at my house are scared to death," he said at lunch. "They won't go out at night, and they keep all the doors locked. How did your interview with the commissioner go on?"
"We parted the worst of friends," said Jack, "and, Rennett, the next man who talks to me about Jean Briggerland's beautiful face is going to be killed dead through it, even though I have to take a leaf from her book and employ the grisly Jaggs to do it."
That night the "grisly Jaggs" was later than usual. Lydia heard him shuffling along the passage, and presently the door of his room closed with a click. She was sitting at the piano, and had stopped playing at the sound of his knock, and when Mrs. Morgan came in to announce his arrival, she closed the piano and swung round on the music stool, a look of determination on her delicate face.
"He's come, miss."
"And for the last time," said Lydia ominously. "Mrs. Morgan, I can't stand that weird old gentleman any longer. He has got on my nerves so that I could scream when I think of him."
"He's not a bad old gentleman," excused Mrs. Morgan.
"I'm not so worried about his moral character, and I dare say that it is perfectly blameless," said Lydia determinedly, "but I have written a note to Mr. Glover to tell him that I really must dispense with his services."
"What's he here for, miss?" asked Mrs. Morgan.
Her curiosity had been aroused, but this was the first time she had given it expression.
"He's here because——" Lydia hesitated, "well, because Mr. Glover thinks I ought to have a man in the house to look after me."
"Why, miss?" asked the startled woman.
"You'd better ask Mr. Glover that question," said Lydia grimly.
She was beginning to chafe under the sense of restraint. She was being "school-marmed" she thought. No girl likes the ostentatious protection of the big brother or the head mistress. The soul of the schoolgirl yearns to break from the "crocodile" in which she is marched to church and to school, and this sensation of being marshalled and ordered about, and of living her life according to a third person's programme, and that third person a man, irked her horribly.
Old Jaggs was the outward and visible sign of Jack Glover's unwarranted authority, and slowly there was creeping into her mind a suspicion that Jean Briggerland might not have been mistaken when she spoke of Jack's penchant for "ordering people about."
Life was growing bigger for her. She had broken down the barriers which had confined her to a narrow promenade between office and home. The hours which she had had to devote to work were now entirely free, andshe could sketch or paint whenever the fancy took her—which was not very often, though she promised herself a period of hard work when once she was settled down.
Toward the good-looking young lawyer her point of view had shifted. She hardly knew herself how she regarded him. He irritated, and yet in some indefinable way, pleased her. His sincerity—? She did not doubt his sincerity. She admitted to herself that she wished he would call a little more frequently than he did. He might have persuaded her that Jaggs was a necessary evil, but he hadn't even taken the trouble to come. Therefore—but this she did not admit—Jaggs must go.
"I don't think the old gentleman's quite right in his head, you know, sometimes," said Mrs. Morgan.
"Why ever not, Mrs. Morgan?" asked the girl in surprise.
"I often hear him sniggering to himself as I go past his door. I suppose he stays in his room all night, miss?"
"He doesn't," said the girl emphatically, "and that's why he's going. I heard him in the passage at two o'clock this morning; I'm getting into such a state of nerves that the slightest sound awakens me. He had his boots off and was creeping about in his stockings, and when I went out and switched the light on he bolted back to his room. I can't have thatsort of thing going on, and I won't! it's altogether too creepy!"
Mrs. Morgan agreed.
Lydia had not been out in the evening for several days, she remembered, as she began to undress for the night. The weather had been unpleasant, and to stay in the warm, comfortable flat was no great hardship. Even if she had gone out, Jaggs would have accompanied her, she thought ironically.
And then she had a little twinge of conscience, remembering that Jaggs's presence on a memorable afternoon had saved her from destruction.
She wondered for the twentieth time what was old Jaggs's history, and where Jack had found him. Once she had been tempted to ask Jaggs himself, but the old man had fenced with the question, and had talked vaguely of having worked in the country, and she was as wise as she had been before.
But she must get rid of old Jaggs, she thought, as she switched off the light and kicked out the innumerable water-bottles, with which Mrs. Morgan, in mistaken kindness, had encumbered the bed ... old Jaggs must go ... he was a nuisance....
She woke with a start from a dreamless sleep. The clock in the hall was striking three. She realised this subconsciously. Her eyes were fixed on the window, which wasopen at the bottom. Mrs. Morgan had pulled it down at the top, but now it was wide open, and her heart began to thump, thump, rapidly. Jaggs! He was her first thought. She would never have believed that she could have thought of that old man with such a warm glow of thankfulness. There was nothing to be seen. The storm of the early night had passed over, and a faint light came into the room from the waning moon. And then she saw the curtains move, and opened her mouth to scream, but fear had paralysed her voice, and she lay staring at the hangings, incapable of movement or sound. As she watched the curtain she saw it move again, and a shape appeared faintly against the gloomy background.
