The handwriting was educated, though small and crabbed, and the ink brown and half-faded, perhaps because of its exposure to a tropical climate. It had been written by a man, without a doubt.
"That," said Edwards, "was found in a pocket-book belonging to Cane, which, in his hasty flight, he apparently forgot. According to our report the wallet was found concealed beneath the mattress of his bed, as though he feared lest anyone shouldread and learn what it contained. Read it, and tell me what you think."
I took the sheet of thin paper in my fingers, and, crossing the room to a brighter light, managed to decipher the writing as follows:
"... At fourteen paces from where this wall rises from the lawn stands the ever-plashing fountain. The basin is circular, while around runs a paved path, hemmed in by smoke-blackened laurels and cut off from the public way by iron railings. The water falls with pleasant cadence into a small basin set upon a base of moss-grown rockwork. Looking south one meets a vista of green grass, of never-ceasing London traffic, and one tall distant factory chimney away in the grey haze, while around the fountain are four stunted trees. On the right stretches a strip of garden, in spring green and gay with bulbs which bloom and die unnoticed by the hundreds upon hundreds of London's workers who pass and re-pass daily in their mad, reckless hurry to earn the wherewithal to live."Halt upon the gravel at that spot on the twenty-third of the month punctually at noon, and she will pass wearing the yellow flower. It is the only trysting-place. She has kept it religiously for one whole year without—alas!—effecting a meeting. Go there—tell her that I still live, shake her hand in greeting and assure her that I will come there as soon as ever I am given strength so to do."I have been at that spot once only, yet every detail of its appearance is impressed indelibly upon my memory. Alas! that I do not know its name. Search and you will assuredly find it—and you will see her. You will speak, and give her courage."
"... At fourteen paces from where this wall rises from the lawn stands the ever-plashing fountain. The basin is circular, while around runs a paved path, hemmed in by smoke-blackened laurels and cut off from the public way by iron railings. The water falls with pleasant cadence into a small basin set upon a base of moss-grown rockwork. Looking south one meets a vista of green grass, of never-ceasing London traffic, and one tall distant factory chimney away in the grey haze, while around the fountain are four stunted trees. On the right stretches a strip of garden, in spring green and gay with bulbs which bloom and die unnoticed by the hundreds upon hundreds of London's workers who pass and re-pass daily in their mad, reckless hurry to earn the wherewithal to live.
"Halt upon the gravel at that spot on the twenty-third of the month punctually at noon, and she will pass wearing the yellow flower. It is the only trysting-place. She has kept it religiously for one whole year without—alas!—effecting a meeting. Go there—tell her that I still live, shake her hand in greeting and assure her that I will come there as soon as ever I am given strength so to do.
"I have been at that spot once only, yet every detail of its appearance is impressed indelibly upon my memory. Alas! that I do not know its name. Search and you will assuredly find it—and you will see her. You will speak, and give her courage."
I bit my lip.
A sudden thought illuminated my mind.
The yellow flower!
Was not the mysterious woman whom I was to meet on the night of the fourteenth also to wear a yellow flower—the mimosa!
I toldEdwards nothing of Sir Digby's curious request, of his strange confidences, or of the mysterious letter to "E. P. K.", which now reposed in a locked drawer in my writing-table.
My friend, be he impostor or not, had always treated me strictly honourably and well. Therefore, I did not intend to betray him, although he might be a fugitive hunted by the police.
Yet was he a fugitive? Did not his words to me and his marvellous disguise prior to the tragedy imply an intention to disappear?
The enigma was indeed beyond solution.
At seven o'clock my visitor, finding necessity to revisit Harrington Gardens, I eagerly accompanied him.
