The next day Thornton Carey had a second interview with Helen, and informed her that he had succeeded in finding a substitute to undertake his duties, and in obtaining leave of absence from his post. Helen's strength and courage were beginning to revive with the hope of the detection and punishment of the murderer of her husband. To that detection and the insurance of that punishment the friend of all her lifetime was about to devote himself. He left her presence for a long interview with Mrs. Jenkins, who had returned from the scene of the railway accident, bringing poor Eph's remains for burial at New York. She had suffered so much from the shock of the calamity which had befallen her that she had been forced to wean the infant, and thus her formal nominal occupation in Helen's household had come to an end. But mistress and servant were bound together by a new tie, that of a common widowhood, and that tie would never be broken in this world.
When Miss Montressor returned from the theatre that night, she found a letter and anécrinawaiting her. The latter contained a very handsome bracelet of black enamel, with diamond stars and a monogram in the same precious gems; the former was a kind and gratefulmot d'adieufrom Mrs. Griswold, who was going away to the Springs, and deeply regretted that she was too ill to say good-bye in person. Miss Montressor was delighted with the bracelet; but she wondered what Mrs. Griswold would have thought had she known that she was carrying off her sister without letting her bid her good-bye. But she was of a philosophical disposition, and just then pleased, amused, and popular; so that on the whole he regarded the circumstance as 'all for the best.'
The solemn but beautiful days of a fine English October, surely dreary nowhere except in London, but there preëminently so, were half through their number, when Mrs. Watts, the owner of a highly respectable lodging-house in Queen-street, Mayfair, received with surprise and gratitude the naturally unexpected application for apartments to let.
It was just the time of year when there was least going on, when people were quite decidedly 'out of town' whoever went out of town at all, and people who hurriedly came back had not yet made up their minds to do so.
Mrs. Watts had quite a superfluity of rooms to let, though her drawing-rooms were taken for what she had hoped as a permanency. The disappointment of this expectation, however, did not enable her to hold out the hope to the new applicants that she should be able to afford them the accommodation of what Mrs. Watts quite sincerely believed to be an unparalleled drawing-room floor; she was only going to lose her lodger, she hadn't yet lost him; and the new applicants, who made their appearance under exceptionably respectable circumstances, with a large quantity of luggage, and in a handsome hired carriage, were obliged to content themselves with the dining-room, a large and commodious bedroom at the back of it, and a pleasant bedroom upstairs, at a considerable height, for the gentleman.
The applicants were a gentleman and a lady, brother and sister, as they hastened to explain; and Mrs. Watts was afterwards heard to remark, 'That never was she more took by the looks of any one than by those of the gentleman. She had nothing to say against the lady either, who was very good-looking and quiet mannered, only she didn't seem quite so much of a lady as the gentleman seemed of a gentleman; and if there is anybody,' Mrs. Watts would add in conclusion, 'as can see far through a deal board, a lone woman as lets lodgings in Queen-street, Mayfair, is that person.'
The arrangements were quickly concluded, and it was understood that the new lodgers would come in that night; in fact, after a short parley, it was proposed that the lady should remain with Mrs. Watts then and there; while the gentleman went out to luncheon at a restaurant, and undertook not to return until everything was in order. This bargain concluded, the gentleman went his way; and the lady applied herself, with the hearty coöperation of Mrs. Watts and a prim housemaid, to the disposition and arrangement of the voluminous luggage which had accompanied them, and which, considering the very quiet appearance of the lady, who was attired in deep mourning weeds, and had anything but a dressy appearance, might perhaps have been brought rather as a certificate of character, in the event of it being inconvenient to apply for recommendations, than as representing actual necessity.
Mrs. Watts was a very good-humoured woman, with a turn for sociability, and a decided taste for gossip, which just at this season of the year she found it particularly hard to indulge; for not only were her own rooms standing empty, but those of her neighbours; and her neighbours themselves were for the most part gone off on their annual jaunts; an indulgence which Mrs. Watts did not allow herself. She found the autumn particularly dull, and to the unexpected gratification of letting rooms and taking money for them at an unlikely period, when her neighbours were not letting their rooms, and were spending the money they had accumulated during the summer, was added the prospect of some pleasant talk with her strange lodger, in whom she at once recognised a thoroughly approachable person.
Accordingly, when the luggage was disposed of, a friendly cup of tea, to be partaken of jointly in the dining-room, was gratefully accepted by Mrs. Watts; who shortly found herself in the high tide of talk respecting London, its goings-on, the advantages of the situation in any street in Mayfair, and the difficulties of lone women who let lodgings, with a person who frankly acknowledged herself totally unacquainted with the great metropolis.
'Your first visit, ma'am? Dear me,' said Mrs. Watts, 'how odd that seems, to be sure! But your brother's been here before, and knows the ways of town well?'
'Yes,' said the stranger, 'I believe my brother, Mr. Clarke, knows London very well indeed; but I feel rather timid about it, and it has been a great anxiety with me as to where we should settle down for the six weeks of important business that he has to carry through. I don't want any gadding about or sight-seeing; I only want to feel sure of being in a respectable house, where I can go my own ways and carry on my own occupations just as if I was at home in my country village, though, of course, I shall not object to a peep at the gay streets sometimes.'
'You won't see much gaiety in the streets or anywhere else in October in London,' said Mrs. Watts; 'but if you like to be quiet and carry on just as if you were in your own home, you could not be better off. Then, as I say, for six weeks to come we've not a soul in the house but Mr. Dunn, even if he was to stay, which I fear there is no chance of; for he did tell me on Wednesday as he was going to America in earnest.'
'That's the gentleman in the drawing-room, isn't it,' said the stranger, 'you are speaking of?'
