"Don't worry! Am all right. Returning in two or three days. Writing.—GERALD."Further mystified, she at once went back to Hammersmith, where she found a telegram which had arrived for her at eleven o'clock that morning. It had been dispatched from Knightsbridge, and read:"Am all right, dear! Do not worry. Have discovered something, but am not returning for a day or two.—GERRY.""Is it from Mr. Boyne?" asked her aunt as she watched the girl's face."No. Why?" she asked."Because Mr. Boyne hasn't been home all night," was her aunt's reply. "I can't think what's happened to him! When I went up this morning to wake him, because I thought he had overslept himself, I found that his bed had not been slept in!"CHAPTER XVII"NEWS" FROM LANCASTER GATEMarigold was naturally much puzzled.What had her lover discovered? What did he know?By the varying forms of the telegrams she saw that he had excused himself from the office upon a plea of illness, while really he was working in secret to elucidate the mystery of the hooded man of Hammersmith.The fact that Boyne had been absent that night and had not yet returned, did not arouse her curiosity, for she concluded that Gerry had been following him ever since the previous evening.She relied upon her lover's cleverness and ingenuity. The changing of his clothes showed her that he was resourceful. She admired him for it.So she took her tea with her aunt, and afterwards laid Mr. Boyne's table in eager readiness for his return.He came in and greeted her as cheerily as usual."Tell Mrs. Felmore that I expect she's been wondering where I've been all this time. But I went out to Loughton, in Essex, to see a friend last night, and I stayed there. Tell her so, Miss Marigold, will you? And now for my supper! I'm horribly hungry!"He ate his meal, yet not by any means in the manner of a hungry man. He only toyed with it, for, a matter of fact, he had left Pont Street half an hour before, having taken leave of the Red Widow and his wife, whose faces had borne grim smiles of complete satisfaction.That night as Marigold lay awake, unable to sleep, she became obsessed by the one idea that she ought to leave the house of mystery and return to Wimbledon Park.Gerald, by his mysterious message to her, had evidently got upon the track of something, therefore it was useless for her to remain any longer in that strange atmosphere of doubt and fear.Boyne had retired, and though she remained on the alert until the first streak of dawn shone through the blinds, she heard no movement to arouse her suspicion.Next day, when she came down into the kitchen, she told her aunt that she was returning home. So, taking her blouse-case, she left before Mr. Boyne came downstairs."Marigold has gone to the bank, sir," said Mrs. Felmore when she placed Boyne's coffee and kippers upon the table. "She left word that she thanks you very much for allowing her to stay here, but she couldn't encroach on your kind hospitality any longer.""Oh!" exclaimed Boyne in surprise. "She's gone—eh?""Yes, sir. She went out a quarter of an hour ago. She waited to see if you came down—but she had to go."Boyne grunted, and remarked something beneath his breath—words that the deaf woman, even with her expert lip-reading eyes, could not understand.Marigold had slipped safely out of the way. The fact filled him with intense chagrin. What did it portend?"At least Durrant's activity is at an end!" he growled deeply to himself. "Now we have to deal with this girl. For the present nobody can know of the whereabouts of Gerald Durrant. When they do—I hope the peril will be over!"And he swallowed his coffee with the gusto and satisfaction of a man who had made a most complete coup, and from whose mind some great weight had been lifted.An hour later he entered the Hammersmith Post Office and telephoned to the Red Widow."Any news, Ena?" he asked as he sat in one of the boxes."Yes. Augusta spoke to me half an hour ago. I'm going round to Lancaster Gate at eleven. She's taken ill. A pity, isn't it?""Sorry to hear that!" he replied in a grim voice. "I'll see you at Pont Street at seven—eh?""Yes. I'll run round," Ena answered. "I've just been through to Lilla. I wonder what can be the matter with poor Augusta? A chill, perhaps—eh? Poor lady! But I hope it isn't serious.""I hope not. Good-bye for the present."And then the honest, hard-working collector of insurance premiums of the poor of Hammersmith went forth upon his daily round, trudging from street to street, knocking or ringing at the doors of the insured.He made a call in Dalling Road, just beyond the railway arch, and then, proceeding up the thoroughfare, consulted his pocket account-book. Close to Chiswick High Road he made a further call, where he signed the book for the weekly premium.Presently he halted at a small and very poor-looking house in the Devonport Road, a turning off the Goldhawk Road, where he rang at the door. At the windows were curtains blackened by the London smoke, for the whole neighbourhood was one of genteel poverty, but of despair.An ugly, but cleanly dressed old woman answered, and, seeing him, knit her brows."Ah! Come in, Mr. Boyne!" she said, and the collector of premiums entered.Five minutes later he came out, the old woman following him. He was evidently not himself, for usually his was a kindly nature towards the poor. But that day his manner was rough and uncouth. Something had upset him."Well, I'm sorry, Mrs. Pentreath," he said in a loud voice. "But, you see, it isn't in my hands. I'm only a humble servant of the company—an ill-paid servant who gets just a living wage upon the premiums he collects. You've had time to pay, you know, and if you can't pay up this week—well, the policy must lapse. You've been given notice of it for six weeks. The company has been very lenient with you. Other companies wouldn't have been so lenient.""But my poor Bertha! She's come home from service, and is in bed with consumption. I have to look after her and try to give her the nourishment Doctor James orders. It isn't my fault that I haven't paid you. It really isn't.""I can't help that," replied Boyne roughly. "Your insurance policy must lapse—that's all."And after fifteen years that I've paid regularly each week!" exclaimed the poor woman in dismay."Well, it isn't my fault, I tell you. I'm not the company," was his harsh reply."And my poor Bertha so ill. It's cruel—it's inhuman, I say!" she shouted in a shrill voice.Boyne only smiled grimly. He was not the kindly man of other days."It probably is so," he replied, turning away from the door. "But it's our insurance business; and business is business, after all!"Yes!" retorted the poor woman. "You people are robbing the poor—that's what it is! And after fifteen years! Why, I've paid your company more in that time than what they would have paid to bury my Bertha!"At a small house in the Loftus Road he knocked three times, and a dwarfed, red-eyed girl at last opened the door."Poor mother's dead, Mr. Boyne! Didn't you see the blinds?" she asked."Dead!" he exclaimed, looking at the little window of the sitting-room. "Get your book.""I'll go and get it," was the girl's reply. "Mother died late last night. The doctor says it's heart disease.""All right. Give me the book," he said brutally. "I suppose we'll have to pay. You paid up last week, didn't you?""Yes, sir, I paid you—and you'll find it down," the girl said, and, disappearing, she presently returned with the insurance book.The house-to-house visits of the insurance collector of those fat dividend paying companies who insure the lives of the lower classes are truly fraught with many strange dramas and stirring tales of poverty and misfortune.While Bernard Boyne was on his weary round, Ena Pollen alighted from a taxi at the private hotel in Lancaster Gate, a big, old-fashioned house which for years had been known to country visitors to London as a quiet and excellent place in which to stay.The young man-servant who opened the door told her that Mrs. Morrison was upstairs. The proprietor's wife met her in the hall, and, in response to the Red Widow's inquiry, said:"Mrs. Morrison hasn't been very well for a couple of days. She was taken ill last night, so I called my doctor—Doctor Tressider—and he came to see her. He seems puzzled. He can't make out at present what's the matter with her. He's calling again to-night. She came over very ill when she returned from Brighton.""I'll go upstairs," said Mrs. Pollen. "It is most unfortunate, isn't it? She's only here in town for a short time, and now she's taken ill like this. I do hope it's nothing serious.""Oh, no. I asked Doctor Tressider, and he thinks it is simply a little stomach trouble. To-morrow she'll be better," was the woman's reply.So Ena ascended the stairs, and, after tapping at the door, entered the neat little bedroom on the second floor."Well, dear!" she exclaimed cheerily as she entered. "I couldn't let the day pass without coming to see you. Whatever is the matter?""I really don't know, Ena," replied Mrs. Morrison of Carsphairn. "I felt so ill in the train coming up to Victoria that I had great difficulty in getting back here.""But the doctor says you'll be all right to-morrow," said Ena."I feel awfully ill," replied the other feebly. "I seem so feverish—hot at one moment and cold at another.""No, no," said Mrs. Pollen cheerily. "You'll be all right, never fear. When one feels feverish one's temperature is generally below normal. I do hope these people are looking after you all right?""Oh, yes, they do. I have no complaint to make on that score. You recommended me here, and I must say that I'm most comfortable. But what worries me is my visit up North.""Don't bother about that," laughed the other. "Get well first. Write and tell them you can't come.""I wish you would do it for me. Pen and paper are over there," said the sick woman, whose eyes glistened strangely."No; you must do it," replied Ena quickly. She had a reason. "If I were to write to them they might think it strange. You are not too ill to write. I'll get you the pad."And, carrying it to her on the bed, she induced Mrs. Morrison to write two letters to her friends—letters which she duly posted when she got outside."The doctor doesn't seem to know what is the matter with me," the invalid said in a weak voice after she had laid down her fountain pen. "My head is so terribly bad—and my throat too.""What time is he coming again?""To-night, I think. I hope so.""My dear, it's only a chill," Ena said with comforting cheerfulness. "You'll be all right in a day or two. You've been in a draught, perhaps.""Ah! but my head! It seems as though it must burst. At times I can't think. All my senses seem blurred.""Did you tell the doctor that?""Yes. And it seemed to puzzle him more than ever. I hope I'm not going to have a bad illness.""Of course not," laughed Ena. "You'll be better in a day or so. Remain quiet, and I'll run in to-morrow morning to see how you are. If you're worse, tell them to ring me up. I'm just going round to the Davidsons. They