There is a briskness and brightness in Piccadilly at seven o'clock on a clear, cold, winter's night unequalled in any thoroughfare in the world. On the pavements and in the motor-buses are thousands of London's workers hurrying to their homes in western suburbs, mostly the female employees of the hundreds of shops and work-rooms which supply the world's fashions—for, after all, London has nowousted Paris as the centre of the feminine mode—the shops are still gaily lit, the club windows have not yet drawn their blinds, and as motors and taxis flash past eastward, one catches glimpses of pretty women in gay evening gowns, accompanied by their male escorts on pleasure bent: the restaurant, the theatre, and the supper, until the unwelcome cry—that cry which resounds at half-past twelve from end to end of Greater London, "Time, please, ladies and gentlemen. Time!"—the pharisaical decree that further harmless merriment is forbidden. How the foreigner laughs at our childish obedience to the decree of the killjoys. And well he may, especially when we know full well that while the good people of the middle class are forced to return to the dulness of their particular suburb, the people of the class above them can sneak in by back doors of unsuspected places, and indulge in drinking, gambling, and dancing till daylight. Truly the middle-class Londoner is a meek, obedient person. One day, however, he may revolt.
Piccadilly was particularly bright and gay that night, as, passing the end of St. James's Street, we sped forward in the taxi towards Brompton Road and past the Natural History Museum to Gloucester Road.
On our arrival the door of the flat was opened by a constable without a helmet. Recognising the famous inspector, he saluted.
The body of the unknown girl had been removed to the mortuary for a post-mortem examination, but nothing else had been moved, and two officers of the C.I.D. were busy making examination for finger-prints.
I allowed them to take mine for comparison, but some they found upon the mahogany table andupon the back of a chair were undoubtedly those of the victim herself.
The small glass-topped specimen-table still lay where it had been overturned, and the fragments of the two green-glass flower-vases were strewn upon the carpet with the drooping red anemones themselves.
Regarding the overturned table the two detectives held that it had separated the assassin from his victim; that the girl had been chased around it several times before her assailant had thrown it down, suddenly sprung upon her, and delivered the fatal blow, full in her chest.
"We've thoroughly examined it for finger-prints, sir," the elder of the two officers explained to my companion. "Both on the glass top and on the mahogany edge there are a number of prints of the victim herself, as well as a number made by another hand."
"A man's?" I asked.
"No; curiously enough, it seems to be a woman's," was the reply.
"A woman's!"
I thought of that sweet perfume, and of the person who had lurked in the shadow of the stairs!
"That's interesting," remarked Edwards. "They may be those of the woman who wore green combs in her hair, or else of the porter's wife."
"The owner's man-servant is away abroad on business for his master, we've found out," answered the man addressed. "So of late the porter's wife, who lives in the basement of the next house, has been in the habit of coming in every day and tidying up the room. We took her prints this morning, and have found quite a lot about the place. No," added the man emphatically, "the finger-prints on that little table yonder are not those of the porter'swife, but of another woman who's been here recently. We only find them upon the door-handle and on the edge of the writing-table, against which the woman must have leaned. We'll have them photographed to-morrow."
The men then showed us the marks in question—distinct impressions of small finger-tips, which they had rendered vivid and undeniable by the application of a finely-powdered chalk of a pale green colour.
Apparently the two experts had devoted the whole day to the search for finger-print clues, and they had established the fact that two women had been there—the victim and another.
Who was she?
The investigation of the papers in my friend's writing-table had not yet been made. Inspector Edwards had telephoned earlier in the day, stating that he would himself go through them.
Therefore, exercising every care not to obliterate the three finger-marks upon the edge of the table, the officers proceeded to break open drawer after drawer and methodically examine the contents while I looked on.
The work was exciting. At any moment we might discover something which would throw light upon the tragedy, the grim evidence of which remained in that dark, still damp stain upon the carpet—the life-blood of the unknown victim.
Already the face of the dead girl had been photographed, and would, before morning, be circulated everywhere in an endeavour to secure identification.
I had learnt from Edwards that before noon that morning, upon the notice-board outside Bow Street Police Station, there had been posted one of thosepale, buff-coloured bills headed in great, bold capitals: "Body found," in which the description had been filled in by a clerkish hand, and at the bottom a statement that the corpse was lying at the Kensington Mortuary awaiting identification.
