Steel dropped into a chair and gazed at Inspector Marley with mild surprise. At the same time he was not in the least alarmed. Not that he failed to recognise the gravity of the situation, only it appealed in the first instance to the professional side of his character.
"Walen is quite sure?" he asked. "No possible doubt about that, eh?"
"Not in the least. You see, he recognised his private mark at once, and Brighton is not so prosperous a place that a man could sell a £70 cigar-case and forget all about it—that is, a second case, I mean. It's most extraordinary."
"Rather! Make a magnificent story, Marley."
"Very," Marley responded, drily. "It would take all your well-known ingenuity to get your hero out of this trouble."
Steel nodded gravely. This personal twist brought him to the earth again. He could clearly see the trap into which he had placed himself. There before him lay the cigar-case which he had positively identified as his own; inside, his initials bore testimony to the fact. And yet the same case had been identified beyond question as one sold by a highly respectable local tradesman to the mysterious individual now lying in the Sussex County Hospital.
"May I smoke a cigarette?" David asked.
"You may smoke a score if they will be of any assistance to you, sir," Marley replied. "I don't want to ask you any questions and I don't want you—well, to commit yourself. But really, sir, you must admit—"
The inspector paused significantly. David nodded again.
"Pray proceed," he said: "speak from the brief you have before you."
"Well, you see it's this way," Marley said, not without hesitation. "You call us up to your house, saying that a murder has been committed there; we find a stranger almost at his last gasp in your conservatory with every signs of a struggle having taken place. You tell us that the injured man is a stranger to you; you go on to say that he must have found his way into your house during a nocturnal ramble of yours. Well, that sounds like common sense on the face of it. The criminal has studied your habits and has taken advantage of them. Then I ask if you are in the habit of taking these midnight strolls, and with some signs of hesitation you say that you have never done such a thing before. Charles Dickens was very fond of that kind of thing, and I naturally imagined that you had the same fancy. But you had never done it before. And, the only time, a man is nearly murdered in your house."
"Perfectly correct," David murmured. "Gaboriau could not have put it better. You might have been a pupil of my remarkable acquaintance Hatherly Bell."
"I am a pupil of Mr. Bell's," Marley said, quietly. "Seven years ago he induced me to leave the Huddersfield police to go into his office, where I stayed until Mr. Bell gave up business, when I applied for and gained my present position. Curious you should mention Mr. Bell's name, seeing that he was here so recently as this afternoon."
"Staying in Brighton?" Steel asked, eagerly. "What is his address?"
"No. 219, Brunswick Square."
It took all the nerve that David possessed to crush the cry that rose to his lips. It was more than strange that the man he most desired to see at this juncture should be staying in the very house where the novelist had his great adventure. And in the mere fact might be the key to the problem of the cigar-case.
"I'll certainly see Bell," he muttered. "Go on, Marley."
"Yes, sir. We now proceed to the cigar-case that lies before you. It was also lying on the floor of your conservatory on the night in question. I suggested that here we might have found a clue, taking the precaution at the same time to ask if the article in question was your property. You looked at the case as one does who examines an object for the first time, and proceeded to declare that it was not yours. I am quite prepared to admit that you instantly corrected yourself. But I ask, is it a usual thing for a man to forget the ownership of a £70 cigar-case?"
"A nice point, and I congratulate you upon it," David said.
"Then we will take the matter a little farther. A day or two ago you were in dire need of something like £1,000. Temporarily, at any rate, you were practically at the end of your resources. If this money were not forthcoming in a few hours you were a ruined man. In vulgar parlance, you would have been sold up. Mossa and Mack had you in their grip, and they were determined to make all they could out of you. The morning following the outrage at your house you call upon Mr. Mossa and produce the cigar-case lying on the table before you. From that case you produce notes sufficient to discharge your debt—Bank of England notes, the numbers of which, I need hardly say, are in my possession. The money is produced from the case yonder, which case weknowwas sold to the injured man by Mr. Walen."
Marley made a long and significant pause. Steel nodded.
"There seems to be no way out of it," he said.
"I can see one," Marley suggested. "Of course, it would simplify matters enormously if you merely told me in confidence whence came those notes. You see, as I have the numbers, I could verify your statement beyond question, and—"
Marley paused again and shrugged his shoulders. Despite his cold, official manner, he was obviously prompted by a desire to serve his companion. And yet, simple as the suggestion seemed, it was the very last thing with which Steel could comply.
The novelist turned the matter over rapidly in his mind. His quick perceptions flashed along the whole logical line instantaneously. He was like a man who suddenly sees a midnight landscape by the glare of a dazzling flash of lightning.
"I am sorry," he said, slowly, "very sorry, to disappoint you. Were our situations reversed, I should take up your position exactly. But it so happens that I cannot, dare not, tell you where I got those notes from. So far as I am concerned they came honestly into my hands in payment for special services rendered. It was part of my contract that I should reveal the secret to nobody. If I told you the story you would decline to believe it; you would say that it was a brilliant effort of a novelist's imagination to get out of a dangerous position."
"I don't know that I should," Marley replied. "I have long since ceased to wonder at anything that happens in or connected with Brighton."
"All the same I can't tell you, Marley," Steel said, as he rose. "My lips are absolutely sealed. The point is: what are you going to do?"
"For the present, nothing," Marley replied. "So long as the man in the hospital remains unconscious I can do no more than pursue what Beaconsfield called 'a policy of masterly inactivity.' I have told you a good deal more than I had any right to do, but I did so in the hope that you could assist me. Perhaps in a day or two you will think better of it. Meanwhile—"
"Meanwhile I am in a tight place. Yes, I see that perfectly well. It is just possible that I may scheme some way out of the difficulty, and if so I shall be only too pleased to let you know. Good-night, Marley, and many thanks to you."
But with all his ingenuity and fertility of imagination David could see no way out of the trouble. He sat up far into the night scheming; there was no flavour in his tobacco; his pictures and flowers, his silver and china, jarred upon him. He wished with all his heart now that he had let everything go. It need only have been a temporary matter, and there were other Cellini tankards, and intaglios, and line engravings in the world for the man with money in his purse.
He could see no way out of it at all. Was it not possible that the whole thing had been deliberately planned so as to land him and his brains into the hands of some clever gang of swindlers? Had he been tricked and fooled so that he might become the tool of others? It seemed hard to think so when he recalled the sweet voice in the darkness and its passionate plea for help. And yet the very cigar-case that he had been told was the one he admired at Lockhart's had proved beyond question to be one purchased from Walen's!
If he decided to violate his promise and tell the whole story nobody would believe him. The thing was altogether too wild and improbable for that. And yet, he reflected, things almost as impossible happen in Brighton every day. And what proof had he to offer?