Mrs. Watts assented. 'And a very nice gentleman he is. We like him very much, only we sometimes think he is rather odd; and I never saw a man in my life as could not bear to be asked the slightest question except Mr. Dunn. I do assure you he was quite angry with me for wanting to know, which I thought was reasonable, when the drawing-rooms was likely to be vacant; which I had to remind him that it was fair on my part, for if he didn't give me notice he would have to give me money. Well, do you know, he is that peculiar, that I think he would rather have had to pay up when the time came, than tell me out downright plain that he was going back to America in a fortnight.'
'Really,' said the stranger, 'he must be an odd sort of man. Has he been with you long?'
'A goodish while now. He came back to us once after he had left us, and I am sure then he went with the intention of going to America, though he didn't say so; and something, I suppose, changed his mind at the last minute, for back he came with all his luggage and reëngaged his rooms, and here he's been quite quiet and contented ever since; never gives a bit of trouble nor has anybody in to give more. However, he's one of them lodgers, as I always say, as is too good to last, and vexed that he was when I had asked the question, he did tell me that he was really going this time.'
'Really going! I should think everybody "really" went when such a journey as America was in question.'
'Not him, though, mum. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if we saw him back again after he starts next time.'
'What aged man is he?' asked the stranger carelessly. 'I ask, you know, because it seems so odd that an old man should be so restless and not know his own mind.'
'O, he isn't old, bless you,', said Mrs. Watts; 'he isn't much above thirty, if he's that; a small, slight, wiry little man; leastways I call him little--I daresay you wouldn't--because all my brothers were so uncommon big; looks as if he could bear any amount of journeys to America or anywhere else, and think nothing at all about them, if he had the spirits.'
'Hasn't he spirits, then?'
'No, he's very dull at times. He used to be a good deal jollier when he first came, and he used to go to the theatre a good deal, and out to dinner--leastways he didn't dine at home; but he's dropped all that now, I suppose he hasn't any place to go to, and there are no theatres at this time of the year, at least not theatres for gentlefolk, you understand; there's places where they plays Shakespeare and that, which people like him would never think of looking at; and so he stays at home and mopes a good deal, I should think. At what hour did you say you would dine every day, mum?'
The stranger named the hour, and then went on to say, 'Then there really is no one in the house but Mr. Dunn at present?'
'Not a soul!' was the decisive answer.
'I ask, you see, Mrs. Watts, because I have a great fancy for seeing after my brother's room myself. When it has been made up in the morning, I like to put his things tidy, lay out his dressing things and collect his letters, and all that sort of thing; and as he will be sleeping at the top of the house, and I at the bottom, I should have to go up and down stairs to get at his things, and I would rather know that I should not run the risk of meeting people about the house. If there was any such risk, I should get you to tell me when was the best time to make sure of their all being out.'
Again Mrs. Watts assured the stranger that she could run no possible risk of meeting anybody who could alarm the shyest individual. She had already made her acquaintance of the housemaid; and unless she put herself personally in his way she was extremely unlikely to encounter Mr. Dunn, who hardly ever came down the lower flight of stairs except to leave his letters on the hall-table, just before post hour, after which he usually went out for a stroll, to return with exemplary punctuality at dinner-time.
The stranger thanked her for these assurances and for her general civility, and Mrs. Watts retired to the lower regions, to issue orders for the preparation of dinner for her new lodger in a satisfactory and confidence-inspiring style.
The arrival down-stairs and the stir in the house had apparently not disturbed the secluded tenant of the drawing-room floor. He had indeed thrown aside the window-blind and looked out for a moment, as the heavily-laden carriage rumbled up to the door, but it was only because the habitual emptiness of the street had hardly been interrupted before that day. He saw a woman in deep widow's weeds step out of the carriage, attended by a slight, active-looking young man, and enter the house; then he let the blind fall, and returned to his occupation, and thought no more of the incident.
Mrs. Watts had some reason to be proud of her drawing-room floor. It consisted of two very well-proportioned apartments, and a smaller room, intended for the dignified purposes of a boudoir, but which, under the lodging-house régime, served as dressing and bath room. The sitting-room and bedroom were handsomely furnished, and presented an aspect of very decided comfort, though it was a London house in October; a cheerful wood fire, just enough to brighten the room without overheating it, burned in the bright steel grate; a handsome easy-chair stood near it, the castors buried in the thick white sheep-skin rug; while a writing-table, laden with papers and the paraphernalia of a business man, was wheeled into a convenient position with regard to both fire and light.
Let us have a look at Mr. Dunn, Mrs. Watts's model lodger, as he paces the sitting-room from end to end, absorbed in meditations, which, to judge by the abstraction of his countenance, have nothing whatever to do with the actual scene. Mrs. Watts's brothers must have indeed confused her notions of the stature of human beings out of Yorkshire, to which county she belonged, if she considered Mr. Dunn a little man. Other people would have pronounced him decidedly tall; his figure was slim but wiry built, about twenty-eight years of age, with long, thin, close-shaved face, small deeply-set eyes, and thin bloodless lips. He walked up and down with a slow measured pace, his arms folded tightly on his chest, and the fingers of each hand gripping the coat-sleeves with a curious fixity of grasp, corresponding with his set teeth and intent frowning eyes. Occasionally in his walk he stopped at his writing-table, uncrossed his arms, took up a sheet of paper from the number which lay scattered on the blotting-book, read it, laid it down again, refolded his arms, and commenced his uneasy, ill-regulated perambulation.
If the reader, Asmodeus-like, had been permitted to glance over his shoulder while he read these pages, he would have perceived how far Mrs. Watts's estimate of the good-nature and affability of her gentleman-like and most desirable lodger was to be relied upon. When he had taken up the third, he glanced over it viciously, as though uncertain whether he had made the terms of it bitter and imperative enough.