The spell was broken. She swung herself out of the opposite side of the bed, and raced to the door, but the man was before her. Before she could scream, a big hand gripped her throat and flung her back against the rail of the bed.
Horrified she stared into the cruel face that leered down at her, and felt the grip tighten. And then as she looked into the face she saw a sudden grimace, and sensed the terror in his eyes. The hand relaxed; he bubbled something thickly and fell sideways against the bed. And now she saw. A man had come through the doorway, a tall man, with a fair beard and eyes that danced with insane joy.
He came slowly toward her, wiping on hiscuff the long-handled knife that had sent her assailant to the floor.
He was mad. She knew it instinctively, and remembered in a hazy, confused way, a paragraph she had read about an escaped lunatic. She tried to dash past him to the open door, but he caught her in the crook of his left arm, and pressed her to him, towering head and shoulders over her.
"You have no right to sit on a court martial, madam," he said with uncanny politeness, and at that moment the light in the room was switched on and Jaggs appeared in the doorway, his bearded lips parted in an ugly grin, a long-barrelled pistol in his left hand.
"Drop your knife," he said, "or I'll drop you."
The mad doctor turned his head slowly and frowned at the intruder.
"Good morning, General," he said calmly. "You came in time," and he threw the knife on to the ground. "We will try her according to regulations!"
A TRAGIC AFFAIR IN THE WEST END.Mad Doctor Wounds a Burglar in a Society Woman's Bedroom."There was an extraordinary and tragic sequel to the escape of Dr. Thun from Norwood Asylum, particulars of which appeared in our early edition of yesterday. This morning at four o'clock, in answer to a telephone call, Detective-Sergeant Miller, accompanied by another officer, went to 84, Cavendish Mansions, a flat occupied by Mrs. Meredith, and there found and took into custody Dr. Algernon Thun, who had escaped from Norwood Asylum. In the room was also found a man named Hoggins, a person well known to the police. It appears that Hoggins had effected an entrance into Mrs. Meredith's flat, descending from the roof by means of a rope, making his way into the premises through the window of Mrs. Meredith's bedroom. Whilst there he was detected by Mrs. Meredith, who would undoubtedly have been murdered had not Dr. Thun, who, in somemysterious manner, had gained admission to the flat, intervened. In the struggle that followed the doctor, who is suffering from the delusion of persecution, severely wounded the man, who is not expected to live. He then turned his attention to the lady. Happily an old man who works at the flat, who was sleeping on the premises at the time, was roused by the sound of the struggle, and succeeded in releasing the lady from the maniacal grasp of the intruder. The wounded burglar was removed to hospital and the lunatic was taken to the police station and was afterwards sent under a strong guard to the asylum from whence he had escaped. He made a rambling statement to the police to the effect that General Foch had assisted his escape and had directed him to the home of his persecutors."
A TRAGIC AFFAIR IN THE WEST END.
Mad Doctor Wounds a Burglar in a Society Woman's Bedroom.
"There was an extraordinary and tragic sequel to the escape of Dr. Thun from Norwood Asylum, particulars of which appeared in our early edition of yesterday. This morning at four o'clock, in answer to a telephone call, Detective-Sergeant Miller, accompanied by another officer, went to 84, Cavendish Mansions, a flat occupied by Mrs. Meredith, and there found and took into custody Dr. Algernon Thun, who had escaped from Norwood Asylum. In the room was also found a man named Hoggins, a person well known to the police. It appears that Hoggins had effected an entrance into Mrs. Meredith's flat, descending from the roof by means of a rope, making his way into the premises through the window of Mrs. Meredith's bedroom. Whilst there he was detected by Mrs. Meredith, who would undoubtedly have been murdered had not Dr. Thun, who, in somemysterious manner, had gained admission to the flat, intervened. In the struggle that followed the doctor, who is suffering from the delusion of persecution, severely wounded the man, who is not expected to live. He then turned his attention to the lady. Happily an old man who works at the flat, who was sleeping on the premises at the time, was roused by the sound of the struggle, and succeeded in releasing the lady from the maniacal grasp of the intruder. The wounded burglar was removed to hospital and the lunatic was taken to the police station and was afterwards sent under a strong guard to the asylum from whence he had escaped. He made a rambling statement to the police to the effect that General Foch had assisted his escape and had directed him to the home of his persecutors."
Jean Briggerland put down the paper and laughed.
"It is nothing to snigger about," growled Briggerland savagely.
"If I didn't laugh I should do something more emotional," said the girl coolly. "To think that that fool should go back and make the attempt single-handed. I never imagined that."
"Faire tells me that he's not expected to live," said Mr. Briggerland. He rubbed hisbald head irritably. "I wonder if that lunatic is going to talk?"
"What does it matter if he does?" said the girl impatiently.
"You said the other day——" he began.
"The other day it mattered, my dear father. To-day nothing matters very much. I think we have got well out of it. I ignored all the lessons which my textbook teaches when I entrusted work to other hands. Jaggs," she said softly.