Well, there was one thing certain. At least three-quarters of those bank-notes—the portion he had collected at the house with the crimson blind—could not possibly be traced to the injured man. And, again, it was no fault of Steel's that Marley had obtained possession of the numbers of the notes. If the detective chose to ferret out facts for himself no blame could attach to Steel. If those people had only chosen to leave out of the question that confounded cigar-case!
David's train of thought was broken as an idea came to him. It was not so long since he had a facsimile cigar-case in his hand at Lockhart's, in North Street. Somebody connected with the mystery must have seen him admiring it and reluctantly declining the purchase, because the voice from the telephone told him that the case was a present and that it had come from the famous North Street establishment.
"By Jove!" David cried. "I'll go to Lockhart's tomorrow and see if the case is still there. If so, I may be able to trace it."
Fairly early the next morning David was in North Street. For the time being he had put his work aside altogether. He could not have written a dozen consecutive lines to save the situation. The mere effort to preserve a cheerful face before his mother was a torture. And at any time he might find himself forced to meet a criminal charge.
The gentlemanly assistant at Lockhart's remembered Steel and the cigar-case perfectly well, but he was afraid that the article had been sold. No doubt it would be possible to obtain a facsimile in the course of a few days.
"Only I required that particular one," Steel said. "Can you tell me when it was sold and who purchased it?"
A junior partner did, and could give some kind of information. Several people had admired the case, and it had been on the point of sale several times. Finally, it had passed into the hands of an American gentleman staying at the Metropole.
"Can you tell me his name?" David asked, "or describe him?"
"Well, I can't, sir," the junior partner said, frankly. "I haven't the slightest recollection of the gentleman. He wrote from the Metropole on the hotel paper describing the case and its price and inclosed the full amount in ten-dollar notes and asked to have the case sent by post to the hotel. When we ascertained that the notes were all right, we naturally posted the case as desired, and there, so far as we are concerned, was an end of the matter."
"You don't recollect his name?"
"Oh, yes. The name was John Smith. If there is anything wrong—-"
David hastily gave the desired assurance. He wanted to arouse no suspicion. All the same, he left Lockhart's with a plethora of suspicions of his own. Doubtless the jewellers would be well and fairly satisfied so long as the case had been paid for, but from the standpoint of David's superior knowledge the whole transaction fairly bristled with suspicion.
Not for one moment did Steel believe in the American at the Metropole. Somebody stayed there doubtless under the name of John Smith, and that said somebody had paid for the cigar-case in dollar notes the tracing of which might prove a task of years. Nor was it the slightest use to inquire at the Metropole, where practically everybody is identified by a number, and where scores come and go every day. John Smith would only have to ask for his letters and then drop quietly into a sea of oblivion.
Well, David had got his information, and a lot of use it was likely to prove to him. As he walked thoughtfully homewards he was debating in his mind whether or not he might venture to call at or write to 219, Brunswick Square, and lay his difficulties before the people there. At any rate, he reflected, with grim bitterness, they would know that he was not romancing. If nothing turned up in the meantime he would certainly visit Brunswick Square.
He sat in his own room puzzling the matter out till his head ached and the flowers before him reeled in a dazzling whirl of colour. He looked round for inspiration, now desperately, as he frequently did when the warp of his delicate fancy tangled. The smallest thing sometimes fed the machine again—a patch of sunshine, the chip on a plate, the damaged edge of a frame. Then his eye fell on the telephone and he jumped to his feet.
"What a fool I am!" he exclaimed. "If I had been plotting this business out as a story. I should have thought of that long ago…. No, I don't want any number, at least, not in that way. Two nights ago I was called up by somebody from London who held the line for fully half an hour or so. I've—I've forgotten the address of my correspondent, but if you can ascertain the number … yes, I shall be here if you will ring me up when you have got it…. Thanks."
Half an hour passed before the bell trilled again. David listened eagerly. At any rate, now he was going to know the number whence the mysterious message came—0017, Kensington, was the number. David muttered his thanks and flew to his big telephone directory. Yes, there it was—"0017, 446, Prince's Gate, Gilead Gates."
The big volume dropped with a crash on the floor. David looked down at the crumpled volume with dim, misty amazement.
"Gilead Gates," he murmured. "Quaker, millionaire, and philanthropist. One of the most highly-esteemed and popular men in England. And from his house came the message which has been the source of all the mischief. And yet there are critics who say the plots of my novels are too fantastic!"
The emotion of surprise seemed to have left Steel altogether. After the last discovery he was prepared to believe anything. Had anybody told him that the whole Bench of Bishops was at the bottom of the mystery he would have responded that the suggestion was highly probable.
"Still, it's what the inimitable Dick Swiveller would call a staggerer," he muttered. "Gates, the millionaire, the one great capitalist who has the profound respect of the labour world. No, a man with a record like that couldn't have anything to do with it. Still, it must have been from his house that the mysterious message came. The post-office people working the telephone trunk line would know that—a fact which probably escaped the party who called me up…. I'll go to Brunswick Square and see that woman. Money or no money, I'll not lie under an imputation like this."
There was one thing to be done beforehand, and that was to see Dr. Cross. From the latter's manner he evidently knew nothing of the charge hanging over Steel's head. Marley was evidently keeping that close to himself and speaking to nobody.
"Oh, the man is better." Cross said, cheerfully. "He hasn't been identified yet, though the Press has given us every assistance. I fancy the poor fellow is going to recover, though I am afraid it will be a long job."
"He hasn't recovered consciousness, then?"
"No, and neither will he for some time to come. There seems to be a certain pressure on the brain which we are unable to locate, and we dare not try the Röntgen rays yet. So on the whole you are likely to escape with a charge of aggravated assault."
David smiled grimly as he went his way. He walked the whole distance to Hove along North Street and the Western Road, finally turning down Brunswick Square instead ofupit, as he had done on the night of the great adventure. He wondered vaguely why he had been specially instructed to approach the house that way.
Here it was at last, 219, Brunswick Square—220 above and, of course, 218 below the house. It looked pretty well the same in the daylight, the same door, the same knocker, and the same crimson blind in the centre of the big bay window. David knocked at the door with a vague feeling of uncertainty as to what he was going to do next. A very staid, old-fashioned footman answered his ring and inquired his business.
"Can—can I see your mistress?" David stammered.
The staid footman became, if possible, a little more reserved. If the gentleman would send in his card he would see if Miss Ruth was disengaged. David found himself vaguely wondering what Miss Ruth's surname might be. The old Biblical name was a great favourite of his.
"I'm afraid I haven't a card," he said. "Will you say that Mr. Steel would like to see—er—Miss Ruth for a few minutes? My business is exceedingly pressing."