will be most distressed to hear of your sudden illness."The widow of Carsphairn turned over on her pillow and moaned slightly. Her face was flushed, and it was evident to Ena that the last words she had uttered the sick woman had not understood.So she took her leave, and on descending the stairs to the wide hall, again encountered the proprietor's wife."My friend Mrs. Morrison seems very unwell," said Ena. "I can't make it out at all. I do hope the doctor will discover what is the matter with her.""Doctor Tressider is my own doctor," replied the woman. "He'll be here again before dinner time, and I hope he won't find anything really very wrong.""Well, whatever he says, would you mind letting me know over the 'phone?" asked Ena, taking out her visiting-card, upon which was printed her telephone number."Certainly I will," was the reply."And if there is anything serious I'll come round at once," she said.So they parted, and Ena hailed a taxi outside, and returned to Upper Brook Street well satisfied with her morning's work.CHAPTER XVIIITHE COUP AND ITS CONSEQUENCENext day passed, but though Ena remained at home in a high state of anxiety, she received no message from Lancaster Gate.At eight o'clock she rang up, and spoke to the proprietress of the hotel."Mrs. Morrison is certainly not quite so well as she was yesterday, but though Doctor Tressider has been twice to-day he has not yet been able to diagnose the complaint.""Is she in pain?" asked Mrs. Pollen sympathetically."No. She does not complain. But no doubt we shall know more to-morrow.""Very well. Please tell her I inquired, and to-morrow, about eleven, I'll call and see her again."And, having rung off, she spoke to Lilla, telling her of the conversation."You'll go to-morrow and see her, my dear," urged Boyne's wife. "Bernard is here. I'll tell him.""What about the girl?" asked Ena."Oh, for the present she's all right. She's gone back to Wimbledon. The telegrams have satisfied her.""Right! Then I'll see you to-morrow after I've been to Lancaster Gate," said the Red Widow, and then they broke off the conversation."Well, the doctor doesn't know yet what's the matter," Lilla afterwards said to Boyne, who was sitting in the handsome drawing-room."Oh! he will to-morrow—never fear!" was the man's grim reply. "He must be a duffer if he doesn't recognise the symptoms. I expected him to know yesterday.""You thought we should have had news on Wednesday, and it's now Friday.""Yes. But delay is rather a good sign," he said. "Did you tell Ena about the nursing home?""Yes; I did so yesterday.""I've heard that Miss Propert's, out at Golder's Green, is quite a good place. Nobody connected with it has any knowledge of us.""I told her that. And she agreed. She is rather afraid that some of Mrs. Morrison's friends may come up from Brighton, and she is in no way anxious to meet them.""No! She mustn't do so!" declared Boyne. "She must take good care that no friends are at Lancaster Gate when she calls.""Good! I'll tell her that over the 'phone presently.""And also tell her not to take a too eager interest in her—I mean, no interest further than that of a comparatively freshly made friend," he said; and afterwards they went out to a theatre together.Next morning, just before eleven, as Ena Pollen was contemplating speaking with Mrs. Morrison's hotel, the proprietor's wife rang up."Mrs. Pollen," she said, "I'm very sorry to give you bad news about your friend. Doctor Tressider has just been here, and says that she is suffering from diphtheria!""Oh! I'm so sorry!" cried the Red Widow. "How very unfortunate! Are any other friends there?""No. But I believe somebody is coming up from Brighton this afternoon.""Very well," said Ena. "I'll take a taxi and come round now."This she did. Pleading that she might become infected, she did not ascend to Mrs. Morrison's room, but sat in the little office of the proprietor's wife."Of course she can't remain here," said the woman. "It isn't fair to my other visitors.""Of course not," Ena agreed. "She must go at once to a nursing home. A friend of mine had diphtheria about a year ago, and went to a place somewhere at Golder's Green. I think Prosser or Potter was the name of the person who runs it. We might perhaps find it in the telephone directory. I think that was the name—but I'm not quite sure. Poor Augusta! I'm so sorry, but I really think it would be unwise of me to go in and see her—don't you?""I quite agree," replied the proprietor's wife, and, taking down the telephone directory, she began to search for the name, but could not find it.At last, after some minutes, she exclaimed:"Ah! Here it is. Miss Propert's nursing home. Yes, Golder's Green! Here is the number. I'll telephone and ask if they have a room vacant."Five minutes later it was fixed. Miss Propert had promised to send an ambulance at once, and soon afterwards the Red Widow was round at Pont Street reporting to Lilla all that had taken place, while early that same afternoon the patient had already been transferred to the nursing home, where she had been promised by the unsuspecting matron "every attention."As the days passed Marigold Ramsay travelled each morning from Wimbledon Park to the City, and sat each luncheon hour in the same little restaurant, but alone.She was sorely puzzled why Gerald did not write to her. Without doubt he had gone somewhere to follow up a clue concerning the mystery man of Hammersmith, but she felt hurt that he had not written to tell her of his whereabouts.Time after time she took out his telegram, which she carried in her big bag-purse, and re-read it:"Am all right, dear. Do not worry. Have discovered something, but am not returning for a day or two.—GERRY."The "day or two" had elapsed. He told her not to worry, therefore she tried to obey him. Still, it was strange that he did not send her a line.Twice she called at his office in Mincing Lane, but she was told by a female clerk that Mr. Durrant had not returned. Nothing more had been heard of him, except that he was away at home ill.Marigold smiled within herself at the excuse her lover had given for his absence, and wondered hour by hour what he had discovered concerning Mr. Boyne.She went over to Hammersmith and had tea with her aunt. From her she learned that her employer had been at home each night. The only night he had been absent was the night of Gerald's disappearance.She even contrived to get a glimpse of the interior of that cupboard in Mr. Boyne's bedroom, but the groceries intended for the poor widow of Notting Hill Gate were still there intact, as well as the tea-kettle and the bowl.What had taken Gerald away?For three days her anxiety increased, when on the fourth evening, on her return to Wimbledon, she found a telegram from him. It had been dispatched from the post-office in Bristol Road, Birmingham, and read:"Returning very soon, dearest. Remain patient. Tell my sister. Love.—GERRY."Time after time she read it with complete satisfaction, and afterwards she went out to Ealing and showed it to her lover's sister."That takes a great weight off my mind, Marigold," said Gerald's sister. "Still, his sudden disappearance seems very strange. I wonder why he's gone away—and why he's in Birmingham?""Yes," replied the girl. "It does seem curious, but think I know the reason.""What is it?" asked his sister anxiously."A secret reason," was Marigold's reply. "I'm sorry that I can't tell you—not unless he gives me permission.""What—is anything wrong?" asked the young woman."Oh, nothing wrong with Gerald—not at all. Only he is trying to find out something—that's all. And until he is successful I don't think he wants anyone to know his intentions.""Well, I hope he's made it right at his office. Employers don't like men who pretend to be ill at home and go away.""No doubt he has. Gerald isn't a fool," the girl replied, a little piqued at his sister's words, and very soon afterwards she left for home.The message from Birmingham allayed her anxiety to a very great extent. When once Gerald took up any matter he never left it until it was complete. He was the very essence of business, and his principal held him in high esteem on account of his method and his pertinacity. Marigold knew that. He was following some secret clue concerning the hooded man of Bridge Place, and it seemed as though he feared to put anything concerning it into writing.That night as she lay awake she reflected that the message was indeed very gratifying, yet at the same time, she found herself wondering why he had not written her just a few brief words.She, however, kept her own counsel, feeling confident that Gerald would as soon as possible return to tell her what he had found out.The fact that the store of food in Boyne's bedroom was still there negatived the idea that it was intended for any person concealed in the locked room above. On thinking it all over, she began to doubt whether that curious cry was really human, or did it only exist in her imagination?Next day she went to the bank as usual, but life was very dreary without Gerald's smiling face. He was her ideal of the fine courteous man, strong, and devoid of that effeminacy which, alas! too often characterises the temporary officers who so gallantly assisted in winning the war. He had neither pose, drawl, nor affectation, as is so common in and around Fenchurch Street. He dressed quietly, and his manners were gentlemanly without being obtrusive. He spoke little and listened always. In Marigold's eyes he was the type of a perfect modern gentleman—as indeed he was.City life, with its morning rush to business from the suburbs and its evening scramble for a seat in 'bus, train or tram, is to the business girl a wearing existence. The tubes, with their queux, the trains with their packed compartments, the 'buses with their boorish attendants, and the trams crowded to suffocation with either rain-wet or perspiring humanity, are part of the life of a London business girl. Yet she is always merry and bright, for she takes things as they come and thrives upon a gobbled breakfast or a belated home-coming.Marigold Ramsay was typical of the London female bank clerk—eager, reliable, assiduous at her work, which consisted of poring over big ledgers all day beneath a green-shaded electric light until the figures—units, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands—danced before her tired eyes ere she closed her book and put on her hat to return home.On the night following the receipt of that gratifying message, she rushed back to Wimbledon wondering if any further telegram awaited her.But there was none. In disappointment she sat down to her evening meal, the one problem in her mind being the whereabouts of the young man who was her lover and who had so mysteriously left her side and disappeared.He could not be following Boyne, for the latter was living quite calmly his usual uneventful life, therefore, if he were not following him, why could he not write to her and explain?That point sorely perplexed her.Meanwhile Ena