With the matter of these documents we have, however, no immediate concern. He read and re-read them; and then, having lighted the gas in his rooms, he sat down at the writing-table, collected the sheets, which, as they were written on very thin paper, he was enabled to fold into a small compass, and made a kind of précis of their contents in cipher in a memorandum-book, which he locked away in one of the drawers of the writing-table before he proceeded to place the address on the envelope into which he had carefully packed the written sheets. The envelope was of the buff colour and medium texture which we are accustomed to associate with letters of business from America; but contrary to usual custom, no part of the address was printed, nor was there any printing upon the impressed wafer.
His task completed, Mr. Dunn drew his chair closer to the fire and took up a book, but he seemed unable to occupy his attention with its contents, and after turning over a few pages in a desultory way, he flung it down and went into his bedroom, from which he emerged in a quarter of an hour, dressed for walking. Once more he crossed the sitting-room, approached the fire, and leaning against the mantelpiece, hat in hand, muttered, 'I cannot account for it, I cannot account for the delay of those letters; it is either foul play or an accident. If it is foul play, he is the most ungrateful scoundrel unhanged; if it is an accident--ah, "if!" where am I?'
With these words, uttered half aloud, and which seemed to have in them some mysterious and weighty meaning, Mr. Dunn took up the letter which he had just addressed, and went slowly down-stairs, carrying it in his hand.
The business of putting out of sight the luggage appertaining to the new arrivals was not yet quite completed, and Mr. Dunn's eyes lighted upon a very shiny black-leather valise, which was resting on one end against the clock-case until such time as it should be convenient to have it carried up to the new gentleman's room at the top of the house; for his appellation, Mr. Clarke, had not yet come pat to the tongues of Mrs. Watts and her domestics.
There was nothing remarkable about the valise, except its newness and its shininess, and painted in white upon the lid were the initials 'T.C.;' and as Mr. Dunn looked at it he thought idly, 'That hasn't seen much travel, anyhow.'
He laid his letter on the table in the hall, from which it would be duly conveyed to the post at five o'clock; and also observing carelessly that the door of the dining-room was ajar and that the gas was alight within, an appearance from which he arrived at the conclusion that the lady and gentleman whom he had seen getting out of the carriage had made it all right with Mrs. Watts, and were actually then in occupation, he opened the hall-door for himself, felt mechanically in his pocket to make sure that he had his latch-key, in case of a late return, and went out into the soft chill October evening.
The dining-room in the house which Mr. Dunn had just quitted was looking as cheerful as a dining-room not used for any other purpose than that of eating in ever can look. Mr. Clarke's sister, who had informed Mrs. Watts that her own unassuming name was Jones, and who had not needed to inform her that she was a widow, the fact being made abundantly evident by her dress, had set to work with a quiet notability to arrange it comfortably, and was now seated by the fire with a piece of needlework in her hands, and looked as much at home as if she had lived there all her life.
There was only one sign of innovation, only one instance of discomfort to be observed about the room: the door was open, and suffered to remain so. Presently, Patty, the housemaid, came to speak to Mrs. Jones, and announced that they were about to take the gentleman's valise up-stairs. She also asked should she shut the door, having found it open.
'No, thank you,' was Mrs. Jones's reply; 'the room is rather warm.'
'Very odd,' said Patty to herself, 'people are about doors. She likes it open; but the fuss as some of 'em make if one doesn't shut it every minute after the lock slips in one's hand, as would make one think one would die at a breath from a key-hole! She doesn't look a fanciful sort, nor a delicate sort neither, for that matter.'
Presently Mrs. Jones heard Patty's by no means fairy footfall redescending the lower flight of stairs, and she appeared at the dining-room door, and asked the girl with a kindly civility, which had already gone far to win her in several small matters since the arrival of the new lodger--an event not quite two hours old--whether she was going to the post shortly.
Patty replied by a glance at the hall table. 'O dear, yes, ma'am,' said she, 'I have got to go. There is that Mr. Dunn passes the pillar two minutes after he goes out of the house, and would never have the thought to post his letters himself, and I am as busy as I can be.'
'Never mind, Patty,' replied Mrs. Jones gently, 'I have a letter or two to write; they will be done in a few minutes, and if you will tell me on which side I shall find the pillar-post, I will take them myself. I shall be glad of a breath of fresh air, and I want to buy a few trifles at that famous brush-shop round the corner. Mr. Clarke showed it to me this morning when we were coming up here.'
'O, thank you,' said Patty, 'there won't be any more except yours; for Mr. Dunn has gone out, as I said just now, and he won't be in till goodness knows when, so I know he's got no more to write.'
'Then I will just put it in my bag now,' said Mrs. Jones, opening a small leather reticule and placing the letter with ostentatious care in it, and she immediately reëntered the dining-room and took out her own writing materials.
Mrs. Jones did not, however, seem to be in any hurry to get on with her letters; she merely laid a half-written page of note-paper open on the blotting-book, dipped her pen in the ink, and sat down before the table, but made no attempt to write. In about five minutes she rang the bell, which was answered by Patty.
'I have been so stupid,' said Mrs. Jones, 'as to forget to buy some sealing-wax, and I particularly want to seal the letter I am writing; do you think your mistress can lend me a bit?'
'Certainly, madam,' said Patty, and ran away with alacrity to fetch the desired article, which she brought back.
'Stay a moment,' said Mrs. Jones, 'I shall have done with it presently, and I would rather return it to Mrs. Watts, if you please; I shall get some when I am out.' She then proceeded to seal two directed envelopes, which she stamped and placed in a bag beside Mr. Dunn's letter.