The staid footman led the way into the dining-room. Evidently this was no frivolous house, where giddy butterflies came and went; such gaudy insects would have been chilled by the solemn decorum of the place. David followed into the dining-room in a dreamy kind of way, and with the feeling that comes to us all at times, the sensation of having done and seen the same thing before.
Nothing had been altered. The same plain, handsome, expensive furniture was here, the same mahogany and engravings, the same dull red walls, with the same light stain over the fire-place—a dull, prosperous, square-toed-looking place. The electric fittings looked a little different, but that might have been fancy. It was the identical room. David had run his quarry to earth, and he began to feel his spirits rising. Doubtless he could scheme some way out of the difficulty and spare his phantom friends at the same time.
"You wanted to see me, sir? Will you be so good as to state your business?"
David turned with a start. He saw before him a slight, graceful figure, and a lovely, refined face in a frame of the most beautiful hair that he had ever seen. The grey eyes were demure, with just a suggestion of mirth in them; the lips were made for laughter. It was as if some dainty little actress were masquerading in Salvation garb, only the dress was all priceless lace that touched David's artistic perception. He could imagine the girl as deeply in earnest as going through fire and water for her convictions. Also he could imagine her as Puck or Ariel—there was rippling laughter in every note of that voice of hers.
"I—I, eh, yes," Steel stammered. "You see, I—if I only knew whom I had the pleasure of addressing?"
"I am Miss Ruth Gates, at your service. Still, you asked for me by name."
David made no reply for a moment. He was tripping over surprises again. What a fool he had been not to look out the name of the occupant of 219 in the directory. It was pretty evident that Gilead Gates had a house in Brighton as well as one in town. Not only had that telephone message emanated from the millionaire's residence, but it had brought Steel to the philanthropist's abode in Brighton. If Mr. Gates himself had strolled into the room singing a comic song David would have expressed no emotion.
"Daughter of the famous Gilead Gates?" David asked, feebly.
"No, niece, and housekeeper. This is not my uncle's own house, he has merely taken this for a time. But, Mr. Steel—"
"Mr.David, Steel—is my name familiar to you?"
David asked the question somewhat eagerly. As yet he was only feeling his way and keenly on the lookout for anything in the way of a clue. He saw the face of the girl grow white as the table-cover, he saw the lurking laughter die in her eyes, and the purple black terror dilating the pupils.
"I—I know you quite well by reputation," the girl gasped. Her little hands were pressed to her left side as if to check some deadly pain there. "Indeed, I may say I have read most of your stories. I—I hope that there is nothing wrong."
Her self-possession and courage were coming back to her now. But the spasm of fear that had shaken her to the soul was not lost upon Steel.
"I trust not," he said, gravely. "Did you know that I was here two nights ago?"
"Here!" the girl cried. "Impossible! In the house! The night before last!Why, we were all in bed long before midnight."
"I am not aware that I said anything about midnight," David responded, coldly.
An angry flush came sweeping over the face of the girl, annoyance at her own folly, David thought. She added quickly that she and her uncle had only been down in Brighton for three days.
"Nevertheless, I was in this room two nights ago," David replied. "If you know all about it, I pray you to give me certain information of vital importance to me; if not, I shall be compelled to keep my extraordinary story to myself, for otherwise you would never believe it. Do you or do you not know of my visit here?"
The girl bent her head till Steel could see nothing but the glorious amber of her hair. He could see, too, the fine old lace round her throat was tossing like a cork on a stream.
"I can tell you nothing," she said. "Nothing, nothing, nothing."
It was the voice of one who would have spoken had she dared. With anybody else Steel would have been furiously angry. In the present case he could only admire the deep, almost pathetic, loyalty to somebody who stood behind.
"Are you sure you were in this house?" the girl asked, at length.
"Certain!" David exclaimed. "The walls, the pictures, the furniture—all the same. I could swear to the place anywhere. Miss Gates, if I cannot prove that I was here at the time I name, it is likely to go very hard with me."
"You mean that a certain inconvenience—"
"Inconvenience! Do you call a charge of murder, or manslaughter at best, inconvenient? Have you not seen the local papers? Don't you know that two nights ago, during my absence from home, a strange man was practically done to death in my conservatory? And during the time of the outrage, as sure as Heaven is above us, I was in this room."
"I am sorry, but I am sure that you were not."
"Ah, you are going to disappoint me? And yet you know something. You might have been the guiltiest of creatures yourself when I disclosed my identity. No prisoner detected in some shameful crime ever looked more guilty than you."
The girl stood there, saying nothing. Had she rang the bell and ordered the footman to put him out of the house, Steel would have had no cause for complaint. But she did nothing of the kind. She stood there torn by conflicting emotions.
"I can give you no information," she said, presently. "But I am as positive one way as you are another that you have never been in this house before. I may surmise things, but as I hope to be judged fairly I can give you no information. I am only a poor, unhappy girl, who is doing what she deems to be the best for all parties concerned. And I can tell you nothing, nothing. Oh, won't you believe that I would do anything to serve you if I were only free?"
She held out her hand with an imploring gesture, the red lips were quivering, and her eyes were full of tears. David's warm heart went out to her; he forgot all his own troubles and dangers in his sympathy for the lovely creature in distress.
"Pray say no more about it," he cried. He caught the outstretched hand in his and carried it to his lips. "I don't wish to hurry you; in fact, haste is dangerous. And there is ample time. Nor am I going to press you. Still, before long you may find some way to give me a clue without sacrificing a jot of your fine loyalty to—well, others. I would not distress you for the world, Miss Gates. Don't you think that this has been the most extraordinary interview?"
The tears trembled like diamonds on the girl's long lashes and a smile flashed over her face. The sudden transformation was wonderfully fascinating.
"What you might call an impossible interview," she laughed. "And all the more impossible because it was quite impossible that you could ever have been here before."
"When I was in this room two nights ago," David protested, "I saw—-"
"Did you see me, for instance? If not, you couldn't have been here."
A small, misshapen figure, with the face of a Byron—Apollo on the bust of a Satyr—came in from behind the folding doors at the back of the dining-room carrying some letters in his hand. The stranger's dark, piercing eyes were fixed inquiringly upon Steel.
"Bell," the latter cried; "Hatherly Bell! you have been listening!"
The little man with the godlike head admitted the fact, coolly. He had been writing letters in the back room and escape had been impossible for him.
"Funny enough, I was going to look you up to-day," he said. "You did me a great service once, and I am longing to repay you. I came down here to give my friend Gates the benefit of my advice and assistance over a large philanthropic scheme he has just evolved. And, writing letters yonder on that subject, I heard your extraordinary conversation. Can I help you, Steel?"
"My dear fellow," David cried, "if you offered me every intellect inEurope I should not choose one of them so gladly as yours."