Pollen telephoned twice a day to Golder's Green to inquire how her friend Mrs. Morrison progressed, and on each occasion the matron would answer her, but the news was of increasing gravity.She sent kind messages, but the matron expressed regret that the patient was too ill to be given them.On the evening when Marigold had sped back to Wimbledon hoping for a further telegram, Miss Propert had, after telling the Red Widow how critical was Mrs. Morrison's condition, added that some relatives had come up from Brighton."Unfortunately, the doctor will not allow anyone to see her," she went on. "Only this evening I have had a telegram from her sister in Scotland saying she is on her way to London, but as she gives no address, I am unable to stop her, so her journey will be useless.""Useless? Why?" asked Ena."Well—I'm sorry to tell you that the doctor who saw her an hour ago holds out but little hope of her recovery. She has diphtheria in its most virulent form.""Oh! How terrible!" cried Ena. "But is it really so very serious?""Yes. There is no use disguising the fact. It is a most critical case.""But, surely, there is no immediate danger?" she asked, full of concern."The critical period will be within the next twenty-four hours," came the reply. "If she gets over to-morrow night, she will probably recover."Ena Pollen held her breath, while her brows narrowed, and she made a strange grimace."Well, Miss Propert, you won't fail to let me know how my friend is—will you?""Of course not," was the reply. "I hope she will be better to-morrow morning. But—well, personally, I entertain but little hope. I have never seen a worse case of diphtheria."Ena hung up the receiver, and crossing the room, took a long sniff at her smelling-salts.Then, going back to the telephone, she rang up Lilla, and said briefly:"Our poor friend is very bad indeed. I'll let you know how she is in the morning. Is Bernard there?""No; he's just gone back," answered her friend."Well, I want you both to dine here to-morrow night. Will you?""Why?""You know the reason—surely!""Oh, yes—yes! Very well, dear. At half-past seven."So that was agreed.Next morning, just before noon, Boyne called at Pont Street and learned from Lilla—who had just spoken to Ena—that Mrs. Morrison of Carsphairn was in an extremely critical condition."H'm!" grunted her husband. "Then all goes as it should—eh? No other acute disease presents so great a liability to sudden death as diphtheria. I suppose the doctor, whoever he is, has been all along examining the patient's heart for any indication of an approaching catastrophe.""But sudden death can't take place—can it?" asked Lilla."Oh, yes," replied her husband in a voice of authority. "The more insidious forms of sudden death from diphtheria take place through the nervous system and heart. In such a case the pulse beats only twenty or thirty a minute—and that is probably what has aroused the doctor's fears.""But, according to Ena, she hasn't a very bad throat.""That may be so," he said, speaking in the way of a medical man. "She may have an extension of the false membrane into the air passage, which would block the larynx trachea or bronchi, which is always gradual, and may be fatal. But if the doctor has come to the conclusion that she's in a very bad way, I should think that the end will come this evening.""You'll dine at Ena's—eh?""Of course I will. I'll be there just after seven," he said, and, after leisurely finishing a cigarette, he left her.Just before half-past seven he entered Ena Pollen's flat, where Lilla was already seated in the drawing-room. He wore a simple blue serge suit, for that night he had come straight from Hammersmith, and had not dressed to go to a restaurant or the theatre."Well?" he asked the Red Widow. "Anything fresh?""Nothing. I telephoned to Golder's Green an hour ago, and found Miss Propert was most despondent.""Poor dear!" laughed Lilla. "What a pity! Her bill will be paid all right—so she needn't fret!"Presently they sat down to a very pleasant little dinner, where, with sardonic laughter, the trio of death-dealers lifted their glasses of champagne to "dear Augusta's speedy recovery."After dinner they returned to the drawing-room, where they took their liqueurs and coffee, all three being in excellent spirits.The only serious moment was when the Red Widow suddenly remarked:"I don't half like the situation concerning that young fellow Durrant! Do you know, I feel some strange presage of evil—I mean that we may have made a slip there.""Slip!" laughed Boyne derisively. "Nothing of the kind, my dear Ena! I saw to that all right. And surely you can trust me?""But suppose we have?""No need to worry further about him. He won't trouble us any more.""The next person to be silenced is that girl," Lilla said in a hard voice."Yes," was Boyne's slow reply. "I think I've formed a plan which will be just as successful as that we carried out concerning her too inquisitive lover."And as he spoke, he blew a cloud of smoke from his lips and watched it curl towards the ceiling.Suddenly—it was then about ten o'clock—almost as the words fell from his lips, the telephone bell rang sharply.All three started."Ah!" gasped Ena, springing up. "There you are! At last!""Yes," she replied, taking up the receiver. Then, listening, she exclaimed: "Oh! you, Miss Propert—well? Oh! How dreadful!—how very sad! She passed away ten minutes ago! Thank you so much for telling me. I'm so sorry—so very sorry!"And she replaced the receiver."You look sorry!" laughed Boyne. "Really, it is most distressing to think that we shall very soon draw ten thousand pounds!" he added mockingly, whereat the two women laughed gaily, for the coup so elaborately prepared had at last been brought off!CHAPTER XIXWHAT HAPPENED TO GERALDThe days passed, and Marigold, hearing nothing further from Gerald, called again at Mincing Lane, and there learned that they had not heard again from young Durrant.A clerk had been sent over to Ealing to inquire about him, but had returned with the information that, instead of being ill, he had not been seen by his sister."The firm at once suspected something wrong with the books," said the female clerk of whom she made the inquiry, "but Mr. Durrant was such an honest, straightforward young man that we all ridiculed the idea.""Have the books been examined?" asked Marigold breathlessly."Oh, yes; and nothing has been found wrong."The girl drew a sigh of relief.She then showed the clerk the telegram she had received from Birmingham, and she, in turn, promised to show it to the principal when he came in.Marigold Ramsay walked down Mincing Lane to Fenchurch Street in gloom and despair. She returned to the bank and sat at her books, unable to work, unable to do anything, save to wonder why Gerald had so suddenly left her. Yet he had bidden her not to worry over him and had promised to return.That evening she went over to Hammersmith, and her aunt, noticing how pale and worried she looked, inquired the reason, asking:"Have you heard yet from Mr. Durrant?""No, auntie. Unfortunately, I haven't, but I'm expecting to hear every day.""Funny he went away like that, wasn't it?" the deaf old woman remarked, though inwardly she suspected that there had been some quarrel between them, and that he had left her in consequence."Yes," replied the girl faintly. Then she asked after Mr. Boyne."Oh! he's been away four days now. He said he was going into Wales on some insurance business, and would be away a week or perhaps ten days.""Unusual for him to go away, isn't it?" Marigold remarked."Yes. He's never been away for more than a week together in all the time I've been with him."The girl left Hammersmith early, and, returning to Wimbledon Park, sat at her window and wept for a long time before retiring to rest. To her the world was empty and hopeless without Gerald.What had she done, she wondered, that he should have left her in that fashion. That he was following Boyne was a mere excuse, she felt sure. It irritated her to think that he should try to deceive her. What was he doing in Birmingham? If there were reasons why he did not wish to return to London, then why did he not give her his address, and then she could easily have run up to see him.The more she thought it over the more mystified did she become.The mystery was increased three days later when, on returning from the City, she found a telegram on the table in the narrow hall.Her heart leapt as she tore it open.It had been sent from Paris, of all places, and read:"Sorry could not write, dear. Do not worry. Shall be back soon. Have wired to the office. Love.—GERALD.""Love!—Gerald!" she repeated aloud to herself. "Oh! why does he not give me an address, so that I can write to him? It's cruel—very cruel of him to keep me in suspense like this!" she cried in a frenzy of despair.She ate sparingly in the little dining-room of the jerry-built villa—for nowhere is the jerry-builder more in evidence than in Wimbledon Park, with his white-painted gables and his white-painted balconies to his six-roomed houses. But let us not misunderstand. It is best for the workers—the brains and backbone of England—to live in smiling houses, even though jerry-built, than in many of those grey, rain-sodden houses of the Midlands and the North, where the "knocker-up" pursues his calling each dawn and the factory hooter sounds all too early.Personally, the writer here declares that he has no love for the capitalist. The latter has too often, ever since the Early Victorian days, been either a swindler or an aristocrat of bad intentions, and the jerry-builder was the natural outcome of his parting with his estate.Poor Marigold! She could go no farther in the maze of doubt and uncertainty.A dozen times that night she re-read the mysterious, but unconvincing, message. She was a girl of high intelligence, or she would not have been employed by the bank. The whole affair puzzled her, as it would indeed have puzzled anybody.Next day after her luncheon she went round again to Mincing Lane, and made inquiry regarding the missing man.The same girl told her that the principal had received a mysterious wire from Paris."I saw the telegram," she said. "It was from Paris, and was quite abrupt, saying that he would probably return in a week or so.""But what does it all mean?" asked the distressed girl."I really don't know," replied the other girl. "Mr. Durrant's gone away, and that's all!"That night Marigold went over to Ealing, and to Gerald's sister she showed the telegram. It puzzled her sorely."Whatever can Gerald be doing in Paris?" she exclaimed. "Why could he not write to us, eh?""I don't know," was the reply of the unnerved girl. "I think he ought to send us some address.""But he may do so later," replied his sister. "Gerald is a man of business. He would realise how troubled we all are.""He seems to have faded out of existence," said the girl, seated in the front parlour of the neat little villa of the neat suburban road."Yes," said his sister. "He certainly does. I await a letter each