"Eh?" said the father.
"I'm repeating a well-beloved name," she smiled and rose, folding her serviette. "I am going for a long run in the country. Would you like to come? Mordon is very enthusiastic about the new car, the bill for which, by the way, came in this morning. Have we any money?"
"A few thousands," said her father, rubbing his chin. "Jean, we shall have to sell something unless things brighten."
Jean's lips twitched, but she said nothing.
On her way to the open road she called at Cavendish Mansions, and was neither surprised nor discomfited to discover that Jack Glover was there.
"My dear," she said, warmly clasping both the girl's hands in hers, "I was so shocked when I read the news! How terrible it must have been for you."
Lydia was looking pale, and there were dark shadows under her eyes, but she treated the matter cheerfully.
"I've just been trying to explain to Mr. Glover what happened. Unfortunately, the wonderful Jaggs is not here. He knows more about it than I, for I collapsed in the most feminine way."
"How did he get in—I mean this madman?" asked the girl.
"Through the door."
It was Jack who answered.
"It is the last way in the world a lunatic would enter a flat, isn't it? He came in with a key, and he was brought here by somebody who struck a match to make sure it was the right number."
"He might have struck the match himself," said Jean, "but you're so clever that you would not say a thing like that unless you had proof."
"We found two matches in the hall outside," said Jack, "and when Dr. Thun was searched no matches were found on him, and I have since learnt that, like most homicidal lunatics, he had a horror of fire in any form. The doctor to whom I have been talking is absolutely sure that he would not have struck the match himself. Oh, by the way, Miss Briggerland, your father met this unfortunate man. I understand he paid a visit to the asylum a few days ago?"
"Yes, he did," she answered without hesitation. "He was talking about him this morning. You see, father has been making a tour of the asylums. He is writing a book about such things. Father was horrified when he heard the man had escaped, because the doctor told him that he was a particularly dangerous lunatic. But who would have imagined he would have turned up here?"
Her big, sad eyes were fixed on Jack as she shook her head in wonder.
"If one had read that in a book one would never have believed it, would one?"
"And the man Hoggins," said Jack, who did not share her wonder. "He was by way of being an acquaintance of yours, a member of your father's club, wasn't he?"
She knit her brows.
"I don't remember the name, but if he is a very bad character," she said with a little smile, "I should say distinctly that he was a member of father's club! Poor daddy, I don't think he will ever regenerate the East End."
"I don't think he will," agreed Jack heartily. "The question is, whether the East End will ever regenerate him."
A slow smile dawned on her face.
"How unkind!" she said, mockery in her eyes now. "I wonder why you dislike him so. He is so very harmless, really. My dear,"she turned to the girl with a gesture of helplessness. "I am afraid that even in this affair Mr. Glover is seeing my sinister influence!"
"You're the most un-sinister person I have ever met, Jean," laughed Lydia, "and Mr. Glover doesn't really think all these horrid things."
"Doesn't he?" said Jean softly, and Jack saw that she was shaking with laughter.
There was a certain deadly humour in the situation which tickled him too, and he grinned.
"I wish to heaven you'd get married and settle down, Miss Briggerland," he said incautiously.
It was her chance. She shook her head, the lips drooped, the eyes again grew moist with the pain she could call to them at will.
"I wish I could," she said in a tone a little above a whisper, "but, Jack, I could never marry you, never!"
She left Jack Glover bereft of speech, totally incapable of arousing so much as a moan.
Lydia, returning from escorting her visitor to the door, saw his embarrassment and checked his impulsive explanation a little coldly.
"I—I believed you when you said it wasn't true, Mr. Glover," she said, and there was a reproach in her tone for which she hated herself afterwards.
Lydia had promised to go to the theatre that night with Mrs. Cole-Mortimer, and she was glad of the excuse to leave her tragic home.
Mrs. Cole-Mortimer, who was not lavish in the matter of entertainments that cost money, had a box, and although Lydia had seen the piece before (it was in fact the very play she had attended to sketch dresses on the night of her adventure) it was a relief to sit in silence, which her hostess, with singular discretion, did not attempt to disturb.
It was during the last act that Mrs. Cole-Mortimer gave her an invitation which she accepted joyfully.
"I've got a house at Cap Martin," said Mrs. Cole-Mortimer. "It is only a tiny place, but I think you would rather like it. I hate going to the Riviera alone, so if you care to come as my guest, I shall be most happy to chaperon you. They are bringing my yacht down to Monaco, so we ought to have a really good time."
Lydia accepted the yacht and the house as she had accepted the invitation—withoutquestion. That the yacht had been chartered that morning and the house hired by telegram on the previous day, she could not be expected to guess. For all she knew, Mrs. Cole-Mortimer might be a very wealthy woman, and in her wildest dreams she did not imagine that Jean Briggerland had provided the money for both.