Having thus elaborately established the fact that she had been writing letters and was about to post them, Mrs. Jones put on her bonnet and cloak and went out, having received accurate instructions from Patty as to where she could find the pillar-post, and how she was to turn in order to reach the brush-shop.
In about half an hour Mrs. Jones returned. In her hand was a small paper parcel, and on her arm hung the leather reticule, with the spring gaping open, so that as Patty opened the door to admit her she could see that the bag was empty. During the time that had elapsed between her coming in and the return of her brother, Mr. Clarke, Mrs. Jones made no attempt to occupy herself in any way whatever. She sat by the fire with an intent and brooding face, while the cloth was laid for dinner and Patty was coming in and out of the room. She held a newspaper between her face and the light, and the girl concluded that Mrs. Jones was very tired, for she did not seem so friendly or inclined to talk as she had done in the beginning.
At six o'clock Mr. Clarke returned, and greeted his sister cheerfully, with an inquiry as to how she found the rooms, and whether she was getting things straight and comfortable. Mrs. Jones assured him that everything was all right, and told Patty that dinner might be sent up as soon as it was ready.
At length the two were alone, and then Mrs. Jenkins told Thornton Carey, with eager though subdued excitement, that she had secured possession of a priceless document, which had, she believed, placed their prey securely within their reach.
No time had been lost by Thornton Carey in carrying out the resolution of noble and disinterested friendship at which he had arrived. The details of what he was to do on reaching England had been fixed between him and Bryan Duval and their professional advisers; in fact, it was most important so to fix them, it was indispensable that he should be guided to a certain extent by circumstances, and that he should act with such caution and circumspection as to avoid the danger of awakening any suspicion on the part of Warren at his presence in England.
When a full statement of the conclusion at which our friends had arrived had been laid before Helen Griswold, she was entirely overwhelmed by the conviction that they were right. That she had no power to contend with the active and operative part of their decision, that some one must undertake the unmasking of her deadly enemy, was clear to her; but that Thornton Carey should be the person to do it appeared a curious complication of the difficulties and distress of her fate. To one man who had loved her, her love had brought death in its most horrible and appalling form--that of base, cruel, cowardly murder; to another man whom she had loved purely and nobly indeed, but with a sentiment which was a growing force according as every day, hour, made her more and more dependent upon him for support and counsel and encouragement, her love was about to bring trouble and danger.
That there could be danger in his pursuit of Warren, Thornton Carey utterly denied, but uselessly; nothing could remove from Helen's mind the conviction of the power as well as the villany of this man. The frightful skill, the deadly calculation, and the hideous success with which he had carried out his machinations against her husband, had impressed Helen with an almost preternatural dread of him.
It was not that she believed he would escape, it was not that she for a moment supposed Thornton Carey's designs would utterly fail or be frustrated; but that she had a rooted conviction that terrible and deadly danger would befall him in the carrying of them out. In the extreme weakness and nervous excitement and spirit-broken timidity of her grief she felt herself a doomed and a cursed person.
'I bring evil,' she said, lamenting freely and with all her full heart to her humble but true friend, between whom and herself there now existed the bond of a common grief, 'and now he will be involved in my doom!' But she made no remonstrance, she felt sure that so it must be.
Thornton Carey had left New York without any formal leave-taking with Helen, and it was only two days prior to his departure that Mrs. Jenkins announced her intention of accompanying him. The idea had occurred to her when Mrs. Griswold had first told her that Thornton Carey was about to proceed to England on this mission of vengeance, in which she and Mrs. Jenkins were equally concerned, for had not the murderer of Alston Griswold been also the cause of Ephraim Jenkins's death?
The argument was not very sustainable, but it was very readily accepted by the two women who were suffering together. If Warren's conduct had not in reality caused his brother's death, his influence had at least caused him to die under circumstances to which his wife could never look back without horrible regret, and in her mind there was a little longing that the punishment of this man's crimes should come down upon him, and that she should have a share in the agency which should bring it about.
'Let me go with him,' she had said to Helen Griswold; 'I will travel with him as his sister, and if I cannot be of any use to him, I will at least be no drawback.'
Helen had from the first encouraged the notion, simply from the sense that to avoid utter loneliness for Carey in his dismal task would be a comfort to her; but a few moments' reflection showed her the full value of the suggestion, which was received with applause and enthusiasm by Bryan Duval, to whom she at once confided it.
Thornton Carey had never seen Trenton Warren; he was therefore not in a position to identify him absolutely, how complete the chain of evidence might otherwise be. Trenton Warren was also totally unacquainted with the personal appearance of Thornton Carey, would not recognise him if he saw him, and therefore would associate no suspicion with him. Neither had Mrs. Jenkins seen her husband's brother, who was, it must be remembered, in total ignorance of her existence; but she had had so much evidence, so many proofs of the strong resemblance which existed between Ephraim Jenkins and Trenton Warren, proofs which had culminated in Miss Montressor's exclamation upon seeing him, that Mrs. Jenkins felt convinced she would be able to identify him for the information and satisfaction of Thornton Carey, who might otherwise be entirely thrown off the scent by a change of name. Supposing on his arrival in London he were to find out that Mr. Dolby had ceased to be Mr. Dolby, he would be perfectly helpless in the matter; but it was of no consequence to her by what name the murderer should be passing among the unconscious crowd; the man whose face and figure might be mistaken for those now mouldering in the grave, the face and figure of him who had been so dear to her with all his faults and shortcomings, could not escape her lynx-eyed recognition and her determined pursuit.
Thornton Carey and Mrs. Jenkins were not long in getting through the ceremonial of dinner, after which, when their undisturbed solitude was assured, they opened the letter which Mr. Dunn had with unsuspecting reliance placed that day upon the table in the hall.