morning, but none comes.""But what can he be doing in Paris?" queried Marigold. "Without a doubt, he has lost the confidence of his firm. He pretended to be lying ill here, and they have found out that he isn't ill at all!""Yes. The other day a middle-aged man came to see him, but I was forced to admit that he wasn't here—that he was missing," replied Gerald's sister.Marigold went home utterly dispirited. What could she do? It was useless to go to the police and raise a hue and cry regarding a man who, from time to time, telegraphed to his employers and to her that he was on the point of returning. So she was compelled to wait.Gerald Durrant had disappeared. He had sent her messages, it is true, messages of comfort, yet when she argued within herself, she saw that he ought, at least, to have given her some address to which she could reply by letter or by telegram.True, Boyne was absent. But he had only been absent for a few days, while her lover had been missing very much longer.Four more days of blank despair crept slowly by. Seated beneath her green-shaded light at the bank, with her great ledger before her, Marigold reckoned up the columns of figures mechanically, and handed them to be checked. They were accounts of all classes of merchants, mostly of profiteers, firms who had made fortunes out of the valour and blood of the gallant fellows who had given their lives for Britain. She felt so unhappy without her lover. Gerald, who had directed those investigations concerning the hooded man who was her aunt's employer, had disappeared with startling suddenness, yet he had assured her that he was following some mysterious clue.The latter she had proved, by reason of the knowledge of Boyne's movements, to be non-existent. Was her lover deceiving her? That suspicion caused her the greatest irritation and annoyance.That evening she sauntered along Pont Street, and looked up at the red-brick house which Boyne had entered on that well-remembered night. But the place was in complete darkness, save for a light in the servants' quarters.Then again she went to Bridge Place, and learned from the old deaf woman that her master had not yet returned."He's having a very nice long holiday," said Mrs. Felmore. "And he deserves it, too—a-tramping about Hammersmith all day and in all weathers, as he does."Three weeks went past, but no further word had come from Gerald, either to his principal, his sister, or to his well-beloved.Gerald Durrant had, truth to tell, met with some strange and startling adventures since the night of his disappearance.In the darkness on that well-remembered night he was walking along the Kensington Road towards Knightsbridge, following Boyne at a respectful distance, and keeping a wary eye upon him, without arousing any suspicion as he naturally believed.While passing the railings of Kensington Gardens, close to Queen's Gate, he saw a female figure lying upon the pavement with a lady bending over her concernedly.Hastening up, he found both ladies to be well dressed, and inquired what had occurred."Oh, dear!" cried the elder lady, in great distress. "My sister has just slipped down on a piece of banana peel, I think, and she's broken her ankle. She can't move, and she doesn't speak. She has fainted. I—I wonder, sir, if you would be so kind as to call me a taxi.""Certainly I will," replied Gerald, with his usual gallantry. "If you'll stay here, I'll go back to the rank. I passed it a few minutes ago, and there was a taxi there."So he dashed back, got into the cab, and was soon on the spot where the lady, who had recovered consciousness, was standing on one foot, unable to put the other to the ground."It's so extremely kind of you," said the elder lady, while the injured one expressed faint thanks. Then, assisted by the driver, the lady was seated in the conveyance."I really don't know how I shall get her up the stairs," exclaimed the elder woman. "We live in a flat up at Hampstead and we have no hall-porter."Gerald reflected a second, and suddenly recollected that Boyne was now out of sight, so that by that unfortunate accident he was prevented from further following him."I shall be very pleased to accompany you, and give you what assistance I can," he said. "May I get in?""Certainly. It's too kind of you," the injured lady declared. "I fear we are encroaching upon your time, but the taxi can bring you back to wherever you want to go."So Gerald got in, while the elder lady gave the man an address at Hampstead—some mansions, the name of which he did not catch, for, at the moment, he was in conversation with her sister. All he recollected were the words:"It's close to Hampstead tube station."Next moment they drove off, whereupon the elder lady introduced herself as Mrs. Evans, and her sister she said was Miss Mayne."We live together," she went on. "My husband was unfortunately killed on the Somme, so we are companions for each other."Meanwhile Miss Mayne was evidently suffering extreme pain."I'm so sorry, dear," her sister exclaimed. "But as soon as we get home, I'll ring up for Doctor Trueman. He'll no doubt soon set it right.""Can you move your ankle, Miss Mayne?" asked Gerald, who had, in turn, already given the two ladies his name."Unfortunately, no—not in the least. To try to move it causes me excruciating pain. I really don't know what I shall do.""Oh! Surgeons nowadays are wonderful," exclaimed Gerald cheerily. "Probably it is only a simple sprain. At least, let us hope so."So completely engaged in conversation was Gerald, that he did not notice along what thoroughfare they were travelling. Indeed, the driver had taken an intricate route behind Regent's Park, a district quite unknown to the young man.From the ladies he learned that they had been dining with a lady living in Phillimore Place, and were on their way back to Knightsbridge tube station on their return home when the accident happened. That they were refined, well-bred ladies was unquestionable, therefore he was genuinely concerned.At last the taxi stopped before the entrance to a large block of inartistic-looking flats, and with difficulty Miss Mayne descended. Then, assisted by the driver and Gerald, she, with great difficulty, ascended to the first floor, while her sister opened the door with her latch-key, and switched on the light.Within it was a cosy, well-furnished abode, just as one would expect to be the home of two refined women of good position.Mrs. Evans paid the driver, giving him half a sovereign over his fare, and saying:"I shall want you to take this gentleman back to the West End presently. So wait!""Very well, mum," replied the man, pleased with his tip, who then retired.Then, turning to Gerald, she said:"You'll stay a few minutes, won't you? I'll telephone to the doctor." This she did, the telephone being out in the hall, and while he sat with Miss Mayne in the small drawing-room, he heard her sister in conversation with Doctor Trueman."He'll be here in about a quarter of an hour!" she exclaimed, as she re-entered the room. "How fortunate, dear, to find him in!""Yes. I—— Oh! I do hope he'll give me something to dull this terrible pain'" replied the other."No doubt he will," said Gerald encouragingly. "It is too bad of people to throw fruit peel about the pavements. I've had more than one narrow escape from falling myself.""It's positively criminal!" declared Mrs. Evans, with warmth. "Of course you'll stop now, and see what he says. Mr. Durrant," she went on, "I'm only too happy to have been of service to you.""You'll have something?" she suggested. "I'm just going to get my sister a little brandy, and I'll get you a whisky and soda.""No, thanks—all the same," Gerald replied. "The fact is I never drink whisky.""Then a glass of port wine," she laughed gaily. "You won't refuse that—have it, to please me, won't you?"He tried to protest, but she overruled him, and in the end he was forced to accept the glass of wine which a few minutes later she brought him upon a small silver salver, together with her sister's liqueur glass of old brandy.She took nothing herself, but stood chatting as Durrant and her sister sipped their glasses."That's some very old port that was lately given to me by a friend," she explained. "Being a woman, I know nothing of wines, but we had a man dining here with us the other night who pronounced it first-class.""Yes," Gerald said. "It is excellent, though I, too, have no knowledge of wines, which I always think is generally pretended save in the case of men with acute palates who are in the import trade. The man who to-day can sip a glass and tell its vintage is arara avis," he declared.Mrs. Evans agreed with him.She watched him drain his glass with satisfaction, and then urged him to have a second one. But he refused, for, as a matter of fact, he found a strange sensation creeping over him. Though he did not mention it, being too polite, he felt across his eyes a slow, but increasing, blindness. Objects seemed to be receding from his gaze. The muscles of his throat seemed to be contracting, and he felt his cheeks hot and flushed.He tried to stir himself in his chair, but he seemed paralysed. He could not move!He endeavoured to speak, to tell the two ladies of his sudden seizure, but his tongue refused to articulate a word.In his desperate efforts to ask them to call assistance, his hands pawed the air convulsively, and then, of a sudden, he felt himself collapsing, and all became blank.Meanwhile the two women were watching him intently, and the instant they satisfied themselves that he was unconscious, Miss Mayne—who was really Lilla Braybourne, sat where she was, while Mrs. Evans, who was Ena Pollen, the Red Widow—jumped up from her chair, saying eagerly:"All's well up till now! I must tell Bernie."She dashed to the telephone, and, asking for a number, spoke rapidly:"Lilla speaking," she said. "Bernie. He's here, and he's been taken suddenly ill. You'd better come round at once."She listened. Then she said:"Right—you'll get here in a quarter of an hour. He's asleep now!"Then the pretended invalid and her pseudo-sister, leaving Gerald in the drawing-room, where he had collapsed so suddenly after drinking the glass of "doctored" port, went into the dining-room and mixed themselves a stiff brandy and soda each.Afterwards the Red Widow, descending to where the taxi was waiting, gave the man another ten shillings, and said:"The gentleman has changed his mind. He's staying here.""All right, mum," the man replied. "Thank you very much. Good-night."Starting his engine, he drove away well satisfied.
"Don't worry! Am all right. Returning in two or three days. Writing.—GERALD."
Further mystified, she at once went back to Hammersmith, where she found a telegram which had arrived for her at eleven o'clock that morning. It had been dispatched from Knightsbridge, and read:
"Am all right, dear! Do not worry. Have discovered something, but am not returning for a day or two.—GERRY."
"Is it from Mr. Boyne?" asked her aunt as she watched the girl's face.
"No. Why?" she asked.