It had not been a delicate negotiation, because Mrs. Cole-Mortimer had the skin of a pachyderm.
Years later Lydia discovered that the woman lived on borrowed money, money which never could and never would be repaid, and which the borrower had no intention of refunding.
A hint dropped by Jean that there was somebody on the Riviera whom she desired to meet, without her father's knowledge, accompanied by the plain statement that she would pay all expenses, was quite sufficient for Mrs. Cole-Mortimer, and she had fallen in with her patron's views as readily as she had agreed to pose as a friend of Meredith's. To do her justice, she had the faculty of believing in her own invention, and she was quite satisfied that James Meredith had been a great personal friend of hers, just as she would believe that the house on the Riviera and the little steam-yacht had been procured out of her own purse.
It was harder for her, however, to explain the great system which she was going to work in Monte Carlo and which was to make everybody's fortune.
Lydia, who was no gambler and only mildly interested in games of chance, displayed so little evidence of interest in the scheme that Mrs. Cole-Mortimer groaned her despair, not knowing that she was expected to do no more than stir the soil for the crop which Jean Briggerland would plant and reap.
They went on to supper at one of the clubs, and Lydia thought with amusement of poor old Jaggs, who apparently took his job very seriously indeed.
Again her angle of vision had shifted, and her respect for the old man had overcome any annoyance his uncouth presence brought to her.
As she alighted at the door of the club she looked round, half expecting to see him. The club entrance was up a side street off Leicester Square, an ill-lit thoroughfare which favoured Mr. Jaggs's retiring methods, but there was no sign of him, and she did not wait in the drizzling night to make any closer inspection.
Mrs. Cole-Mortimer had not disguised the possibility of Jean Briggerland being at the club, and they found her with a gay party of young people, sitting in one of the recesses. Jean made a place for the girl by her side and introduced her to half a dozen people whose names Lydia did not catch, and never afterwards remembered.
Mr. Marcus Stepney, however, that sleek,dark man, who bowed over her hand and seemed as though he were going to kiss it, she had met before, and her second impression of him was even less favourable than the first.
"Do you dance?" asked Jean.
A jazz band was playing an infectious two-step. At the girl's nod Jean beckoned one of her party, a tall, handsome boy who throughout the subsequent dance babbled into Lydia's ear an incessant pæan in praise of Jean Briggerland.
Lydia was amused.
"Of course she is very beautiful," she said in answer to the interminable repetition of his question. "I think she's lovely."
"That's what I say," said the young man, whom she discovered was Lord Stoker. "The most amazingly beautiful creature on the earth, I think."
"Of course you're awfully good-looking, too," he blundered, and Lydia laughed aloud.
"But she's got enemies," said the young man viciously, "and if ever I meet that infernal cad, Glover, he'll be sorry."
The smile left Lydia's face.
"Mr. Glover is a friend of mine," she said a little quickly.
"Sorry," he mumbled, "but——"
"Does Miss Briggerland say he is so very bad?"
"Of course not. She never says a wordagainst him really." His lordship hastened to exonerate his idol. "She just says she doesn't know how long she's going to stand his persecutions. It breaks one's heart to see how sad this—your friend makes her."
Lydia was a very thoughtful girl for the rest of the evening; she was beginning in a hazy way to see things which she had not seen before. Of course Jean never said anything against Jack Glover. And yet she had succeeded in arousing this youth to fury against the lawyer, and Lydia realised, with a sense of amazement, that Jean had also made her feel bad about Jack. And yet she had said nothing but sweet things.
When she got back to the flat that night she found that Mr. Jaggs had not been there all the evening. He came in a few minutes after her, wrapped up in an old army coat, and from his appearance she gathered that he had been standing out in the rain and sleet the whole of the evening.
"Why, Jaggs," she said impulsively, "wherever have you been?"
"Just dodging round, miss," he grunted. "Having a look at the little ducks in the pond."
"You've been outside the theatre, and you've been waiting outside Niro's Club," she said accusingly.
"Don't know it, miss," he said. "One theayter is as much like another one to me."
"You must take your things off and let Mrs. Morgan dry your clothes," she insisted, but he would not hear of this, compromising only with stripping his sodden great coat.
He disappeared into his dark room, there to ruminate upon such matters as appeared of interest to him. A bed had been placed for him, but only once had he slept on it.
After the flat grew still and the last click of the switch told that the last light had been extinguished, he opened the door softly, and, carrying a chair in his hand, he placed this gently with its back to the front door, and there he sat and dozed throughout the night. When Lydia woke the next morning he was gone as usual.
Lydia had plenty to occupy her days. The house in Curzon Street had been bought and she had been a round of furnishers, paper-hangers and fitters of all variety.
The trip to the Riviera came at the right moment. She could leave Mrs. Morgan in charge and come back to her new home, which was to be ready in two months.