"Then let us shake hands on the bargain. And now I am going to stagger you; I heard you state positively that two nights ago you were in this very room."
"I am prepared to testify the fact on oath anywhere, my dear Bell."
"Very well; will you be good enough to state the hour?"
"Certainly. I was here from one o'clock—say between one and two."
"And I was here also. From eleven o'clock till two I was in this very room working out some calculations at this very table by the aid of my reading-lamp, no other light being in the room, or even in the house, as far as I know. It is one of my fads—as fools call them—to work in a large, dark room with one brilliant light only. Therefore you could not possibly have been in the house, to say nothing of this room, on the night in question."
David nodded feebly. There was no combating Bell's statement.
"I presume that this is No. 219?" he asked.
"Certainly it is," Miss Gates replied. "We are all agreed aboutthat."
"Because I read the number over the fanlight," Steel went on. "And I came here by arrangement. And there was everything as I see it now. Bell, you must either cure me of this delusion, or you must prove logically to me that I have made a mistake. So far as I am concerned, I am like a child struggling with the alphabet."
"We'll start now," said Bell. "Come along."
Steel rose none too willingly. He would fain have lingered with Ruth. She held out her hand; there was a warm, glad smile on her face.
"May you be successful," she whispered. "Come and see me again, because I shall be very, very anxious to know. And I am not without guilt…. If you only knew!"
"And I may come again?" David said, eagerly.
A further smile and a warm pressure of the hand were the only reply. Presently Steel was standing outside in the road with Bell. The latter was glancing at the house on either side of 219. The higher house was let; the one nearest the sea—218—was empty. A bill in the window gave the information that the property was in the hands of Messrs. Wallace and Brown, Station Quadrant, where keys could be obtained.
"We'll make a start straightaway," said Bell. "Come along."
"Where are you going to at that pace?" Steel asked.
"Going to interview Messrs. Wallace and Brown. At the present moment I am a gentleman who is in search of a house of residence, and I have a weakness for Brunswick Square in particular, especially for No. 218. Unless I am greatly mistaken I am going to show you something that will startle even the most callous novelist."
The queer, misshapen figure striding along by Steel's side would have attracted attention anywhere; indeed, Hatherly Bell had been an attractive personality from his schooldays. A strange mixture of vanity and brilliant mental qualities, Bell had almost as many enemies as friends. He was morbidly miserable over the score of his personal appearance despite the extraordinary beauty of his face—to be pitied or even sympathised with almost maddened him. Yet there were many women who would gladly have shared the lot of Hatherly Bell.
For there was strength in the perfectly moulded face, as well as beauty. It was the face of a man possessed of marvellous intellectual powers, and none the less attractive because, while the skin was as fair as a woman's and the eyes as clear as a child's, the wavy hair was absolutely white. The face of a man who had suffered fiercely and long. A face hiding a great sorrow.
Time was when Bell had promised to stand in the front rank of operative physicians. In brain troubles and mental disorders he had distinguished himself. He had a marvellous faculty for psychological research; indeed, he had gone so far as to declare that insanity was merely a disease and capable of cure the same as any ordinary malady. "If Bell goes on as he has started," a great German specialist once declared, "he will inevitably prove to be the greatest benefactor to mankind since the beginning of the world." Bell was to be the man of his time.
And then suddenly he had faded out as a star drops from the zenith. There had been dark rumours of a terrible scandal, a prosecution burked by strong personal influence, mysterious paragraphs in the papers, and the disappearance of the name of Hatherly Bell from the rank of great medical jurists. Nobody seemed to know anything about it, but Bell was ignored by all except a few old friends, and henceforth he devoted his attention to criminology and the evolution of crime. It was Bell's boast that he could take a dozen men at haphazard and give you their vices and virtures point-blank. He had a marvellous gift that way.
A few people stuck to him, Gilead Gates amongst the number. The millionaire philanthropist had need of someone to pick the sheep from the goats, and Bell made no mistakes. David Steel had been able to do the specialist some slight service a year or two before, and Bell had been pleased to magnify this into a great favour.
"You are a fast walker," David said, presently.
"That's because I am thinking fast," Bell replied. "Steel, you are in great trouble?"
"It needs no brilliant effort on your part to see that," David said, bitterly. "Besides, you heard a great deal just now when you—you—"
"Listened," Bell said, coolly. "Of course I had no intention of playing eavesdropper; and I had no idea who the Mr. Steel was who wanted to see Miss Gates. They come day by day, my dear fellow, garbed in the garb of Pall Mall or Petticoat Lane as the case may be, but they all come for money. Sometimes it is a shilling, sometimes £100. But I did not gather from your chat with Miss Gates what your trouble was."
"Perhaps not, but Miss Gates knew perfectly well."
Bell patted his companion, approvingly.
"It is a pleasure to help a lucid-minded man like yourself," he said. "You go straight to the root of the sore and cut all the superfluous matter away. I was deeply interested in the conversation which I overheard just now. You are in great trouble, and that trouble is connected with 219, Brunswick Square—a house where you have never been before."
"My dear chap, I was in that dining-room two nights ago. Nothing will convince me to the—"
"There you are wrong, because I am going to convince you to the contrary. You may smile and shake your head, but before an hour has passed I am going to convince you beyond all question that you were never inside No. 219."
"Brave words," David muttered. "Still, an hour is not a long time to wait."
"No. But you must enlighten me if I am to assist you. I am profoundly interested. You come to the house of my friend on a desperate errand. Miss Gates is a perfect stranger to you, and yet the mere discovery of your identity fills her with the most painful agitation. Therefore, though you have never been in 219 before, you are pretty certain, and I am pretty certain, that Ruth Gates knows a deal about the thing that is touching you. On the contrary, I know nothing on that head. Won't you let me into the secret?"
"I'll tell you part," Steel replied. "And I'll put it pithily. For mere argument we assume that I am selected to assist a damsel in distress who lives at No. 219, Brunswick Square. We will assume that the conversation leading up to the flattering selection took place over the telephone. As a matter of fact, it did take place over the telephone. The thing was involved with so much secrecy that I naturally hesitated. I was offered £1,000 for my services; also I was reminded by my unseen messenger that I was in dire need of that money."
"And were you?"
"My dear fellow, I don't fancy that I should have hesitated at burglary to get it. And all I had to do was to meet a lady secretly in the dead of night at No. 219, and tell her how to get out of a certain difficulty. It all resolved itself round the synopsis of a proposed new story of mine. But I had better go into details."
David proceeded to do so. Bell, with his arm crooked through that of his companion, followed the story with an intelligent and flattering interest.
"Very strange and very fascinating," he said, presently. "I'll think it out presently. Nobody could possibly think of anything but their toes in Western Road. Go on."