"Because Mr. Boyne hasn't been home all night," was her aunt's reply. "I can't think what's happened to him! When I went up this morning to wake him, because I thought he had overslept himself, I found that his bed had not been slept in!"
CHAPTER XVII
"NEWS" FROM LANCASTER GATE
Marigold was naturally much puzzled.
What had her lover discovered? What did he know?
By the varying forms of the telegrams she saw that he had excused himself from the office upon a plea of illness, while really he was working in secret to elucidate the mystery of the hooded man of Hammersmith.
The fact that Boyne had been absent that night and had not yet returned, did not arouse her curiosity, for she concluded that Gerry had been following him ever since the previous evening.
She relied upon her lover's cleverness and ingenuity. The changing of his clothes showed her that he was resourceful. She admired him for it.
So she took her tea with her aunt, and afterwards laid Mr. Boyne's table in eager readiness for his return.
He came in and greeted her as cheerily as usual.
"Tell Mrs. Felmore that I expect she's been wondering where I've been all this time. But I went out to Loughton, in Essex, to see a friend last night, and I stayed there. Tell her so, Miss Marigold, will you? And now for my supper! I'm horribly hungry!"
He ate his meal, yet not by any means in the manner of a hungry man. He only toyed with it, for, a matter of fact, he had left Pont Street half an hour before, having taken leave of the Red Widow and his wife, whose faces had borne grim smiles of complete satisfaction.
That night as Marigold lay awake, unable to sleep, she became obsessed by the one idea that she ought to leave the house of mystery and return to Wimbledon Park.
Gerald, by his mysterious message to her, had evidently got upon the track of something, therefore it was useless for her to remain any longer in that strange atmosphere of doubt and fear.
Boyne had retired, and though she remained on the alert until the first streak of dawn shone through the blinds, she heard no movement to arouse her suspicion.
Next day, when she came down into the kitchen, she told her aunt that she was returning home. So, taking her blouse-case, she left before Mr. Boyne came downstairs.
"Marigold has gone to the bank, sir," said Mrs. Felmore when she placed Boyne's coffee and kippers upon the table. "She left word that she thanks you very much for allowing her to stay here, but she couldn't encroach on your kind hospitality any longer."
"Oh!" exclaimed Boyne in surprise. "She's gone—eh?"
"Yes, sir. She went out a quarter of an hour ago. She waited to see if you came down—but she had to go."
Boyne grunted, and remarked something beneath his breath—words that the deaf woman, even with her expert lip-reading eyes, could not understand.
Marigold had slipped safely out of the way. The fact filled him with intense chagrin. What did it portend?
"At least Durrant's activity is at an end!" he growled deeply to himself. "Now we have to deal with this girl. For the present nobody can know of the whereabouts of Gerald Durrant. When they do—I hope the peril will be over!"
And he swallowed his coffee with the gusto and satisfaction of a man who had made a most complete coup, and from whose mind some great weight had been lifted.
An hour later he entered the Hammersmith Post Office and telephoned to the Red Widow.
"Any news, Ena?" he asked as he sat in one of the boxes.
"Yes. Augusta spoke to me half an hour ago. I'm going round to Lancaster Gate at eleven. She's taken ill. A pity, isn't it?"
"Sorry to hear that!" he replied in a grim voice. "I'll see you at Pont Street at seven—eh?"
"Yes. I'll run round," Ena answered. "I've just been through to Lilla. I wonder what can be the matter with poor Augusta? A chill, perhaps—eh? Poor lady! But I hope it isn't serious."
"I hope not. Good-bye for the present."
And then the honest, hard-working collector of insurance premiums of the poor of Hammersmith went forth upon his daily round, trudging from street to street, knocking or ringing at the doors of the insured.
He made a call in Dalling Road, just beyond the railway arch, and then, proceeding up the thoroughfare, consulted his pocket account-book. Close to Chiswick High Road he made a further call, where he signed the book for the weekly premium.
Presently he halted at a small and very poor-looking house in the Devonport Road, a turning off the Goldhawk Road, where he rang at the door. At the windows were curtains blackened by the London smoke, for the whole neighbourhood was one of genteel poverty, but of despair.
An ugly, but cleanly dressed old woman answered, and, seeing him, knit her brows.
"Ah! Come in, Mr. Boyne!" she said, and the collector of premiums entered.
Five minutes later he came out, the old woman following him. He was evidently not himself, for usually his was a kindly nature towards the poor. But that day his manner was rough and uncouth. Something had upset him.
"Well, I'm sorry, Mrs. Pentreath," he said in a loud voice. "But, you see, it isn't in my hands. I'm only a humble servant of the company—an ill-paid servant who gets just a living wage upon the premiums he collects. You've had time to pay, you know, and if you can't pay up this week—well, the policy must lapse. You've been given notice of it for six weeks. The company has been very lenient with you. Other companies wouldn't have been so lenient."
"But my poor Bertha! She's come home from service, and is in bed with consumption. I have to look after her and try to give her the nourishment Doctor James orders. It isn't my fault that I haven't paid you. It really isn't."
"I can't help that," replied Boyne roughly. "Your insurance policy must lapse—that's all.
"And after fifteen years that I've paid regularly each week!" exclaimed the poor woman in dismay.
"Well, it isn't my fault, I tell you. I'm not the company," was his harsh reply.
"And my poor Bertha so ill. It's cruel—it's inhuman, I say!" she shouted in a shrill voice.
Boyne only smiled grimly. He was not the kindly man of other days.
"It probably is so," he replied, turning away from the door. "But it's our insurance business; and business is business, after all!
"Yes!" retorted the poor woman. "You people are robbing the poor—that's what it is! And after fifteen years! Why, I've paid your company more in that time than what they would have paid to bury my Bertha!"
At a small house in the Loftus Road he knocked three times, and a dwarfed, red-eyed girl at last opened the door.
"Poor mother's dead, Mr. Boyne! Didn't you see the blinds?" she asked.
"Dead!" he exclaimed, looking at the little window of the sitting-room. "Get your book."
"I'll go and get it," was the girl's reply. "Mother died late last night. The doctor says it's heart disease."
"All right. Give me the book," he said brutally. "I suppose we'll have to pay. You paid up last week, didn't you?"
"Yes, sir, I paid you—and you'll find it down," the girl said, and, disappearing, she presently returned with the insurance book.
The house-to-house visits of the insurance collector of those fat dividend paying companies who insure the lives of the lower classes are truly fraught with many strange dramas and stirring tales of poverty and misfortune.
While Bernard Boyne was on his weary round, Ena Pollen alighted from a taxi at the private hotel in Lancaster Gate, a big, old-fashioned house which for years had been known to country visitors to London as a quiet and excellent place in which to stay.
The young man-servant who opened the door told her that Mrs. Morrison was upstairs. The proprietor's wife met her in the hall, and, in response to the Red Widow's inquiry, said:
"Mrs. Morrison hasn't been very well for a couple of days. She was taken ill last night, so I called my doctor—Doctor Tressider—and he came to see her. He seems puzzled. He can't make out at present what's the matter with her. He's calling again to-night. She came over very ill when she returned from Brighton."
"I'll go upstairs," said Mrs. Pollen. "It is most unfortunate, isn't it? She's only here in town for a short time, and now she's taken ill like this. I do hope it's nothing serious."
"Oh, no. I asked Doctor Tressider, and he thinks it is simply a little stomach trouble. To-morrow she'll be better," was the woman's reply.
So Ena ascended the stairs, and, after tapping at the door, entered the neat little bedroom on the second floor.
"Well, dear!" she exclaimed cheerily as she entered. "I couldn't let the day pass without coming to see you. Whatever is the matter?"
"I really don't know, Ena," replied Mrs. Morrison of Carsphairn. "I felt so ill in the train coming up to Victoria that I had great difficulty in getting back here."
"But the doctor says you'll be all right to-morrow," said Ena.
"I feel awfully ill," replied the other feebly. "I seem so feverish—hot at one moment and cold at another."
"No, no," said Mrs. Pollen cheerily. "You'll be all right, never fear. When one feels feverish one's temperature is generally below normal. I do hope these people are looking after you all right?"
"Oh, yes, they do. I have no complaint to make on that score. You recommended me here, and I must say that I'm most comfortable. But what worries me is my visit up North."
"Don't bother about that," laughed the other. "Get well first. Write and tell them you can't come."
"I wish you would do it for me. Pen and paper are over there," said the sick woman, whose eyes glistened strangely.
"No; you must do it," replied Ena quickly. She had a reason. "If I were to write to them they might think it strange. You are not too ill to write. I'll get you the pad."
And, carrying it to her on the bed, she induced Mrs. Morrison to write two letters to her friends—letters which she duly posted when she got outside.
"The doctor doesn't seem to know what is the matter with me," the invalid said in a weak voice after she had laid down her fountain pen. "My head is so terribly bad—and my throat too."
"What time is he coming again?"
"To-night, I think. I hope so."
"My dear, it's only a chill," Ena said with comforting cheerfulness. "You'll be all right in a day or two. You've been in a draught, perhaps."
"Ah! but my head! It seems as though it must burst. At times I can't think. All my senses seem blurred."
"Did you tell the doctor that?"
"Yes. And it seemed to puzzle him more than ever. I hope I'm not going to have a bad illness."
"Of course not," laughed Ena. "You'll be better in a day or so. Remain quiet, and I'll run in to-morrow morning to see how you are. If you're worse, tell them to ring me up. I'm just going round to the Davidsons. They will be most distressed to hear of your sudden illness."