Amongst other things, the problem of the watchful Mr. Jaggs would be settled automatically.
She spoke to him that night when he came.
"By the way, Mr. Jaggs, I am going to the South of France next week."
"A pretty place by all accounts," volunteered Mr. Jaggs.
"A lovely place—by all accounts," repeated Lydia with a smile. "And you're going to have a holiday, Mr. Jaggs. By the way, what am I to pay you?"
"The gentleman pays me, miss," said Mr. Jaggs with a sniff. "The lawyer gentleman."
"Well, he must continue paying you whilst I am away," said the girl. "I am very gratefulto you and I want to give you a little present before I go. Is there anything you would like, Mr. Jaggs?"
Mr. Jaggs rubbed his beard, scratched his head and thought he would like a pipe.
"Though bless you, miss, I don't want any present."
"You shall have the best pipe I can buy," said the girl. "It seems very inadequate."
"I'd rather have a briar, miss," said old Jaggs mistakenly.
He was on duty until the morning she left, and although she rose early he had gone. She was disappointed, for she had not given him the handsome case of pipes she had bought, and she wanted to thank him. She felt she had acted rather meanly towards him. She owed her life to him twice.
"Didn't you see him go?" she asked Mrs. Morgan.
"No, miss," the stout housekeeper shook her head. "I was up at six and he'd gone then, but he'd left his chair in the passage—I've got an idea that's where he slept, miss, if he slept at all."
"Poor old man," said the girl gently. "I haven't been very kind to him, have I? And I do owe him such a lot."
"Maybe he'll turn up again," said Mrs. Morgan hopefully. She had the mother feeling for the old, which is one of the beauties of herclass, and she regretted Lydia's absence probably as much because it would entail the disappearance of old Jaggs as for the loss of her mistress. But old Jaggs did not turn up. Lydia hoped to see him at the station, hovering on the outskirts of the crowd in his furtive way, but she was disappointed.
She left by the eleven o'clock train, joining Mrs. Cole-Mortimer on the station. That lady had arranged to spend a day in Paris, and the girl was not sorry, after a somewhat bad crossing of the English Channel, that she had not to continue her journey through the night.
The South of France was to be a revelation to her. She had no conception of the extraordinary change of climate and vegetation that could be experienced in one country.
She passed from a drizzly, bedraggled Paris into a land of sunshine and gentle breezes; from the bare sullen lands of the Champagne, into a country where flowers grew by the side of the railway, and that in February; to a semi-tropic land, fragrant with flowers, to white beaches by a blue, lazy sea and a sky over all unflecked by clouds.
It took her breath away, the beauty of it; and the sense and genial warmth of it. The trees laden with lemons, the wisteria on the walls, the white dust on the road, and the glory of the golden mimosa that scented the air with its rare and lovely perfume.
They left the train at Nice and drove along the Grande Corniche. Mrs. Cole-Mortimer had a call to make in Monte Carlo and the girl sat back in the car and drank in the beauty of this delicious spot, whilst her hostess interviewed the house agent.
Surely the place must be kept under glass. It looked so fresh and clean and free from stain.
The Casino disappointed her—it was a place of plaster and stucco, and did not seem built for permanent use.
They drove back part of the way they had come, on to the peninsula of Cap Martin and she had a glimpse of beautiful villas between the pines and queer little roads that led into mysterious dells. Presently the car drew up before a good looking house (even Mrs. Cole-Mortimer was surprised into an expression of her satisfaction at the sight of it).
Lydia, who thought that this was Mrs. Cole-Mortimer's own demesne, was delighted.
"You are lucky to have a beautiful home like this, Mrs. Cole-Mortimer," she said, "it must be heavenly living here."
The habit of wealth had not been so well acquired that she could realise that she also could have a beautiful house if she wished—she thought of that later. Nor did she expect to find Jean Briggerland there, and Mr. Briggerland too, sitting on a big cane chair on theveranda overlooking the sea and smoking a cigar of peace.
Mrs. Cole-Mortimer had been very careful to avoid all mention of Jean on the journey.
"Didn't I tell you they would be here?" she said in careless amazement. "Why, of course, dear Jean left two days before we did. It makes such a nice little party. Do you play bridge?"
Lydia did not play bridge, but was willing to be taught.
She spent the remaining hour of daylight exploring the grounds which led down to the road which fringed the sea.
She could look across at the lights already beginning to twinkle at Monte Carlo, to the white yachts lying off Monaco, and farther along the coast to a little cluster of lights that stood for Beaulieu.
"It is glorious," she said, drawing a long breath.
Mrs. Cole-Mortimer, who had accompanied her in her stroll, purred the purr of the pleased patron whose protégée has been thankful for favours received.
Dinner was a gay meal, for Jean was in her brightest mood. She had a keen sense of fun and her sly little sallies, sometimes aimed at her father, sometimes at Lydia's expense, but more often directed at people in the social world,whose names were household words, kept Lydia in a constant gurgle of laughter.