The object of Thornton Carey's absence during the afternoon had been to obtain an interview with some of the police authorities in London, to whom he had made certain statements, which had resulted in a close watch being set upon the movements of the occupant of Mrs. Watts's incomparable drawing-room floor.
It was not with any remarkable reluctance, or any sense that she was doing what, under other circumstances, would have been a felony, that Mrs. Jenkins had abstracted the letter upon which so much depended. In her eyes, everything that could be done for the furtherance of the project upon which she and her companion were bent would have been strictly allowable, if not praiseworthy. Thornton Carey's notions were a good deal more formal; but he had secured himself against risk in this matter. The trap in which Mr. Dunn was to be caught when all their preparations were so complete that it was impossible he should set himself free from it by any exercise of teeth or claws, or their equivalent in human cunning--when he would walk into it was not even left to his discretion--we shall shortly see.
For a moment, when Mrs. Jenkins put the letter into his hand and drew her chair up to the table alongside of his, that they might peruse its contents together, Thornton Carey experienced a passing pang of pity for the villain who had wrought such wrongs and misery to others in order that he might involve himself in the deepest and most ignominious ruin. As he broke open the envelope, he said drearily: 'What a clever fool this man is; what invention and ingenuity he has displayed in putting the rope round his neck!' Then he took up the sheets one by one as their writer had put them in, smoothed them out upon the blotting-pad as their writer had smoothed them out, and proceeded to read their contents aloud for his companion, who was soon sobbing bitterly, but in a guarded manner, over the terms of abuse and tyranny lavished upon him whom they were never to wound.
Mrs. Jenkins and Thornton Carey had met on that morning for the first time, after a short absence on Thornton's part, whose purport will shortly be explained; but they had known all about Mr. Dunn's residence at Mrs. Watts's before he had left her for Liverpool. Hitherto, not a hitch had come in their plan; they had carried out their programme from step to step with exact punctuality and with undeviating success; the finishing touch had been put to their projects in a respect which they had been obliged to leave to the mercy of chance. They had concluded to a nicety that Mr. Dunn would be writing to Trenton Warren at Chicago, on this day preceding the departure of the American mail; but what they had not calculated upon was, that Mr. Dunn would entrust the posting of his letter to any other hands. An unexpected piece of conviction had therefore come into theirs, and Mrs. Jenkins, with unfeigned thankfulness, blessed Providence for the fortunate accident.
Thornton Carey hardly felt that he dared be so demonstrative; the subject presented itself in a more complex aspect to his mind than to that of his companion and coadjutor.
The sheets of paper were still lying upon the table, and Thornton Carey and Mrs. Jenkins were still discussing their contents and exulting in the acceleration of their projects rendered possible by this most fortunate turn of fate, when Mr. Dunn, returning to his lodging at an unusually early hour, let himself in with his latch-key, and went softly up-stairs, remarking to himself as he did so, that 'They seem to be quiet people who have taken the dining-room floor.'
Early on the following day Thornton Carey paid another visit to the police authorities, with whom he had already been in communication. As much to their surprise as his own, and their mutual congratulation, he was enabled to lay the case before them with all the detail, explanation, and certainty acquired by the perusal of Mr. Dunn's letter. With the exception of certain inquiries which he had made during his brief absence at Liverpool and his interview with certain magnates of Scotland-yard on the previous day, Thornton Carey had, so far, worked up this case without professional assistance; but he now asked for such assistance in the practical form of a warrant for the arrest of Mr. Dunn.
There was no difficulty about the granting of the warrant, but Carey was advised that it would be much better to have it carried into effect at Liverpool, the scene of the murder, and whither it was evident Mr. Dunn was about to transfer himself within a very few days. To this advice Thornton Carey deferred perhaps a little unwillingly; he had a mortal dread that his prey might escape him, that the cunning which had availed the murderer so far might be put forth in a final effort, which would elude all their vigilance. But a little professional reasoning tranquillised his mind on this subject. It would be totally impossible for Mr. Dunn to escape the vigilance of the police at the port of Liverpool; and if he should leave his present lodgings without the knowledge of Thornton Carey and Mrs. Jenkins, the fault would be theirs. The gaoler of the prison to which he would be inevitably transferred before long would not have him in surer watch and ward than the quiet-looking, business-like, and unsuspicious lady and gentleman occupying the dining-room floor. With this assurance, and instructions that he was to communicate with a certain person to whom he was introduced, and who was desired to hold himself at the applicant's disposal, Thornton Carey returned home just in time to see Mr. Dunn, in his usual neat attire and with his accustomed deliberation of step, turn into Piccadilly with the air of a gentleman who had nothing whatever on his mind but the procuring of air and exercise.
Two days, which both Thornton Carey and Mrs. Jenkins found exceedingly tedious and hard to dispose of, elapsed, and on the morning of the third, Mrs. Watts, who had made great friends with her lady lodger of the dining-room floor, came to inform her that she was really about to lose Mr. Dunn at last.
Yes, it was just like her luck. He was going for good, and the quietest and most accommodating of lodgers would be known no more in Queen-street, Mayfair.
Indeed, Mrs. Jenkins sympathised. It was rather sudden, wasn't it? Had Mr. Dunn had any bad news from home, or had he completed all his business in London?
That Mrs. Watts could not tell her. He had seemed exceedingly put out over some American papers that had come in a great batch from somewheres in the City, and he had told her that he was very much disappointed that his employers did not require him to remain for another year in England. Mrs. Watts did not know much of Americans, but she had noticed that Mr. Dunn was the only one who had ever acknowledged that he liked England better than his own country; if it was his own country, which she could not say; perhaps he had gone out there young.