The widow of Carsphairn turned over on her pillow and moaned slightly. Her face was flushed, and it was evident to Ena that the last words she had uttered the sick woman had not understood.
So she took her leave, and on descending the stairs to the wide hall, again encountered the proprietor's wife.
"My friend Mrs. Morrison seems very unwell," said Ena. "I can't make it out at all. I do hope the doctor will discover what is the matter with her."
"Doctor Tressider is my own doctor," replied the woman. "He'll be here again before dinner time, and I hope he won't find anything really very wrong."
"Well, whatever he says, would you mind letting me know over the 'phone?" asked Ena, taking out her visiting-card, upon which was printed her telephone number.
"Certainly I will," was the reply.
"And if there is anything serious I'll come round at once," she said.
So they parted, and Ena hailed a taxi outside, and returned to Upper Brook Street well satisfied with her morning's work.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE COUP AND ITS CONSEQUENCE
Next day passed, but though Ena remained at home in a high state of anxiety, she received no message from Lancaster Gate.
At eight o'clock she rang up, and spoke to the proprietress of the hotel.
"Mrs. Morrison is certainly not quite so well as she was yesterday, but though Doctor Tressider has been twice to-day he has not yet been able to diagnose the complaint."
"Is she in pain?" asked Mrs. Pollen sympathetically.
"No. She does not complain. But no doubt we shall know more to-morrow."
"Very well. Please tell her I inquired, and to-morrow, about eleven, I'll call and see her again."
And, having rung off, she spoke to Lilla, telling her of the conversation.
"You'll go to-morrow and see her, my dear," urged Boyne's wife. "Bernard is here. I'll tell him."
"What about the girl?" asked Ena.
"Oh, for the present she's all right. She's gone back to Wimbledon. The telegrams have satisfied her."
"Right! Then I'll see you to-morrow after I've been to Lancaster Gate," said the Red Widow, and then they broke off the conversation.
"Well, the doctor doesn't know yet what's the matter," Lilla afterwards said to Boyne, who was sitting in the handsome drawing-room.
"Oh! he will to-morrow—never fear!" was the man's grim reply. "He must be a duffer if he doesn't recognise the symptoms. I expected him to know yesterday."
"You thought we should have had news on Wednesday, and it's now Friday."
"Yes. But delay is rather a good sign," he said. "Did you tell Ena about the nursing home?"
"Yes; I did so yesterday."
"I've heard that Miss Propert's, out at Golder's Green, is quite a good place. Nobody connected with it has any knowledge of us."
"I told her that. And she agreed. She is rather afraid that some of Mrs. Morrison's friends may come up from Brighton, and she is in no way anxious to meet them."
"No! She mustn't do so!" declared Boyne. "She must take good care that no friends are at Lancaster Gate when she calls."
"Good! I'll tell her that over the 'phone presently."
"And also tell her not to take a too eager interest in her—I mean, no interest further than that of a comparatively freshly made friend," he said; and afterwards they went out to a theatre together.
Next morning, just before eleven, as Ena Pollen was contemplating speaking with Mrs. Morrison's hotel, the proprietor's wife rang up.
"Mrs. Pollen," she said, "I'm very sorry to give you bad news about your friend. Doctor Tressider has just been here, and says that she is suffering from diphtheria!"
"Oh! I'm so sorry!" cried the Red Widow. "How very unfortunate! Are any other friends there?"
"No. But I believe somebody is coming up from Brighton this afternoon."
"Very well," said Ena. "I'll take a taxi and come round now."
This she did. Pleading that she might become infected, she did not ascend to Mrs. Morrison's room, but sat in the little office of the proprietor's wife.
"Of course she can't remain here," said the woman. "It isn't fair to my other visitors."
"Of course not," Ena agreed. "She must go at once to a nursing home. A friend of mine had diphtheria about a year ago, and went to a place somewhere at Golder's Green. I think Prosser or Potter was the name of the person who runs it. We might perhaps find it in the telephone directory. I think that was the name—but I'm not quite sure. Poor Augusta! I'm so sorry, but I really think it would be unwise of me to go in and see her—don't you?"
"I quite agree," replied the proprietor's wife, and, taking down the telephone directory, she began to search for the name, but could not find it.
At last, after some minutes, she exclaimed:
"Ah! Here it is. Miss Propert's nursing home. Yes, Golder's Green! Here is the number. I'll telephone and ask if they have a room vacant."
Five minutes later it was fixed. Miss Propert had promised to send an ambulance at once, and soon afterwards the Red Widow was round at Pont Street reporting to Lilla all that had taken place, while early that same afternoon the patient had already been transferred to the nursing home, where she had been promised by the unsuspecting matron "every attention."
As the days passed Marigold Ramsay travelled each morning from Wimbledon Park to the City, and sat each luncheon hour in the same little restaurant, but alone.
She was sorely puzzled why Gerald did not write to her. Without doubt he had gone somewhere to follow up a clue concerning the mystery man of Hammersmith, but she felt hurt that he had not written to tell her of his whereabouts.
Time after time she took out his telegram, which she carried in her big bag-purse, and re-read it:
"Am all right, dear. Do not worry. Have discovered something, but am not returning for a day or two.—GERRY."
The "day or two" had elapsed. He told her not to worry, therefore she tried to obey him. Still, it was strange that he did not send her a line.
Twice she called at his office in Mincing Lane, but she was told by a female clerk that Mr. Durrant had not returned. Nothing more had been heard of him, except that he was away at home ill.
Marigold smiled within herself at the excuse her lover had given for his absence, and wondered hour by hour what he had discovered concerning Mr. Boyne.
She went over to Hammersmith and had tea with her aunt. From her she learned that her employer had been at home each night. The only night he had been absent was the night of Gerald's disappearance.
She even contrived to get a glimpse of the interior of that cupboard in Mr. Boyne's bedroom, but the groceries intended for the poor widow of Notting Hill Gate were still there intact, as well as the tea-kettle and the bowl.
What had taken Gerald away?
For three days her anxiety increased, when on the fourth evening, on her return to Wimbledon, she found a telegram from him. It had been dispatched from the post-office in Bristol Road, Birmingham, and read:
"Returning very soon, dearest. Remain patient. Tell my sister. Love.—GERRY."
Time after time she read it with complete satisfaction, and afterwards she went out to Ealing and showed it to her lover's sister.
"That takes a great weight off my mind, Marigold," said Gerald's sister. "Still, his sudden disappearance seems very strange. I wonder why he's gone away—and why he's in Birmingham?"
"Yes," replied the girl. "It does seem curious, but think I know the reason."
"What is it?" asked his sister anxiously.
"A secret reason," was Marigold's reply. "I'm sorry that I can't tell you—not unless he gives me permission."
"What—is anything wrong?" asked the young woman.
"Oh, nothing wrong with Gerald—not at all. Only he is trying to find out something—that's all. And until he is successful I don't think he wants anyone to know his intentions."
"Well, I hope he's made it right at his office. Employers don't like men who pretend to be ill at home and go away."
"No doubt he has. Gerald isn't a fool," the girl replied, a little piqued at his sister's words, and very soon afterwards she left for home.
The message from Birmingham allayed her anxiety to a very great extent. When once Gerald took up any matter he never left it until it was complete. He was the very essence of business, and his principal held him in high esteem on account of his method and his pertinacity. Marigold knew that. He was following some secret clue concerning the hooded man of Bridge Place, and it seemed as though he feared to put anything concerning it into writing.
That night as she lay awake she reflected that the message was indeed very gratifying, yet at the same time, she found herself wondering why he had not written her just a few brief words.
She, however, kept her own counsel, feeling confident that Gerald would as soon as possible return to tell her what he had found out.
The fact that the store of food in Boyne's bedroom was still there negatived the idea that it was intended for any person concealed in the locked room above. On thinking it all over, she began to doubt whether that curious cry was really human, or did it only exist in her imagination?
Next day she went to the bank as usual, but life was very dreary without Gerald's smiling face. He was her ideal of the fine courteous man, strong, and devoid of that effeminacy which, alas! too often characterises the temporary officers who so gallantly assisted in winning the war. He had neither pose, drawl, nor affectation, as is so common in and around Fenchurch Street. He dressed quietly, and his manners were gentlemanly without being obtrusive. He spoke little and listened always. In Marigold's eyes he was the type of a perfect modern gentleman—as indeed he was.
City life, with its morning rush to business from the suburbs and its evening scramble for a seat in 'bus, train or tram, is to the business girl a wearing existence. The tubes, with their queux, the trains with their packed compartments, the 'buses with their boorish attendants, and the trams crowded to suffocation with either rain-wet or perspiring humanity, are part of the life of a London business girl. Yet she is always merry and bright, for she takes things as they come and thrives upon a gobbled breakfast or a belated home-coming.
Marigold Ramsay was typical of the London female bank clerk—eager, reliable, assiduous at her work, which consisted of poring over big ledgers all day beneath a green-shaded electric light until the figures—units, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands—danced before her tired eyes ere she closed her book and put on her hat to return home.
On the night following the receipt of that gratifying message, she rushed back to Wimbledon wondering if any further telegram awaited her.
But there was none. In disappointment she sat down to her evening meal, the one problem in her mind being the whereabouts of the young man who was her lover and who had so mysteriously left her side and disappeared.
He could not be following Boyne, for the latter was living quite calmly his usual uneventful life, therefore, if he were not following him, why could he not write to her and explain?
That point sorely perplexed her.