Mrs. Cole-Mortimer alone was nervous and ill at ease. She had learnt unpleasant news and was not sure whether she should tell the company or keep her secret to herself. In such dilemma, weak people take the most sensational course, and presently she dropped her bombshell.
"Celeste says that the gardener's little boy has malignant smallpox," she almost wailed.
Jean was telling a funny story to the girl who sat by her, and did not pause for so much as a second in her narrative. The effect on Mr. Briggerland was, however, wholly satisfactory to Mrs. Cole-Mortimer. He pushed back his chair and blinked at his "hostess."
"Smallpox?" he said in horror, "here—in Cap Martin? Good God, did you hear that, Jean?"
"Did I hear what?" she asked lazily, "about the gardener's little boy? Oh, yes. There has been quite an epidemic on the Italian Riviera, in fact they closed the frontier last week."
"But—but here!" spluttered Briggerland.
Lydia could only look at him in open-eyed amazement. The big man's terror was pitiably apparent. The copper skin had turned a dirty grey, his lower lip was trembling like a frightened child's.
"Why not here?" said Jean coolly, "there is nothing to be scared about. Have you been vaccinated recently?" she turned to the girl, and Lydia shook her head.
"Not since I was a baby—and then I believe the operation was not a success."
"Anyway, the child is isolated in the cottage and they are taking him to Nice to-night," said Jean. "Poor little fellow! Even his own mother has deserted him. Are you going to the Casino?" she asked.
"I don't know," replied Lydia. "I'm very tired but I should love to go."
"Take her, father—and you go, Margaret. By the time you return the infection will be removed."
"Won't you come too?" asked Lydia.
"No, I'll stay at home to-night. I turned my ankle to-day and it is rather stiff. Father!"
This time her voice was sharp, menacing almost, thought Lydia, and Mr. Briggerland made an heroic attempt to recover his self-possession.
"Cer—certainly, my dear—I shall be delighted—er—delighted."
He saw her alone whilst Lydia was changing in her lovely big dressing-room, overlooking the sea.
"Why didn't you tell me there was smallpox in Cap Martin?" he demanded fretfully.
"Because I didn't know till Margaretrelieved her mind at our expense," said his daughter coolly. "I had to say something. Besides, I'd heard one of the maids say that somebody's mother had deserted him—I fitted it in. What a funk you are, father!"
"I hate the very thought of disease," he growled. "Why aren't you coming with us—there is nothing the matter with your ankle?"
"Because I prefer to stay at home."
He looked at her suspiciously.
"Jean," he said in a milder voice, "hadn't we better let up on the girl for a bit—until that lunatic doctor affair has blown over?"
She reached out and took a gold case from his waistcoat pocket, extracted a cigarette and replaced the case before she spoke.
"We can't afford to 'let up' as you call it, for a single hour. Do you realise that any day her lawyer may persuade her to make a will leaving her money to a—a home for cats, or something equally untouchable? If there was no Jack Glover we could afford to wait months. And I'm less troubled about him than I am about the man Jaggs. Father, you will be glad to learn that I am almost afraid of that freakish old man."
"Neither of them are here—" he began.
"Exactly," said Jean, "neither are here—Lydia had a telegram from him just before dinner asking if he could come to see her next week."
At this moment Lydia returned and Jean Briggerland eyed her critically.
"My dear, you look lovely," she said and kissed her.
Mr. Briggerland's nose wrinkled, as it always did when his daughter shocked him.
Jean Briggerland waited until she heard the sound of the departing car sink to a faint hum, then she went up to her room, opened the bureau and took out a long and tightly fitting dust-coat that she wore when she was motoring. She had seen a large bottle of peroxide in Mrs. Cole-Mortimer's room. It probably contributed to the dazzling glories of Mrs. Cole-Mortimer's hair, but it was also a powerful germicide. She soaked a big silk handkerchief in a basin of water, to which she added a generous quantity of the drug, and squeezing the handkerchief nearly dry, she knotted it loosely about her neck. A rubber bathing cap she pulled down over her head, and smiled at her queer reflection in the glass. Then she found a pair of kid gloves and drew them on.
She turned out the light and went softly down the carpeted stairs. The servants were at their dinner, and she opened the front door and crossed the lawn into a belt of trees, beyond which she knew, for she had been in the house two days, was the gardener's cottage.
A dim light burnt in one of the two roomsand the window was uncurtained. She saw the bed and its tiny occupant, but nobody else was in the room. The maid had said that the mother had deserted the little sufferer, but this was not quite true. The doctor had ordered the mother into isolation, and had sent a nurse from the infection hospital to take her place. That lady, at the moment, was waiting at the end of the avenue for the ambulance to arrive.