That she was a lady seemed established by her dress, her well-kept hands, innocent of manual labour, by the costly rings and bracelet she was wearing, and the fact that, in the pocket of her coat was found her purse containing eleven pounds in gold and some silver.
Sir Digby's papers promised to be extremely interesting, as we cleared the books off a side-table and sat down to carefully investigate them.
The writing-table was a pedestal one, with a centre drawer and four drawers on either side. The first drawer burst open was the top one on the left, and from it Edwards drew two bundles of letters, each secured by faded pink tape.
These bundles he handed to me, saying—
"See what you think of these, Mr. Royle!"
One after another I opened them. They were all in the same sprawly handwriting of a woman—a woman who simply signed herself "Mittie."
They were love-letters written in the long ago, many commencing "My darling," or "Dearest," and some with "Dear old Dig."
Though it seemed mean of me to peer into the closed chapter of my friend's history, I quickly found myself absorbed in them. They were the passionate outpourings of a brave but overburdened heart. Most of them were dated from hotels in the South of England and in Ireland, and were apparently written at the end of the eighties. But as no envelopes had been preserved they gave no clue to where the addressee had been at the time.
Nearly all were on foreign notepaper, so we agreed that he must have been abroad.
As I read, it became apparent that the writer and the addressee had been deeply in love with one another, but the lady's parents had forbidden their marriage; and as, alas! in so many like cases, she had been induced to make an odious but wealthier marriage. The man's name was Francis.
"He is, alas! just the same," she wrote in one letter dated "Mount Ephraim Hotel, at Tunbridge Wells, Thursday": "We have nothing in common. He only thinks of his dividends, his stocks and shares, and his business in the City always. I am simply an ornament of his life, a woman who acts as his hostess and relieves him of much trouble in social anxieties. If father had not owed him seventeen thousand pounds he would, I feel certain, never have allowed me to marry him. But I paid my father's debt with my happiness, with my very life. And you, dear old Dig, are the only person who knows the secret of my broken heart. You will be home in London seven weeks from to-day. I will meet you at the old place at three o'clock on the first of October, for I have much—so very much—to tell you. Father knows now how I hate this dull, impossible life of mine, and how dearly I love your own kind self. I told him so to-day, and he pities me. I hope you will get this letter before you leave, but I shall watch the movements of your ship, and I shall meet you on the first of October. Till then adieu.—Ever your ownMittie."
"He is, alas! just the same," she wrote in one letter dated "Mount Ephraim Hotel, at Tunbridge Wells, Thursday": "We have nothing in common. He only thinks of his dividends, his stocks and shares, and his business in the City always. I am simply an ornament of his life, a woman who acts as his hostess and relieves him of much trouble in social anxieties. If father had not owed him seventeen thousand pounds he would, I feel certain, never have allowed me to marry him. But I paid my father's debt with my happiness, with my very life. And you, dear old Dig, are the only person who knows the secret of my broken heart. You will be home in London seven weeks from to-day. I will meet you at the old place at three o'clock on the first of October, for I have much—so very much—to tell you. Father knows now how I hate this dull, impossible life of mine, and how dearly I love your own kind self. I told him so to-day, and he pities me. I hope you will get this letter before you leave, but I shall watch the movements of your ship, and I shall meet you on the first of October. Till then adieu.—Ever your ownMittie."
At the old place! Where was it, I wondered? At what spot had the secret meeting been effected between the man who had returned from abroadand the woman who loved him so well, though she had been forced to become the wife of another.
That meeting had taken place more than twenty years ago. What had been its result was shown in the next letter I opened.