Meanwhile Ena Pollen telephoned twice a day to Golder's Green to inquire how her friend Mrs. Morrison progressed, and on each occasion the matron would answer her, but the news was of increasing gravity.
She sent kind messages, but the matron expressed regret that the patient was too ill to be given them.
On the evening when Marigold had sped back to Wimbledon hoping for a further telegram, Miss Propert had, after telling the Red Widow how critical was Mrs. Morrison's condition, added that some relatives had come up from Brighton.
"Unfortunately, the doctor will not allow anyone to see her," she went on. "Only this evening I have had a telegram from her sister in Scotland saying she is on her way to London, but as she gives no address, I am unable to stop her, so her journey will be useless."
"Useless? Why?" asked Ena.
"Well—I'm sorry to tell you that the doctor who saw her an hour ago holds out but little hope of her recovery. She has diphtheria in its most virulent form."
"Oh! How terrible!" cried Ena. "But is it really so very serious?"
"Yes. There is no use disguising the fact. It is a most critical case."
"But, surely, there is no immediate danger?" she asked, full of concern.
"The critical period will be within the next twenty-four hours," came the reply. "If she gets over to-morrow night, she will probably recover."
Ena Pollen held her breath, while her brows narrowed, and she made a strange grimace.
"Well, Miss Propert, you won't fail to let me know how my friend is—will you?"
"Of course not," was the reply. "I hope she will be better to-morrow morning. But—well, personally, I entertain but little hope. I have never seen a worse case of diphtheria."
Ena hung up the receiver, and crossing the room, took a long sniff at her smelling-salts.
Then, going back to the telephone, she rang up Lilla, and said briefly:
"Our poor friend is very bad indeed. I'll let you know how she is in the morning. Is Bernard there?"
"No; he's just gone back," answered her friend.
"Well, I want you both to dine here to-morrow night. Will you?"
"Why?"
"You know the reason—surely!"
"Oh, yes—yes! Very well, dear. At half-past seven."
So that was agreed.
Next morning, just before noon, Boyne called at Pont Street and learned from Lilla—who had just spoken to Ena—that Mrs. Morrison of Carsphairn was in an extremely critical condition.
"H'm!" grunted her husband. "Then all goes as it should—eh? No other acute disease presents so great a liability to sudden death as diphtheria. I suppose the doctor, whoever he is, has been all along examining the patient's heart for any indication of an approaching catastrophe."
"But sudden death can't take place—can it?" asked Lilla.
"Oh, yes," replied her husband in a voice of authority. "The more insidious forms of sudden death from diphtheria take place through the nervous system and heart. In such a case the pulse beats only twenty or thirty a minute—and that is probably what has aroused the doctor's fears."
"But, according to Ena, she hasn't a very bad throat."
"That may be so," he said, speaking in the way of a medical man. "She may have an extension of the false membrane into the air passage, which would block the larynx trachea or bronchi, which is always gradual, and may be fatal. But if the doctor has come to the conclusion that she's in a very bad way, I should think that the end will come this evening."
"You'll dine at Ena's—eh?"
"Of course I will. I'll be there just after seven," he said, and, after leisurely finishing a cigarette, he left her.
Just before half-past seven he entered Ena Pollen's flat, where Lilla was already seated in the drawing-room. He wore a simple blue serge suit, for that night he had come straight from Hammersmith, and had not dressed to go to a restaurant or the theatre.
"Well?" he asked the Red Widow. "Anything fresh?"
"Nothing. I telephoned to Golder's Green an hour ago, and found Miss Propert was most despondent."
"Poor dear!" laughed Lilla. "What a pity! Her bill will be paid all right—so she needn't fret!"
Presently they sat down to a very pleasant little dinner, where, with sardonic laughter, the trio of death-dealers lifted their glasses of champagne to "dear Augusta's speedy recovery."
After dinner they returned to the drawing-room, where they took their liqueurs and coffee, all three being in excellent spirits.
The only serious moment was when the Red Widow suddenly remarked:
"I don't half like the situation concerning that young fellow Durrant! Do you know, I feel some strange presage of evil—I mean that we may have made a slip there."
"Slip!" laughed Boyne derisively. "Nothing of the kind, my dear Ena! I saw to that all right. And surely you can trust me?"
"But suppose we have?"
"No need to worry further about him. He won't trouble us any more."
"The next person to be silenced is that girl," Lilla said in a hard voice.
"Yes," was Boyne's slow reply. "I think I've formed a plan which will be just as successful as that we carried out concerning her too inquisitive lover."
And as he spoke, he blew a cloud of smoke from his lips and watched it curl towards the ceiling.
Suddenly—it was then about ten o'clock—almost as the words fell from his lips, the telephone bell rang sharply.
All three started.
"Ah!" gasped Ena, springing up. "There you are! At last!"
"Yes," she replied, taking up the receiver. Then, listening, she exclaimed: "Oh! you, Miss Propert—well? Oh! How dreadful!—how very sad! She passed away ten minutes ago! Thank you so much for telling me. I'm so sorry—so very sorry!"
And she replaced the receiver.
"You look sorry!" laughed Boyne. "Really, it is most distressing to think that we shall very soon draw ten thousand pounds!" he added mockingly, whereat the two women laughed gaily, for the coup so elaborately prepared had at last been brought off!
CHAPTER XIX
WHAT HAPPENED TO GERALD
The days passed, and Marigold, hearing nothing further from Gerald, called again at Mincing Lane, and there learned that they had not heard again from young Durrant.
A clerk had been sent over to Ealing to inquire about him, but had returned with the information that, instead of being ill, he had not been seen by his sister.
"The firm at once suspected something wrong with the books," said the female clerk of whom she made the inquiry, "but Mr. Durrant was such an honest, straightforward young man that we all ridiculed the idea."
"Have the books been examined?" asked Marigold breathlessly.
"Oh, yes; and nothing has been found wrong."
The girl drew a sigh of relief.
She then showed the clerk the telegram she had received from Birmingham, and she, in turn, promised to show it to the principal when he came in.
Marigold Ramsay walked down Mincing Lane to Fenchurch Street in gloom and despair. She returned to the bank and sat at her books, unable to work, unable to do anything, save to wonder why Gerald had so suddenly left her. Yet he had bidden her not to worry over him and had promised to return.
That evening she went over to Hammersmith, and her aunt, noticing how pale and worried she looked, inquired the reason, asking:
"Have you heard yet from Mr. Durrant?"
"No, auntie. Unfortunately, I haven't, but I'm expecting to hear every day."
"Funny he went away like that, wasn't it?" the deaf old woman remarked, though inwardly she suspected that there had been some quarrel between them, and that he had left her in consequence.
"Yes," replied the girl faintly. Then she asked after Mr. Boyne.
"Oh! he's been away four days now. He said he was going into Wales on some insurance business, and would be away a week or perhaps ten days."
"Unusual for him to go away, isn't it?" Marigold remarked.
"Yes. He's never been away for more than a week together in all the time I've been with him."
The girl left Hammersmith early, and, returning to Wimbledon Park, sat at her window and wept for a long time before retiring to rest. To her the world was empty and hopeless without Gerald.
What had she done, she wondered, that he should have left her in that fashion. That he was following Boyne was a mere excuse, she felt sure. It irritated her to think that he should try to deceive her. What was he doing in Birmingham? If there were reasons why he did not wish to return to London, then why did he not give her his address, and then she could easily have run up to see him.
The more she thought it over the more mystified did she become.
The mystery was increased three days later when, on returning from the City, she found a telegram on the table in the narrow hall.
Her heart leapt as she tore it open.
It had been sent from Paris, of all places, and read:
"Sorry could not write, dear. Do not worry. Shall be back soon. Have wired to the office. Love.—GERALD."
"Love!—Gerald!" she repeated aloud to herself. "Oh! why does he not give me an address, so that I can write to him? It's cruel—very cruel of him to keep me in suspense like this!" she cried in a frenzy of despair.
She ate sparingly in the little dining-room of the jerry-built villa—for nowhere is the jerry-builder more in evidence than in Wimbledon Park, with his white-painted gables and his white-painted balconies to his six-roomed houses. But let us not misunderstand. It is best for the workers—the brains and backbone of England—to live in smiling houses, even though jerry-built, than in many of those grey, rain-sodden houses of the Midlands and the North, where the "knocker-up" pursues his calling each dawn and the factory hooter sounds all too early.
Personally, the writer here declares that he has no love for the capitalist. The latter has too often, ever since the Early Victorian days, been either a swindler or an aristocrat of bad intentions, and the jerry-builder was the natural outcome of his parting with his estate.
Poor Marigold! She could go no farther in the maze of doubt and uncertainty.
A dozen times that night she re-read the mysterious, but unconvincing, message. She was a girl of high intelligence, or she would not have been employed by the bank. The whole affair puzzled her, as it would indeed have puzzled anybody.
Next day after her luncheon she went round again to Mincing Lane, and made inquiry regarding the missing man.
The same girl told her that the principal had received a mysterious wire from Paris.
"I saw the telegram," she said. "It was from Paris, and was quite abrupt, saying that he would probably return in a week or so."
"But what does it all mean?" asked the distressed girl.
"I really don't know," replied the other girl. "Mr. Durrant's gone away, and that's all!"
That night Marigold went over to Ealing, and to Gerald's sister she showed the telegram. It puzzled her sorely.
"Whatever can Gerald be doing in Paris?" she exclaimed. "Why could he not write to us, eh?"