"Now I am coming to the point. I had the money, I had that lovely cigar-case, and subsequently I had that battered and bleeding specimen of humanity dumped down in the most amazing manner in my conservatory. The cigar-case lay on the conservatory floor, remember—swept off the table when I clutched for the telephone bell to call for the police. When Marley came he asked if the cigar-case was mine. At first I said no, because, you see—"
"I see quite plainly. Pray go on."
"Well, I lose that cigar-case; I leave it in the offices of Mossa, to whom I pay nearly £1,000. Mossa, to spite me, takes or sends the case to the police, who advertise it not knowing that it is mine. You will see why they advertise it presently—"
"Because it belonged to the injured man, eh?"
David pulled up and regarded his companion with amazement.
"How on earth—" he gasped. "Do you mean to say that you know—"
"Nothing at present, I assure you," Bell said, coolly. "Call it intuition, if you like. I prefer to call it the result of logical mental process. I'm right, of course?"
"Of course you are. I'd claimed that case for my own. I had cut my initials inside, as I showed Marley when I went to the police-station. And then Marley tells me how I paid Mossa nearly £1,000; how the money must have come into my hands in the nick of time. That was pretty bad when I couldn't for the life of me give a lucid reason for the possession of those notes; but there was worse to come. In the pocket of the injured man was a receipt for a diamond-studded gun-metal cigar-case, purchased the day of the outrage. And Walen, the jeweller, proved beyond a doubt that the case I claimed was purchased at his shop."
Bell nodded gravely.
"Which places you in an exceedingly awkward position," he said.
"A mild way of putting it," David replied. "If that fellow dies the police have enough evidence to hang me. And what is my defence? The story of my visit to No. 219. And who would believe that cock-and-bull story? Fancy a drama like that being played out in the house of such a pillar of respectability as Gilead Gates."
"It isn't his house," said Bell. "He only takes it furnished."
"In anybody else your remark would be puerile," David said, irritably.
"It's a deeper remark than you are aware of at present," Bell replied. "I quite see your position. Nobody would believe you, of course. But why not go to the post-office and ask the number of the telephone that called you up from London?"
The question seemed to amuse David slightly. Then his lips were drawn humorously.
"When my logical formula came back I thought of that," he said. "On inquiring as to who it was rang me up on that fateful occasion I learnt that the number was 0017 Kensington and that—"
"Gates's own number at Prince's Gate," Bell exclaimed. "The plot thickens."
"It does, indeed," David said, grimly. "It is Wilkie Collins gone mad, Gaboriauin extremis, Du Boisgobey suffering fromdelirium tremens. I go to Gates's house here, and am solemnly told in the midst of surroundings that I can swear to that I have never been there before; the whole mad expedition is launched by the turning of the handle of a telephone in the house of a distinguished, trusted, if prosaic, citizen. Somebody gets hold of the synopsis of a story of mine, Heaven knows how—"
"That is fairly easy. The synopsis was short, I suppose?"
"Only a few lines, say 1,000 words, a sheet of paper. My writing is very small. It was tucked into a half-penny open envelope—a magazine office envelope, marked 'Proof, urgent.' There were the proofs of a short story in the buff envelope."
"Which reached its destination in due course?"
"So I hear this morning. But how on earth—"
"Easily enough. The whole thing gets slipped into a larger open envelope, the kind of big-mouthed affair that enterprising firms send out circulars and patterns with. This falls into the hands of the woman who is at the bottom of this and every other case, and she reads the synopsis from sheer curiosity. The case fits her case, and there you are. Mind you, I don't say that this is how the thing actually happened, but how it might have done so. When did you post the letter?"
"I can't give you the date. Say ten days ago."
"And there would be no hurry for a reply," Bell said, thoughtfully. "And you had no cause for worry on that head. Nor need the woman who found it have kept the envelope beyond the delay of a single post, which is only a matter of an hour or so in London. If you go a little farther we find that money is no object, hence the £1,000 offer and the careful, and doubtless expensive, inquiry into your position. Steel, I am going to enjoy this case."
"You're welcome to all the fun you can get out of it," David said, grimly. "So far as I am concerned, I fail to see the humour. Isn't this the office you are after?"
Bell nodded and disappeared, presently to return with two exceedingly rusty keys tied together with a drab piece of tape. He jingled them on his long, slender forefinger with an air of positive enjoyment.
"Now come along," he said. "I feel like a boy who has marked down something rare in the way of a bird's nest. We will go back to Brunswick Square exactly the same way as you approached it on the night of the great adventure."
"Any particular object in that course?" David asked.
"There ought to be an object in everything that even an irrational man says or does," Bell replied. "I have achieved some marvellous results by following up a single sentence uttered by a patient. Besides, on the evening in question you were particularly told to approach the house from the sea front."
"Somebody might have been on the look-out near the Western Road entrance," Steel suggested.
"Possibly. I have another theory…. Here we are. The figures over the fanlights run from 187 upwards, gradually getting to 219 as you breast the slope. At one o'clock in the morning every house would be in darkness. Did you find that to be so?"
"I didn't notice a light anywhere till I reached 219."
"Good again. And you could only find 219 by the light over the door. Naturally you were not interested in and would not have noticed any other number. Well, here is 218, where I propose to enter, and for which purpose I have the keys. Come along."
David followed wonderingly. The houses in Brunswick Square are somewhat irregular in point of architecture, and Nos. 218 and 219 were the only matched pair thereabouts. Signs were not wanting, as Bell pointed out, that at one time the houses had been occupied as one residence. The two entrance-halls were back to back, so to speak, and what had obviously been a doorway leading from one to the other had been plastered up within comparatively recent memory.
The grim and dusty desolation of an empty house seemed to be supplemented here by a deeper desolation. Not that there was any dust on the ground floor, which seemed a singular thing seeing that elsewhere the boards were powdered with it, and festoons of brown cobwebs hung everywhere. Bell smiled approvingly as David Steel pointed the fact out to him.
"Do you note another singular point?" the former asked.
"No," David said, thoughtfully; "I—stop! The two side-shutters in the bay-windows are closed, and there is the same vivid crimson blind in the centre window. And the self colour of the walls is exactly the same. The faint discoloration by the fireplace is a perfect facsimile."
"In fact,thisis the room you were in the other night," Bell said, quietly.
"Impossible!" Steel cried. "The blind may be an accident, so might the fading of the distemper. But the furniture, the engravings, the fittings generally—"
"Are all capable of an explanation, which we shall arrive at with patience."
"Can we arrive at the number over the door with patience?"
"Exactly what I was coming to. I noticed an old pair of steps in the back sitting-room. Would you mind placing them against the fanlight for me?"