Written from the Queen's Hotel at Hastings on the fourth of October, the unfortunate "Mittie," who seemed to spend her life travelling on the South Coast, penned the following in a thin, uncertain hand:—
"Our meeting was a mistake, Dig, a grave mistake. We were watched by somebody in the employ of Francis. When I returned to Tunbridge Wells he taxed me with having met you, described our trysting-place—the fountain—and how we had walked and walked until, becoming too tired, we had entered that quiet little restaurant to dine. He has misjudged me horribly. The sneak who watched us must have lied to him, or he would never have spoken to me as he did—he would not have insulted me. That night I left him, and am here alone. Do not come near me, do not reply to this. It might make matters worse. Though we are parted, Dig, you know I love you and only you—you! Still your ownMittie."
"Our meeting was a mistake, Dig, a grave mistake. We were watched by somebody in the employ of Francis. When I returned to Tunbridge Wells he taxed me with having met you, described our trysting-place—the fountain—and how we had walked and walked until, becoming too tired, we had entered that quiet little restaurant to dine. He has misjudged me horribly. The sneak who watched us must have lied to him, or he would never have spoken to me as he did—he would not have insulted me. That night I left him, and am here alone. Do not come near me, do not reply to this. It might make matters worse. Though we are parted, Dig, you know I love you and only you—you! Still your ownMittie."
I sat staring at that half-faded letter, taking no heed of what Edwards was saying.
The fountain! They had met at the fountain, and had been seen!
Could that spot be the same as mentioned in the mysterious letter left behind by the fugitive Cane after the sudden death of the Englishman away in far-off Peru?
Did someone, after all the lapse of years, go there on every twenty-third of the month at noon wearing a yellow flower, to wait for a person who, alas! never came?
The thought filled me with romance, even though we were at that moment investigating a very remarkable tragedy. Yet surely in no city in this world is there so much romance, so much pathos, such whole-hearted love and affection, or such deep and deadly hatred as in our great palpitating metropolis, where secret assassinations are of daily occurrence, and where the most unpardonable sin is that of being found out.
"What's that you've got hold of?" Edwards asked me, as he crossed to the table and bent over me.
I started.
Then, recovering myself—for I had no desire that he should know—replied, quite coolly:
"Oh, only a few old letters—written long ago, in the eighties."
"Ah! Ancient history, eh?"
"Yes," I replied, packing them together and retying them with the soiled, pink tape. "But have you discovered anything?"
"Well," he replied with a self-conscious smile, "I've found a letter here which rather alters my theory," and I saw that he held a piece of grey notepaper in his hand. "Here is a note addressed to him as long ago as 1900 in the name of Sir Digby Kemsley! Perhaps, after all, the man who died so mysteriously in Peru was an impostor, and the owner of this place was the real Sir Digby!"
"Exactly my own theory," I declared.
"But that fountain!" he remarked. "The fountain mentioned in the letter left behind by the man Cane. We must take immediate steps to identify it, and it must be watched on the twenty-third for the coming of the woman who wears a yellow flower. When we find her, we shall be able to discover something very interesting, Mr. Royle. Don't you agree?"
Theseare truly the fevered days of journalistic enterprise the world over.
There are no smarter journalists than those of Fleet Street, and none, not even in New York, with scent more keen for sensational news. "The day's story" is the first thought in every newspaper office, and surely no story would have been a greater "scoop" for any journal than the curious facts which I have related in the foregoing pages.
But even though the gentlemen of the Press are ubiquitous, many a curious happening, and many a remarkable coroner's inquiry, often remain unreported.
And so in this case. When, on the following morning, the coroner for the borough of Kensington held his inquiry in the little court off the High Street, no reporter was present, and only half a dozen idlers were seated in the back of the gloomy room.
When the jury had taken their seats after viewing the remains, according to custom, the police inspector reported to the coroner that the body remained unidentified, though the description had been telegraphed everywhere.
"I might add, sir," went on the inspector, "that there is strong belief that the young lady may be a foreigner. Upon the tab of her coat she was wearing was the name of a costumier: 'Sartori, Via Roma.' Only the name of the street, and not the town is given. But it must be somewhere in Italy. We are in communication with the Italian police with a view to ascertaining the name of the town, and hope thus to identify the deceased."