Jean opened the door and stepped in, pulling up the saturated handkerchief until it covered nose and mouth. The place was deserted, and, without a moment's hesitation, she lifted the child, wrapped a blanket about it and crossed the lawn again. She went quietly up the stairs straight to Lydia's room. There was enough light from the dressing-room to see the bed, and unwrapping the blanket she pulled back the covers and laid him gently in the bed. The child was unconscious. The hideous marks of the disease had developed with remarkable rapidity and he made no sound.
She sat down in a chair, waiting. Her almost inhuman calm was not ruffled by so much as a second's apprehension. She had provided for every contingency and was ready with a complete explanation, whatever happened.
Half an hour passed, and then rising, she wrapped the child in the blanket and carried him back to the cottage. She heard the purr of themotor and footsteps as she flitted back through the trees.
First she went to Lydia's room and straightened the bed, spraying the room with the faint perfume which she found on the dressing table; then she went back again into the garden, stripped off the dust coat, cap and handkerchief, rolling them into a bundle, which she thrust through the bars of an open window which she knew ventilated a cellar. Last of all she stripped her gloves and sent them after the bundle.
She heard the voices of the nurse and attendant as they carried the child to the ambulance.
"Poor little kid," she murmured, "I hope he gets better."
And, strangely enough, she meant it.
It had been a thrilling evening for Lydia, and she returned to the house at Cap Martin very tired, but very happy. She was seeing a new world, a world the like of which had never been revealed to her, and though she could have slept, and her head did nod in the car, she roused herself to talk it all over again with the sympathetic Jean.
Mrs. Cole-Mortimer retired early. Mr. Briggerland had gone up to bed the moment he returned, and Lydia would have been glad tohave ended her conversation; since her head reeled with weariness, but Jean was very talkative, until——
"My dear, if I don't go to bed I shall sleep on the table," smiled Lydia, rising and suppressing a yawn.
"I'm so sorry," said the penitent Jean.
She accompanied the girl upstairs, her arm about her waist, and left her at the door of her dressing-room.
A maid had laid out her night things on a big settee (a little to Lydia's surprise) and she undressed quickly.
She opened the door of her bedroom, her hand was on a switch, when she was conscious of a faint and not unpleasant odour. It was a clean, pungent smell. "Disinfectant," said her brain mechanically. She turned on the light, wondering where it came from. And then as she crossed the room she came in sight of her bed and stopped, for it was saturated with water—water that dropped from the hanging coverlet, and made little pools on the floor. From the head of the bed to the foot there was not one dry place. Whosoever had done the work was thorough. Blankets, sheets, pillows were soddened, and from the soaked mass came a faint acrid aroma which she recognised, even before she saw on the floor an empty bottle labelled "Peroxide of Hydrogen."
She could only stand and stare. It was too late to arouse the household, and she remembered that there was a very comfortable settee in the dressing-room with a rug and a pillow, and she went back.
A few minutes later she was fast asleep. Not so Miss Briggerland, who was sitting up in bed, a cigarette between her lips, a heavy volume on her knees, reading:
"Such malignant cases are almost without exception rapidly fatal, sometimes so early that no sign of the characteristic symptoms appear at all," she read and, dropping the book on the floor, extinguished her cigarette on an alabaster tray, and settled herself to sleep. She was dozing when she remembered that she had forgotten to say her prayers.
"Oh, damn!" said Jean, getting out reluctantly to kneel on the cold floor by the side of the bed.
Her maid woke Jean Briggerland at eight o'clock the next morning.
"Oh, miss," she said, as she drew up the table for the chocolate, "have you heard about Mrs. Meredith?"
Jean blinked open her eyes, slipped into her dressing jacket and sat up with a yawn.
"Have I heard about Mrs. Meredith? Many times," she said.
"But what somebody did last night, miss?"
Jean was wide awake now.
"What has happened to Mrs. Meredith?" she asked.
"Why, miss, somebody played a practical joke on her. Her bed's sopping."
"Sopping?" frowned the girl.
"Yes, miss," the woman nodded. "They must have poured buckets of water over it, and used up all Mrs. Cole-Mortimer's peroxide, what she uses for keeping her hands nice."
Jean swung out of her bed and sat looking down at her tiny white feet.
"Where did Mrs. Meredith sleep? Why didn't she wake us up?"
"She slept in the dressing-room, miss. I don't suppose the young lady liked making a fuss."
"Who did it?"
"I don't know who did it. It's a silly kind of practical joke, and I know none of the maids would have dared, not the French ones."
Jean put her feet into her slippers, exchanged her jacket for a gown, and went on a tour of inspection.
Lydia was dressing in her room, and the sound of her fresh, young voice, as she carolled out of sheer love of life, came to the girl before she turned into the room.
One glance at the bed was sufficient. It was still wet, and the empty peroxide bottle told its own story.
Jean glanced at it thoughtfully as she crossed into the dressing-room.
"Whatever happened last night, Lydia?"
Lydia turned at the voice.