David complied readily enough. He was growing credulous and interested in spite of himself. At Bell's instigation he placed the steps before the fanlight and mounted them. Over his head were the figures 218 in elongated shape and formed in white porcelain.
"Now then," Bell said, slowly. "Take this pocket-knife, apply the blade to theright-handlower half of the bottom of the 8—to half the small O, in fact—and I shall be extremely surprised if the quarter section doesn't come away from the glass of the fanlight, leaving the rest of the figure intact. Very gently, please. I want you to convince yourself that the piece comes away because it is broken, and not because the pressure has cracked it. Now then."
The point of the knife was hardly under the edge of the porcelain before the segment of the lower circle dropped into Steel's hand. He could feel the edges of the cement sticking to his fingers. As yet the full force of the discovery was not apparent to him.
"Go out into the road and look at the fanlight," Bell directed.
David complied eagerly. A sharp cry of surprise escaped him as he looked up. The change was apparent. Instead of the figures 218 he could read now the change to 219—a fairly indifferent 9, but one that would have passed muster without criticism by ninety-nine people out of a hundred. With a strong light behind the figures the clumsy 9 would never have been noticed at all. The very simplicity and ingeniousness of the scheme was its safeguard.
"I should like to have the address of the man who thought that out,"David said, drily.
"Yes, I fancy that you are dealing with quite clever people," Bell replied. "And now I have shown you how utterly you have been deceived over the number we will go a little farther. For the present, the way in which the furniture trick was worked must remain a mystery. But there has been furniture here, or this room and the hall would not have been so carefully swept and garnished whilst the rest of the house remains in so dirty a condition. If my eyes don't deceive me I can see two fresh nails driven into the archway leading to the back hall. On those nails hung the curtain that prevented you seeing more than was necessary. Are you still incredulous as to the house where you had your remarkable adventure?"
"I confess that my faith has been seriously shaken," David admitted. "But about the furniture? And about my telephone call from Mr. Gates's town house? And about my adventure taking place in the very next house to the one taken by him at Brighton? And about Miss Gates's agitation when she learnt my identity? Do you call them coincidences?"
"No, I don't," Bell said, promptly. "They are merely evidences of clever folks taking advantage of an excellent strategic position. I said just now that it was an important point that Mr. Gates had merely taken the next door furnished. But we shall come to that side of the theory in due course. Have you any other objection to urge?"
"One more, and I have finished for the present. When I came here the other night—provided of course that I did come here—immediately upon my entering the dining-room the place was brilliantly illuminated. Now, directly the place was void the supply of electric current would be cut off at the meter. So far as I can judge, some two or three units must have been consumed during my visit. There could not be many less than ten lights burning for an hour. Now, those units must show on the meter. Can you read an electric meter?"
"My dear fellow, there is nothing easier."
"Then let us go down into the basement and settle the matter. There is pretty sure to be a card on the meter made up to the day when the last tenant went out. See, the supply is cut off now."
As Steel spoke he snapped down the hall switch and no result came. Down in the basement by the area door stood the meter. Both switches were turned off, but on Bell pressing them down Steel was enabled to light the passage.
"There's the card," Bell exclaimed. "Made up to 25th June, 1895, since when the house has been void. Just a minute whilst I read the meter. Yes, that's right. According to this the card in your hand, provided that the light has not been used since the index was taken, should read at 1521. What do you make of the card?"
"1532," David cried. "Which means eleven units since the meter was last taken. Or, if you like to put it from your point of view, eleven units used the night that I came here. You are quite right, Bell. You have practically convinced me that I have been inside the real 219 for the first time to-day. And yet the more one probes the mystery the more astounding does it become…. What do you propose to do next?"
"Find out the name of the last tenant or owner." Bell suggested. "Discover what the two houses were used for when they were occupied by one person. Also ascertain why on earth the owners are willing to let a house this size and in this situation for a sum like £80 per annum. Let us go and take the keys back to the agents."
Steel was nothing loth to find himself in the fresh air again. Some progress had been made like the opening of a chess-match between masters, and yet the more Steel thought of it the more muddled and bewildered did he become. No complicated tangle in the way of a plot had ever been anything like the skein this was.
"I'm like a child in your hands," he said. "I'm a blind man on the end of a string; a man dazed with wine in a labyrinth. And if ever I help a woman again—"
He paused as he caught sight of Ruth Gates's lovely face through the window of No. 219. Her features were tinged with melancholy; there was a look of deepest sympathy and feeling and compassion in her glorious eyes. She slipped back as Steel bowed, and the rest of his speech was lost in a sigh.
A bell tolled mournfully with a slow, swinging cadence like a passing bell. On winter nights folks, passing the House of the Silent Sorrow, compared the doleful clanging to the boom that carries the criminal from the cell to the scaffold. Every night all the year round the little valley of Longdean echoed to that mournful clang. Perhaps it was for this reason that a wandering poet christened the place as the House of the Silent Sorrow.
For seven years this had been going on now, until nobody but strangers noticed it. From half-past seven till eight o'clock that hideous bell rang its swinging, melancholy note. Why it was nobody could possibly tell. Nobody in the village had ever been beyond the great rusty gates leading to a dark drive of Scotch firs, though one small boy bolder than the rest had once climbed the lichen-strewn stone wall and penetrated the thick undergrowth beyond. Hence he had returned, with white face and staring eyes, with the information that great wild dogs dwelt in the thickets. Subsequently the village poacher confirmed this information. He was not exactly loquacious on the subject, but merely hinted that the grounds of Longdean Grange were not salubrious for naturalists with a predatory disposition.
Indeed, on moonlight nights those apocryphal hounds were heard to bay and whimper. A shepherd up late one spring night averred that he had seen two of them fighting. But nobody could say anything about them for certain; also it was equally certain that nobody knew anything about the people at Longdean Grange. The place had been shut up for thirty years, being understood to be in Chancery, when the announcement went forth that a distant relative of the family had arranged to live there in future.
What the lady of the Grange was like nobody could say. She had arrived late one night accompanied by a niece, and from that moment she had never been beyond the house. None of the large staff of servants ever left the grounds unless it was to quit altogether, and then they were understood to leave at night with a large bonus in money as a recompense for their promise to evacuate Sussex without delay. Everything was ordered by telephone from Brighton, and left at the porter's lodge. The porter was a stranger, also he was deaf and exceedingly ill-tempered, so that long since the village had abandoned the hope of getting anything out of him. One rational human being they saw from the Grange occasionally, a big man with an exceedingly benevolent face and mild, large, blue eyes—a man full of Christian kindness and given to largesse to the village boys. The big gentleman went by the name of "Mr. Charles," and was understood to have a lot of pigeons of which he was exceedingly fond. But who "Mr. Charles" was, or how he got that name, it would have puzzled the wisest head of the village to tell.