But Mrs. Jenkins was obliged to ask Mrs. Watts to excuse her for cutting short their interview--on that morning her brother was going out on business, and she must see him before he left the house. After he had gone she would return and resume their talk; so in the fewest possible words Thornton Carey was rapidly informed that the time had come. Mr. Dunn was going to Liverpool by the twelve-o'clock train.
Thornton Carey needed no details; he had merely to transmit that fact to the person with whom he had been put in communication on the previous day.
At noon that day the train for Liverpool started with its accustomed punctuality, and without the slightest indication that it conveyed any passenger more interesting or important than its ordinary freight.
Mr. Dunn occupied a corner-seat in a first-class carriage, and was profoundly unconscious of the presence in the next compartment of the remarkably quiet lady and gentleman who had been of late his fellow lodgers. He was looking ill and much preoccupied; he duly wrapped himself up, settled himself in his seat, and strewed the adjoining division with miscellaneous literature, but it lay there untouched, and Mr. Dunn's fidgetiness was such that it might not unreasonably have provoked the remonstrances of the stout elderly gentleman, with light fluffy whiskers and remarkably unexpressive eyes, who sat opposite to him, and read newspapers one after another, with engrossing interest and undeviating steadiness, for fully two-thirds of the journey.
But the stout gentleman took absolutely no notice whatever of his companion's movements, which alternated between excessive restlessness, in which he would throw off his wraps, pull the window up and down, and gape audibly, and extreme moody depression, in which he sat back, his chin dropped upon his breast, and his eyes fixed upon the flying landscape, and evidently totally unconscious of the objects passing before them.
It was remarkable that, though the train was rather crowded, Mr. Dunn and the elderly gentleman, with so insatiable an appetite for details, had this particular first-class compartment to themselves all the way, with the trifling exception hereafter to be noted. There might almost have been an understanding between the railway people and the elderly gentleman--perhaps there was, perhaps also he saw and remarked Mr. Dunn's moves more clearly than he appeared to see and remark them; for when Mr. Dunn (they were then three-quarters of an hour from Liverpool) took a crumpled packet of letters out of his pocket, though the elderly gentleman interposed a newspaper directly between his own face and that of Mr. Dunn's, he slid his hand gently into the pocket of his heavy overcoat, and at the same moment handled something metallic which lay within it.
Mr. Dunn pored over these letters with an absorbed attention, which could not have been greater had he been in absolute solitude. He compared their dates, he counted them, he carefully rearranged them, each in its respective former position in the packet, and when he had read and re-read them, he tied them up again and replaced them in an inner pocket.
During all this time his companion kept his hand upon the something metallic in the pocket of his rough greatcoat, and when Mr. Dunn, apparently yielding to a momentary temptation to tear up the letters and strew them by the roadside, made a slight motion towards letting down the window next him, he almost instantly withdrew his hand, the barrier of the newspaper was withdrawn for a second, and the usually inexpressive face of the elderly gentleman was set in a very stern purpose indeed.
Nothing came, however, of the temptation. Mr. Dunn replaced the letters; his companion reinterposed the barrier; and the train glided smoothly on but another quarter of an hour, during which Mr. Dunn subsided from his restless into his depressed alternative, and occasionally took out a photographic likeness of a woman, at which he gazed moodily.
Just as the train was running into Lime-street station its speed slackened, it stopped in an instant, and a man stepped with wonderful swiftness into the compartment hitherto occupied only by Mr. Dunn and the persistent reader.
Mr. Dunn slipped the photograph at which he was looking into his breast-pocket, and glanced round surprised, but the elderly gentleman, with a satisfied wink at the new arrival, stuffed his newspaper under the back of the cushion, and bending over and approaching Mr. Dunn, laid his hand on his shoulder.
Mr. Dunn started up, or rather attempted to do so, but found himself held firmly in his seat by a grasp apparently gentle, but wholly irresistible, while his companion informed him, in the briefest of phrases, that he was arrested on the charge of murder, and had better not say anything lest it should be used to his disadvantage. Pale, speechless, and bewildered, the trapped criminal stared at the police-officer, who made a sign to his assistant, who, with businesslike imperturbability and the deftness of long practice, slipped a pair of handcuffs on Mr. Dunn's wrists.
In another minute the train had stopped, and the police-officer, considerately arranging Mr. Dunn's wraps so as to disguise the fact that he was a prisoner, stepped out with his charge upon the platform, closely followed by his assistant.
Thornton Carey and Mrs. Jenkins retained their seats until the three, whose movements they were watching, had passed the door of the compartment in which they were. Then they immediately left the carriage and followed.
Among the persons assembled on the arrival platform at Lime-street was a respectable-looking woman, who carried a large basket, with that air of inseparability habitual to females of her class. She was probably there by appointment with somebody, for she had taken her seat on a bench and waited with the inevitable basket on her knees for the arrival of the train.
As Mr. Dunn passed down the platform in the custody of his two travelling companions, the elderly gentleman slackened his pace for a moment when they came alongside the bench where this woman sat, and laid his hand, as if accidentally and in passing, upon the cover of her basket. She gave him a quick look; but on the prisoner she conferred a prolonged stare, of which, however, the wretched man was wholly unconscious. A few persons only came between Mr. Dunn and his companions and Thornton Carey and Mrs. Jenkins, who walked up to the woman arm-in-arm. Thornton Carey addressed her:
'Have you seen him?'
'I have, sir.'
'Is it he?'
'It is, sir; I could swear to the Methodist preacher that talked to the poor gentleman and to me in the Birkenhead ferry anywhere in the world!'