"I don't know," was the reply of the unnerved girl. "I think he ought to send us some address."
"But he may do so later," replied his sister. "Gerald is a man of business. He would realise how troubled we all are."
"He seems to have faded out of existence," said the girl, seated in the front parlour of the neat little villa of the neat suburban road.
"Yes," said his sister. "He certainly does. I await a letter each morning, but none comes."
"But what can he be doing in Paris?" queried Marigold. "Without a doubt, he has lost the confidence of his firm. He pretended to be lying ill here, and they have found out that he isn't ill at all!"
"Yes. The other day a middle-aged man came to see him, but I was forced to admit that he wasn't here—that he was missing," replied Gerald's sister.
Marigold went home utterly dispirited. What could she do? It was useless to go to the police and raise a hue and cry regarding a man who, from time to time, telegraphed to his employers and to her that he was on the point of returning. So she was compelled to wait.
Gerald Durrant had disappeared. He had sent her messages, it is true, messages of comfort, yet when she argued within herself, she saw that he ought, at least, to have given her some address to which she could reply by letter or by telegram.
True, Boyne was absent. But he had only been absent for a few days, while her lover had been missing very much longer.
Four more days of blank despair crept slowly by. Seated beneath her green-shaded light at the bank, with her great ledger before her, Marigold reckoned up the columns of figures mechanically, and handed them to be checked. They were accounts of all classes of merchants, mostly of profiteers, firms who had made fortunes out of the valour and blood of the gallant fellows who had given their lives for Britain. She felt so unhappy without her lover. Gerald, who had directed those investigations concerning the hooded man who was her aunt's employer, had disappeared with startling suddenness, yet he had assured her that he was following some mysterious clue.
The latter she had proved, by reason of the knowledge of Boyne's movements, to be non-existent. Was her lover deceiving her? That suspicion caused her the greatest irritation and annoyance.
That evening she sauntered along Pont Street, and looked up at the red-brick house which Boyne had entered on that well-remembered night. But the place was in complete darkness, save for a light in the servants' quarters.
Then again she went to Bridge Place, and learned from the old deaf woman that her master had not yet returned.
"He's having a very nice long holiday," said Mrs. Felmore. "And he deserves it, too—a-tramping about Hammersmith all day and in all weathers, as he does."
Three weeks went past, but no further word had come from Gerald, either to his principal, his sister, or to his well-beloved.
Gerald Durrant had, truth to tell, met with some strange and startling adventures since the night of his disappearance.
In the darkness on that well-remembered night he was walking along the Kensington Road towards Knightsbridge, following Boyne at a respectful distance, and keeping a wary eye upon him, without arousing any suspicion as he naturally believed.
While passing the railings of Kensington Gardens, close to Queen's Gate, he saw a female figure lying upon the pavement with a lady bending over her concernedly.
Hastening up, he found both ladies to be well dressed, and inquired what had occurred.
"Oh, dear!" cried the elder lady, in great distress. "My sister has just slipped down on a piece of banana peel, I think, and she's broken her ankle. She can't move, and she doesn't speak. She has fainted. I—I wonder, sir, if you would be so kind as to call me a taxi."
"Certainly I will," replied Gerald, with his usual gallantry. "If you'll stay here, I'll go back to the rank. I passed it a few minutes ago, and there was a taxi there."
So he dashed back, got into the cab, and was soon on the spot where the lady, who had recovered consciousness, was standing on one foot, unable to put the other to the ground.
"It's so extremely kind of you," said the elder lady, while the injured one expressed faint thanks. Then, assisted by the driver, the lady was seated in the conveyance.
"I really don't know how I shall get her up the stairs," exclaimed the elder woman. "We live in a flat up at Hampstead and we have no hall-porter."
Gerald reflected a second, and suddenly recollected that Boyne was now out of sight, so that by that unfortunate accident he was prevented from further following him.
"I shall be very pleased to accompany you, and give you what assistance I can," he said. "May I get in?"
"Certainly. It's too kind of you," the injured lady declared. "I fear we are encroaching upon your time, but the taxi can bring you back to wherever you want to go."
So Gerald got in, while the elder lady gave the man an address at Hampstead—some mansions, the name of which he did not catch, for, at the moment, he was in conversation with her sister. All he recollected were the words:
"It's close to Hampstead tube station."
Next moment they drove off, whereupon the elder lady introduced herself as Mrs. Evans, and her sister she said was Miss Mayne.
"We live together," she went on. "My husband was unfortunately killed on the Somme, so we are companions for each other."
Meanwhile Miss Mayne was evidently suffering extreme pain.
"I'm so sorry, dear," her sister exclaimed. "But as soon as we get home, I'll ring up for Doctor Trueman. He'll no doubt soon set it right."
"Can you move your ankle, Miss Mayne?" asked Gerald, who had, in turn, already given the two ladies his name.
"Unfortunately, no—not in the least. To try to move it causes me excruciating pain. I really don't know what I shall do."
"Oh! Surgeons nowadays are wonderful," exclaimed Gerald cheerily. "Probably it is only a simple sprain. At least, let us hope so."
So completely engaged in conversation was Gerald, that he did not notice along what thoroughfare they were travelling. Indeed, the driver had taken an intricate route behind Regent's Park, a district quite unknown to the young man.
From the ladies he learned that they had been dining with a lady living in Phillimore Place, and were on their way back to Knightsbridge tube station on their return home when the accident happened. That they were refined, well-bred ladies was unquestionable, therefore he was genuinely concerned.
At last the taxi stopped before the entrance to a large block of inartistic-looking flats, and with difficulty Miss Mayne descended. Then, assisted by the driver and Gerald, she, with great difficulty, ascended to the first floor, while her sister opened the door with her latch-key, and switched on the light.
Within it was a cosy, well-furnished abode, just as one would expect to be the home of two refined women of good position.
Mrs. Evans paid the driver, giving him half a sovereign over his fare, and saying:
"I shall want you to take this gentleman back to the West End presently. So wait!"
"Very well, mum," replied the man, pleased with his tip, who then retired.
Then, turning to Gerald, she said:
"You'll stay a few minutes, won't you? I'll telephone to the doctor." This she did, the telephone being out in the hall, and while he sat with Miss Mayne in the small drawing-room, he heard her sister in conversation with Doctor Trueman.
"He'll be here in about a quarter of an hour!" she exclaimed, as she re-entered the room. "How fortunate, dear, to find him in!"
"Yes. I—— Oh! I do hope he'll give me something to dull this terrible pain'" replied the other.
"No doubt he will," said Gerald encouragingly. "It is too bad of people to throw fruit peel about the pavements. I've had more than one narrow escape from falling myself."
"It's positively criminal!" declared Mrs. Evans, with warmth. "Of course you'll stop now, and see what he says. Mr. Durrant," she went on, "I'm only too happy to have been of service to you."
"You'll have something?" she suggested. "I'm just going to get my sister a little brandy, and I'll get you a whisky and soda."
"No, thanks—all the same," Gerald replied. "The fact is I never drink whisky."
"Then a glass of port wine," she laughed gaily. "You won't refuse that—have it, to please me, won't you?"
He tried to protest, but she overruled him, and in the end he was forced to accept the glass of wine which a few minutes later she brought him upon a small silver salver, together with her sister's liqueur glass of old brandy.
She took nothing herself, but stood chatting as Durrant and her sister sipped their glasses.
"That's some very old port that was lately given to me by a friend," she explained. "Being a woman, I know nothing of wines, but we had a man dining here with us the other night who pronounced it first-class."
"Yes," Gerald said. "It is excellent, though I, too, have no knowledge of wines, which I always think is generally pretended save in the case of men with acute palates who are in the import trade. The man who to-day can sip a glass and tell its vintage is arara avis," he declared.
Mrs. Evans agreed with him.
She watched him drain his glass with satisfaction, and then urged him to have a second one. But he refused, for, as a matter of fact, he found a strange sensation creeping over him. Though he did not mention it, being too polite, he felt across his eyes a slow, but increasing, blindness. Objects seemed to be receding from his gaze. The muscles of his throat seemed to be contracting, and he felt his cheeks hot and flushed.
He tried to stir himself in his chair, but he seemed paralysed. He could not move!
He endeavoured to speak, to tell the two ladies of his sudden seizure, but his tongue refused to articulate a word.
In his desperate efforts to ask them to call assistance, his hands pawed the air convulsively, and then, of a sudden, he felt himself collapsing, and all became blank.
Meanwhile the two women were watching him intently, and the instant they satisfied themselves that he was unconscious, Miss Mayne—who was really Lilla Braybourne, sat where she was, while Mrs. Evans, who was Ena Pollen, the Red Widow—jumped up from her chair, saying eagerly:
"All's well up till now! I must tell Bernie."
She dashed to the telephone, and, asking for a number, spoke rapidly:
"Lilla speaking," she said. "Bernie. He's here, and he's been taken suddenly ill. You'd better come round at once."
She listened. Then she said:
"Right—you'll get here in a quarter of an hour. He's asleep now!"
Then the pretended invalid and her pseudo-sister, leaving Gerald in the drawing-room, where he had collapsed so suddenly after drinking the glass of "doctored" port, went into the dining-room and mixed themselves a stiff brandy and soda each.
Afterwards the Red Widow, descending to where the taxi was waiting, gave the man another ten shillings, and said:
"The gentleman has changed his mind. He's staying here."
"All right, mum," the man replied. "Thank you very much. Good-night."
Starting his engine, he drove away well satisfied.