And yet, but for the mighty clamour of that hideous bell and that belt of wildness that surrounded it, Longdean Grange was a cheerful-looking house enough. Any visitor emerging from the drive would have been delighted with it. For the lawns were trim and truly kept, the beds were blazing masses of flowers, the creepers over the Grange were not allowed to riot too extravagantly. And yet the strange haunting sense of fear was there. Now and again a huge black head would uplift from the coppice growth, and a long, rumbling growl come from between a double row of white teeth. For the dogs were no fiction, they lived and bred in the fifteen or twenty acres of coppice round the house, where they were fed regularly and regularly thrashed without mercy if they showed in the garden. Perhaps they looked more fierce and truculent than they really were, being Cuban bloodhounds, but they gave a weird colour to the place and lent it new terror to the simple folk around.
The bell was swinging dolefully over the stable-turret; it rang out its passing note till the clock struck eight and then mercifully ceased. At the same moment precisely as she had done any time the last seven years the lady of the house descended the broad, black oak staircase to the hall. A butler of the old-fashioned type bowed to her and announced that dinner was ready. He might have been the butler of an archbishop from his mien and deportment, yet his evening dress was seedy and shiny to the last degree, his patent leather boots had long lost their lustre, his linen was terribly frayed and yellow. Two footmen in livery stood in the hall. They might have been supers playing on the boards of a travelling theatre, their once smartly cut and trimmed coats hung raggedly upon them.
As to the lady, who was tall and handsome, with dark eyes and features contrasting strangely with hair as white as the frost on a winter's landscape, there was a far-away, strained look in the dark eyes, as if they were ever night and day looking for something, something that would never be found. In herself the lady was clean and wholesome enough, but her evening dress of black silk and lace was dropping into fragments, the lace was in rags upon her bosom, though there were diamonds of great value in her white hair.
And here, strangely allied, were wealth and direst poverty; the whole place was filled with rare and costly things, pictures, statuary, china; the floors were covered with thick carpets, and yet everything was absolutely smothered in dust. A thick, white, blankety cloud of it lay everywhere. It obscured the china, it dimmed the glasses of the pictures, it piled in little drifts on the heads and arms of the dingy statues there. Many years must have passed since a housemaid's brush or duster had touched anything in Longdean Grange. It was like a palace of the Sleeping Beauty, wherein people walked as in a waking dream.
The lady of the house made her way slowly to the dining-room. Here dinner was laid out daintily and artistically enough—agourmetwould have drawn up to the table with a feeling of satisfaction. Flowers were there, and silver and cut-glass, china with a history of its own, and the whole set out on a tablecloth that was literally dropping to pieces.
It was a beautiful room in itself, lofty, oak panelled from floor to roof, with a few pictures of price on the walls. There was plenty of gleaming silver glowing like an argent moon against a purple sky, and yet the same sense of dust and desolation was everywhere. Only the dinner looked bright and modern.
There were two other people standing by the table, one a girl with a handsome, intellectual face full of passion but ill repressed; the other the big fair man known to the village as "Mr. Charles." As a matter of fact, his name was Reginald Henson, and he was distantly related to Mrs. Henson, the strange chatelaine of the House of the Silent Sorrow. He was smiling blandly now at Enid Henson, the wonderfully beautiful girl with the defiant, shining eyes.
"We may be seated now that madam is arrived," Henson said, gravely.
He spoke with a certain mocking humility and a queer wry smile on his broad, loose mouth that filled Enid with a speechless fury. The girl was hot-blooded—a good hater and a good friend. And the master passion of her life was hatred of Reginald Henson.
"Madam has had a refreshing rest?" Henson suggested. "Pardon our anxious curiosity."
Again Enid raged, but Margaret Henson might have been of stone for all the notice she took. The far-away look was still in her eyes as she felt her way to the table like one in a dream. Then she dropped suddenly into a chair and began grace in a high, clear voice.
"…. And the Lord make us truly thankful. And may He, when it seemeth good to Him, remove the curse from this house and in due season free the innocent and punish the guilty. For the burden is sore upon us, and there are times when it seems hard to bear."
The big man played with his knife and fork, smilingly. An acute observer might have imagined that the passionate plaint was directed at him. If so it passed harmlessly over his broad shoulders. In his immaculate evening dress he looked strangely out of place there. Enid had escaped the prevailing dilapidation, but her gown of grey homespun was severe as the garb of a charity girl.
"Madam is so poetical," Henson murmured. "And charmingly sanguine."
"Williams," Mrs. Henson said, quite stoically, "my visitor will have some champagne."
She seemed to have dropped once again into the commonplace, painfully exact as a hostess of breeding must be to an unwelcome guest. And yet she never seemed to see him; those dark eyes were looking, ever looking, into the dark future. The meal proceeded in silence save for an oily sarcasm from Henson. In the dense stillness the occasional howl of a dog could be heard. A slight flush of annoyance crossed Henson's broad face.
"Some day I shall poison all those hounds," he said.
Enid looked up at him swiftly.
"Ifallthe hounds round Longdean were poisoned or shot it would be a good place to live in," she said.
Henson smiled caressingly, like Petruchio might have done in his milder moments.
"My dear Enid, you misjudge me," he said. "But I shall get justice some day."
Enid replied that she fervently hoped so, and thus the strange meal proceeded with smiles and gentle words from Henson, and a wild outburst of bitterness from the girl. So far as she was concerned the servants might have been mere automatons. The dust rose in clouds as the latter moved silently. It was hot in there, and gradually the brown powder grimed like a film over Henson's oily skin. At the head of the table Margaret Henson sat like a woman in a dream. Ever, ever her dark eyes seemed to be looking eagerly around. Thirsty men seeking precious water in a desert might have looked like her. Ever and anon her lips moved, but no sound came from them. Occasionally she spoke to one or the other of her guests, but she never followed her words with her eyes. Such a sad, pathetic, pitiable figure, such a grey sorrow in her rags and snowy hair.
The meal came to an end at length, and Mrs. Henson rose suddenly. There was a grotesque suggestion of the marionette in the movement. She bowed as if to some imaginary personage and moved with dignity towards the door. Reginald Henson stood aside and opened it for her. She passed into the dim hall as if absolutely unconscious of his presence. Enid flashed a look of defiance at him as she disappeared into the gloom and floating dust.
Henson's face changed instantly, as if a mask had fallen from his smug features. He became alert and vigorous. He was no longer patron of the arts, a wide-minded philanthropist, the man who devotes himself to the good of humanity. The blue eyes were cold and cruel, there was a hungry look about the loose mouth.
"Take a bottle of claret and the cigars into the small library,Williams," he said. "And open the window, the dust stifles me."