They took him to the police-office. He went quietly, in absolute silence, only looking from time to time at the men who walked one on each side of him with a confused and helpless stare.
Thornton Carey, Mrs. Jenkins, and the woman, whose evidence Thornton Carey had skilfully hunted up during his short stay in Liverpool, exercising the ingenuity which subsequently won him many warm congratulations from Mr. Dunn's travelling companion, and whose evidence was the last link in the chain of identification which convicted Mr. Dunn of the crime committed by Trenton Warren, had reached the police-court some minutes in advance. The prisoner recognised his inoffensive fellow lodgers of the dining-room floor in Queen-street, Mayfair, with an irrepressible start, and spoke for the first time. 'Who are they?' he asked.
Thornton Carey replied: 'I am Thornton Carey, whose benefactor Mr. Griswold was; and this woman,' drawing forward Mrs. Jenkins, 'is your brother's widow--your brother whose blood is on your head. We represent your victims!'
The usual formalities were quickly accomplished; and when the prisoner was searched, it appeared that he would have done wisely had he yielded to that momentary temptation which had moved him to tear the letters which he had read in the train and to scatter them in fragments from the carriage window; for the letters in question were those written by Helen Griswold to her husband, and the photograph was that which the murdered man had carried in his pocket-book, and the murderer had robbed him of both.
'On the whole,' as Mr. Dunn's travelling companion remarked to Thornton Carey, as they walked away from the police-court together, 'it isn't often one has the handling of a case that fits together so satisfactorily; in this there isn't a loop-hole.'
During the weeks, now numbering months, of their intimate association, a strong mutual regard had sprung up between Thornton Carey and Mrs. Jenkins. The bereaved woman's character had a great attraction for Thornton, who thoroughly appreciated her sincerity, disinterestedness, and depth of feeling. The earnestness and vehemence of Mrs. Jenkins's grief for the loss of a husband who perhaps had not precisely merited her love or her sorrow had struck the young man by its pure womanliness, and her sound practical common sense had been of immense assistance to him in every detail of his task. Thus the relation between the two confederates, which, owing to the discrepancy between their respective social stations, might have been attended by a certain awkwardness and reserve, had, on the contrary, been frank and pleasant from the first, and had very soon merged into genuine unreserved confidence and intimacy.
Thornton Carey, though perhaps more deeply a student of books, was also an observer of human nature, and in his long talks with Mrs. Jenkins, when it was a relief for them both to escape from the great purpose and topic of their lives into byways of conversation, would question Mrs. Jenkins concerning her own history, and the scenes she had witnessed, the experiences she had undergone as the wife of a man whose life had been so shifting and shifty, so disreputable and sometimes hard, in that wonderful microcosm, the city of New York.
Mrs. Jenkins had no reserve with Thornton Carey, towards whom she gradually assumed quite a motherly tone, and she answered his questions readily, and drew for him the kind of pictures which he wished to see with his mind's eye with an untutored reality and a quaint force that he found most interesting. But on no topic was it so pleasant to him to hear Mrs. Jenkins discourse as on that of Helen Griswold, and on none was she more disposed to gratify him to the full. There was a deep vein of enthusiasm in Mrs. Jenkins, and the gentle, gracious, thorough lady into whose house she had gone with her heart bleeding its two sorest wounds--the death of her child and parting with her husband--had roused it. And then had come the remarkable combination of circumstances which had bound her life up in the same chapter of accidents with Mrs. Griswold's.
She would tell Thornton Carey over and over again innumerable small particulars of her first days in Helen's house, of her first impressions, and of the generous kindliness with which Helen had turned her first feeling of loneliness and dependence into one which she had never thought to experience again--the tranquil happiness of home. She would tell of Helen's quiet regret for her husband's absence, of her rational life, her charities, her unselfishness, her love and pride for the child, until any listener less deeply interested than Thornton must have wearied of the subject. But he never wearied of it, and in return he would tell Mrs. Jenkins tales of Helen's childhood and his own, reproducing the old familiar scenes with a skill and vividness at which the simple woman, who, though uneducated, had the intuitive perception of good taste, wondered. Listening to Thornton's talk, she thought, was like reading a pleasant book, or looking at pictures. And so it came to Mrs. Jenkins's mind one day, that ever since that childish time, which had passed so happily amid the rural scenes and surroundings of Holland Mills, Thornton Carey had had but one love in his life--the love of Helen--and that it had grown with his growth, and strengthened with his strength. When this belief took possession of her, she went to work in her own clever yet simple way to verify it, by asking him in her turn about his life since the breaking up of the old childish associations, about his friends and his pursuits, and through all the narrative which she thus elicited she could trace no other influence than that of Helen. He had lived the life of a recluse and a student, not gloomy or morose indeed, but sufficing to himself; and desiring nothing beyond, in all the hours that were outside his work. He spoke of some men-friends, and they were chiefly men older than himself, but no woman's name ever turned up in his account of his life. When he mentioned Mr. Griswold, it was always vaguely, though with gratitude, but it was evident he had not known very much of him; and the awful termination of his life, the wonderful train of circumstances which had turned theprotégéinto the avenger, made it difficult for Thornton to speak of him so freely as of other subjects.