"Oh, the bed you mean," she made a little face. "Heaven knows. It occurred to me this morning that some person, out of mistaken kindness, had started to disinfect the room—it was only this morning that I recalled the little boy who was ill—and had overdone it."
"They've certainly overdone it," said Jean grimly. "I wonder what poor Mrs. Cole-Mortimer will say. You haven't the slightest idea——"
"Not the slightest idea," said Lydia, answering the unspoken question.
"I'll see Mrs. Cole-Mortimer and get her to change your bed—there's another room you could have," suggested Jean.
She went back to her own apartment, bathed and dressed leisurely.
She found her father in the garden reading theNicoise, under the shade of a bush, for the sun was not warm, but at that hour, blinding.
"I've changed my plans," she said without preliminary.
He looked up over his glasses.
"I didn't know you had any," he said with heavy humour.
"I intended going back to London and taking you with me," she said unexpectedly.
"Back to London?" he said incredulously. "I thought you were staying on for a month."
"I probably shall now," she said, pulling up a basket-chair and sitting by his side. "Give me a cigarette."
"You're smoking a lot lately," he said as he handed his case to her.
"I know I am."
"Have your nerves gone wrong?"
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and her lips curled.
"It wouldn't be remarkable if I inherited a little of your yellow streak," she said coolly, and he growled something under his breath."No, my nerves are all right, but a cigarette helps me to think."
"A yellow streak, have I?" Mr. Briggerland was annoyed. "And I've been out since five o'clock this morning——" he stopped.
"Doing—what?" she asked curiously.
"Never mind," he said with a lofty gesture.
Thus they sat, busy with their own thoughts, for a quarter of an hour.
"Jean."
"Yes," she said without turning her head.
"Don't you think we'd better give this up and get back to London? Lord Stoker is pretty keen on you."
"I'm not pretty keen on him," she said decidedly. "He has his regimental pay and £500 a year, two estates, mortgaged, no brains and a title—what is the use of his title to me? As much use as a coat of paint! Beside which, I am essentially democratic."
He chuckled, and there was another silence.
"Do you think the lawyer is keen on the girl?"
"Jack Glover?"
Mr. Briggerland nodded.
"I imagine he is," said Jean thoughtfully. "I like Jack—he's clever. He has all the moral qualities which one admires so much in the abstract. I could love Jack myself."
"Could he love you?" bantered her father.
"He couldn't," she said shortly. "Jackwould be a happy man if he saw me stand in Jim Meredith's place in the Old Bailey. No, I have no illusion about Jack's affections."
"He's after Lydia's money I suppose," said Mr. Briggerland, stroking his bald head.
"Don't be a fool," was the calm reply. "That kind of man doesn't worry about a girl's money. I wish Lydia was dead," she added without malice. "It would make things so easy and smooth."
Her father swallowed something.
"You shock me sometimes, Jean," he said, a statement which amused her.
"You're such a half-and-half man," she said with a note of contempt in her voice. "You were quite willing to benefit by Jim Meredith's death; you killed him as cold-bloodedly as you killed poor little Bulford, and yet you must whine and snivel whenever your deeds are put into plain language. What does it matter if Lydia dies now or in fifty years time?" she asked. "It would be different if she were immortal. You people attach so much importance to human life—the ancients, and the Japanese amongst the modern, are the only people who have the matter in true perspective. It is no more cruel to kill a human being than it is to cut the throat of a pig to provide you with bacon. There's hardly a dish at your table which doesn't represent wilful murder, and yet you never think of it,but because the man animal can talk and dresses himself or herself in queer animal and vegetable fabrics, and decorates the body with bits of metal and pieces of glittering quartz, you give its life a value which you deny to the cattle within your gates! Killing is a matter of expediency. Permissible if you call it war, terrible if you call it murder. To me it is just killing. If you are caught in the act of killing they kill you, and people say it is right to do so. The sacredness of human life is a slogan invented by cowards who fear death—as you do."
"Don't you, Jean?" he asked in a hushed voice.
"I fear life without money," she said quietly. "I fear long days of work for a callous, leering employer, and strap-hanging in a crowded tube on my way home to one miserable room and the cold mutton of yesterday. I fear getting up and making my own bed and washing my own handkerchiefs and blouses, and renovating last year's hats to make them look like this year's. I fear a poor husband and a procession of children, and doing the housework with an incompetent maid, or maybe without any at all. Those are the things I fear, Mr. Briggerland."
She dusted the ash from her dress and got up.
"I haven't forgotten the life we lived at Ealing," she said significantly.
She looked across the bay to Monte Carlo glittering in the morning sunlight, to the green-capped head of Cap-d'Ail, to Beaulieu, a jewel set in greystone and shook her head.
"'It is written'," she quoted sombrely and left him in the midst of the question he was asking. She strolled back to the house and joined Lydia who was looking radiantly beautiful in a new dress of silver grey charmeuse.