The dignified butler bowed respectfully. He resembled the typical bad butler of fiction in no respect, but his thoughts were by no means pleasant as he hastened to obey. Enid was loitering in the hall as Williams passed with the tray.
"Small study and the window open, miss," he whispered. "There's some game on—oh, yes, there is some blessed game on again to-night. And him so anxious to know how Miss Christiana is. Says she ought to call him in professionally. Personally I'd rather call in an undertaker who was desperately hard up for a job."
"All right, Williams," Enid replied. "My sister is worse to-night. And unless she gets better I shall insist upon her seeing a doctor. And I am obliged for the hint about Mr. Henson. The little study commands the staircase leading to my sister's bedroom."
"And the open window commands the garden," Williams said, drily.
"Yes, yes. Now go. You are a real friend, Williams, and I will never forget your goodness. Run along—I can actuallyfeelthat man coming."
As a matter of fact, Henson was approaching noiselessly. Despite his great bulk he had the clean, dainty step of a cat; his big, rolling ears were those of a hare. Henson was always listening. He would have listened behind a kitchen door to a pair of chattering scullery-maids. He liked to find other people out, though as yet he had not been found out himself. He stood before the world as a social missioner; he made speeches at religious gatherings and affected the women to tears. He was known to devote a considerable fortune to doing good; he had been asked to stand for Parliament, where his real ambition lay. Gilead Gates had alluded to Reginald Henson as his right-hand man.
He crept along to the study, where the lamps were lighted and the silver claret-jug set out. He carefully dusted a big arm-chair and began to smoke, having first carefully extinguished the lamps and seen that the window leading to the garden was wide open. Henson was watching for something. In his feline nature he had the full gift of feline patience. To serve his own ends he would have sat there watching all night if necessary. He heard an occasional whimper, a howl from one of the dogs; he heard Enid's voice singing in the drawing-room. The rest of the house was quite funereal enough for him.
In the midst of the drawing-room Margaret Henson sat still as a statue. The distant, weary expression never left her eyes for a moment. As the stable clock, the only one going on the premises, struck ten, Enid crossed over from the piano to her aunt's side. There was an eager look on her face, her eyes were gleaming like frosty stars.
"Aunt," she whispered; "dear, I have had a message!"
"Message of woe and desolation," Margaret Henson cried. "Tribulation and sorrow on this wretched house. For seven long years the hand of the Lord has lain heavily upon us."
She spoke like one who was far away from her surroundings. And yet no one could look in her eyes and say that she was mad. It was a proud, passionate spirit, crushed down by some bitter humiliation. Enid's eyes flashed.
"That scoundrel has been robbing you again," she said.
"Two thousand pounds," came the mechanical reply, "to endow a bed in some hospital. And there is no escape, no hope unless we drag the shameful secret from him. Bit by bit and drop by drop, and then I shall die and you and Christiana will be penniless."
"I daresay Chris and myself will survive that," Enid said, cheerfully. "But we have a plan, dear aunt; we have thought it out carefully. Reginald Henson has hidden the secret somewhere and we are going to find it. The secret is hidden not far off, because our cousin has occasion to require it frequently. It is like the purloined letter in Edgar Poe's wonderful story."
Margaret Henson nodded and mumbled. It seemed almost impossible to make her understand. She babbled of strange things, with her dark eyes ever fixed on the future. Enid turned away almost despairingly. At the same time the stable clock struck the half-hour after ten. Williams slipped in with a tray of glasses, noiselessly. On the tray lay a small pile of tradesmen's books. The top one was of dull red with no lettering upon it at all.
"The housekeeper's respectful compliments, miss, and would you go through them to-morrow?" Williams said. He tapped the top book significantly. "To-morrow is the last day of the month."
Enid picked up the top book with strange eagerness. There were pages of figures and cabalistic entries that no ordinary person could make anything of. Pages here and there were signed and decorated with pink receipt stamps. Enid glanced down the last column, and her face grew a little paler.
"Aunt," she whispered, "I've got to go out. At once; do you understand? There is a message here; and I am afraid that something dreadful has happened. Can you sing?"
"Ah, yes; a song of lamentation—a dirge for the dead."
"No, no; seven years ago you had a lovely voice. I recollect what a pleasure it was to me as a child; and they used to say that my voice was very like yours, only not so sweet or so powerful. Aunt, I must go out; and that man must know nothing about it. He is by the window in the small library now, watching—watching. Help me, for the love of Heaven, help me."
The girl spoke with a fervency and passion that seemed to waken a responsive chord in Margaret Henson's breast. A brighter gleam crept into her eyes.
"You are a dear girl," she said, dreamily; "yes, a dear girl. And I loved singing; it was a great grief to me that they would not let me go upon the stage. But I haven't sung since—sincethat—"
She pointed to the huddled heap of china and glass and dried, dusty flowers in one corner. Ethel [Updater's note: Enid?] shuddered slightly as she followed the direction of the extended forefinger.
"But you must try," she whispered. "It is for the good of the family, for the recovery of the secret. Reginald Henson is sly and cruel and clever. But we have one on our side now who is far more clever. And, unless I can get away to-night without that man knowing, the chance may be lost for ever. Come!"
Margaret commenced to sing in a soft minor. At first the chords were thin and dry, but gradually they increased in sweetness and power. The hopeless, distant look died from the singer's eyes; there was a flush on her cheeks that rendered her years younger.
"Another one," she said, when the song was finished, "and yet another.How wicked I have been to neglect this balm that God sent me all theseyears. If you only knew what the sound of my own voice means to me!Another one, Enid."
"Yes, yes," Enid whispered. "You are to sing till I return. You are to leave Henson to imagine that I am singing. He will never guess. Now then."
Enid crept away into the hall, closing the door softly behind her. She made her way noiselessly from the house and across the lawn. As Henson slipped through the open window into the garden Enid darted behind a bush. Evidently Henson suspected nothing so far as she was concerned, for she could see the red glow of the cigar between his lips. The faint sweetness of distant music filled the air. So long as the song continued Henson would relax his vigilance.
He was pacing down the garden in the direction of the drive. Did the man know anything? Enid wondered. He had so diabolically cunning a brain. He seemed to find out everything, and to read others before they had made up their minds for themselves.
The cigar seemed to dance like a mocking sprite into the bushes. Usually the man avoided those bushes. If Reginald Henson was afraid of one thing it was of the dogs. And in return they hated him as he hated them.
Enid's mind was made up. If the sound of that distant voice should only cease for a moment she was quite sure Henson would turn back. But he could hear it, and she knew that she was safe. Enid slipped past him into the bushes and gave a faint click of her lips. Something moved and whined, and two dark objects bounded towards her. She caught them together by their collars and cuffed them soundly. Then she led the way back so as to get on Henson's tracks.