Long before their task was accomplished Mrs. Jenkins believed herself to be in possession of the secret history of two hearts, with this great difference between them--that Thornton Carey knew and acknowledged to himself that he loved Helen Griswold, that he had loved her, and no other, all his life, but that Helen entertained no suspicion either of his feelings or her own. Mrs. Jenkins could not have analysed her conviction that Helen, excellent and devoted wife that she was, and true as was the affection with which she regarded her husband, had not beenin lovewith him, but it was clear and strong, the growth of constant observation of innumerable trifles, those small but significant symptoms which only a woman notices and interprets aright. Then Mrs. Jenkins, who, for all her inferiority to Helen in the social scale, had some strong points of resemblance to her, and was an instance of the absolute level on which classes stand when the only ruling feeling of the human heart is in question, asked herself whether it was that Helen had never been in love with any one, or whether it was that she was in love with some one else. The latter question did not present itself for a moment to the mind of Mrs. Jenkins in a light unfavourable or derogatory to Helen; she knew that, if such were indeed the case, Helen was entirely guiltless. Now the whole story made itself clear to the perception of Mrs. Jenkins, and she knew that the unconscious presence of an influence which had existed since her childhood, and been stronger than any which had since come into her life, had closed Helen's heart against every whisper of passion for the man she had married and, in one sense, loved.
With this discovery there had come to Mrs. Jenkins a still deeper pity and regard for the young widow, so awfully bereaved, for there had come a clearer comprehension of how admirably she had fulfilled her duty as a wife. Thus it happened that the secret of both these hearts, which had never been mutually disclosed, had been revealed unconsciously by each to this humble friend; and in all the talks which they had together, Mrs. Jenkins had had floating before her fancy a vision of the future, in which the beautiful old story of the childhood of these two should be taken up again and brought to its perfection after such a trial as happily comes but rarely into human lives. She was far too discreet to breathe a hint of her discovery or her hope to Thornton Carey; and she promised herself that she would exercise an equal discretion when she should have returned to New York, and resumed her position in Mrs. Griswold's house.
It had been agreed that Mrs. Jenkins was to return before she and Thornton Carey started on their journey to England. She had no friends in England that her friends in America knew of, and she felt in her inmost heart that the relations between herself and her sister would not be sufficiently satisfactory to compensate for an entire separation from Helen and her child. Besides, there was a very good chance that she night see as much of her sister by residing in New York as she should see of her if she lived in London; for Miss Montressor's success was so marked, that there was a brisk competition among American managers for the promise of her services during a long series of seasons. On the whole New York had become much more like home to Mrs. Jenkins than England was, though she felt that it would be long before the word would seem to have any meaning for her in a world where her Ephraim was not. With Helen Griswold she would have peace, respectability, and a strong interest in her surroundings; while to Helen, her presence must always be beneficial, to an extent which would far out-measure the pain of their respective and common associations.
When the task which they had come to fulfil was finished; when the sentence of a righteous doom had been passed upon one of the most cruel and treacherous murderers who had ever incurred the curse pronounced against the shedder of man's blood; and the time fixed for Mrs. Jenkins's departure drew near (she wished to leave England before the execution of Trenton Warren), she discovered that Thornton Carey was hesitating about his own return to America. It had never been intended that he should accompany her; he meant to be in Liverpool when the dread penalty of his crime should be inflicted on Helen's enemy; but she had taken it for granted he would not make much further delay, and was quite unprepared for the announcement which he made to her the day before the sailing of the mail steamer in which a passage had been taken for her. He came round to see her at the Railway Hotel (he was at the Adelphi) late in the evening, and after talking cheerily to her about the voyage back, he said:
'I hope you will drop talking of all this awful affair to poor Mrs. Griswold as soon as you can reasonably persuade her to let it rest. It is quite useless to keep up the misery and excitement of it any longer than they must necessarily last; and that will be over when this wretched man shall have been sent to his account. Then she had better be led to dwell on the happier features of the past, and to let its miserable ending die down into oblivion. You will be the best person to lead her mind into that channel, and I, and all her friends, will trust you to do it.'
'But, Mr. Carey, you will have a great deal more influence than I shall. Of course, I must let her talk at first as much as she likes; but if she will be kept from dwelling on the past by what I can do, she will look more to you than to any of her friends for such things as can cheer her up, and do her real good.'
Thornton Carey smiled rather sadly.
'She will not have me to cheer her up for many a long day,' he said.
'Why, whatever do you mean?' asked Mrs. Jenkins in unfeigned amazement; 'ain't you coming very soon--as soon as--'
Her face fell, and she turned her eyes away. The subject was a terrible one, and they had avoided reference to it by common consent.
'No, my dear friend, I am not. I have been thinking it all over since I have been here, and I have come to the conclusion that I had better not go back just yet. I have made some friends here quite unexpectedly. Mr. Whitbread, the magistrate's brother, among others, has been kind enough to form a good opinion of me, and he has just been returned for B--. I dined with him last evening, and he talked to me a good deal about myself; asked about my post at New Orleans, whether it was a permanent one, and so on. I told him exactly how the matter stood, and that poor Mr. Griswold had been negotiating a better post for me, but one which would not be likely to be vacant for at least twelve months from the present time. Then Mr. Whitbread offered to engage me as his private secretary for that time certain. He represents an important constituency, and will be a very active member of the House of Commons. He is an advanced Liberal, and there would be no better opportunity for me to learn the routine of public business than in his employment. So I have accepted the offer, and I shall be in England at least one year.'
'I do not regret it, sir, for your sake,' replied Mrs. Jenkins, 'though I doubt it will come very hard on Mrs. Griswold. But, then, she is one who does not think of herself, and if it's good for you, she will be content.'
Thornton Carey looked at her inquiringly, and a sudden deep flush suffused his face. Mrs. Jenkins saw the sudden flush, and perfectly understood its origin, but she made no sign, and continued:
'Have you written to her, Mr. Carey, or am I to take her the news? It will be a surprise to Mr. Duval, too, though he will be very glad to find you here when he comes back. Very likely he'll be writing a play about it, and be glad of your help.'
'Writing a play, you dear droll woman, half a century behind the speed of the age! I would lay a stout wager the play is ready for rehearsal!'