"Very well!" said the coroner, a shrewd, middle-aged, clean-shaven man in gold pince-nez. "Let us have the evidence," and he arranged his papers with business-like exactitude.
The procedure differed in no way from that in any other coroner's court in the kingdom, the relation of dry details by matter-of-fact persons spoken slowly in order that they might be carefully taken down.
The scene was, indeed, a gloomy one, for the morning was dark, and the place was lit by electric light. The jury—twelve honest householders of Kensington—appeared from the outset eager to get back to their daily avocations. They were unaware of the curious enigma about to be presented to them.
Not until I began to give my evidence did they appear to evince any curiosity regarding the case. But presently, when I had related my midnight interview with my friend, who was now a fugitive, the foreman put to me several questions.
"You say that after your return from your visit from this man, Sir Digby Kemsley, he rang you up on the telephone?"
"Yes."
"What did he say?" inquired the foreman, a thin, white-headed man whose social standing was no doubt slightly above that of his fellow jurymen.
"He asked me to return to him at once," was my reply.
"But this appears extraordinary——"
"We are not here to criticise the evidence, sir!" interrupted the coroner sharply. "We are only here to decide how the deceased came by her death—by accident, or by violence. Have you any doubt?"
The foreman replied in the negative, and refrained from further cross-examining me.
The coroner himself, however, put one or two pointed questions. He asked me whether I believed that it had actually been Sir Digby speaking on the second occasion, when I had been rung up, to which I replied:
"At first, the voice sounded unfamiliar."
"At first! Did you recognise it afterwards?"
I paused for a few seconds, and then was compelled to admit that I had not been entirely certain.
"Voices are, of course, often distorted by the telephone," remarked the coroner. "But in this case you may have believed the voice to have been your friend's because he spoke of things which you had been discussing in private only half-an-hour before. It may have been the voice of a stranger."
"That is my own opinion, sir," I replied.
"Ah!" he ejaculated, "and I entirely agree with you, for if your friend had contemplated the crime of murder he would scarcely have telephoned to you to come back. He would be most anxious toget the longest start he could before the raising of any hue and cry."
This remark further aroused the curiosity of the hitherto apathetic jury, who sat and listened intently to the medical evidence which followed.
The result of the doctor's examination was quickly told, and not of great interest. He had been called by the police and found the young woman dying from a deep wound under the breast, which had penetrated to the heart, the result of a savage blow with some long, thin, and very sharp instrument. The girl was not dead when he first saw her, but she expired about ten minutes afterwards.
"I should think that the weapon used was a knife with a very sharp, triangular blade judging from the wound," the spruce-looking doctor explained. "The police, however, have failed to discover it."
The words of the witness held me dumbfounded.
"Have you ever met with knives with triangular blades, doctor?" inquired the coroner.
"Oh, yes!" was the reply. "One sees them in collections of mediæval arms. In ancient days they were carried almost universally in Southern Europe—the blade about nine inches long, and sometimes perforated. Along the blade, grease impregnated with mineral poison was placed, so that, on striking, some of the grease would remain in the wound. This form of knife was most deadly, and in Italy it was known as a misericordia."
I sat there listening with open mouth. Why? Because I knew where one of those curious knives had been—one with a carved handle of cracked, yellow ivory. I had often taken it up and lookedat the coat of arms carved upon the ivory—the shield with the six balls of the princely house of the Medici.
"And in your opinion, doctor, the deceased came by her death from a blow from such a weapon as you describe?" the coroner was asking.
"That is my firm opinion. The wound penetrated to the heart, and death was probably almost instantaneous."
"Would she utter a cry?"
"I think she would."
"And yet no one seems to have heard any noise!" remarked the coroner. "Is that so?" he asked, turning to the police inspector.
"We have no evidence of any cry being heard," replied the officer. "I purposely asked the other tenants of the flats above and below. But they heard no unusual sound."
One of the detective-sergeants was then called; Inspector Edwards, though present, being purposely omitted. In reply to the coroner, he described the finding of the body, its examination, and the investigation which ensued.
"I need not ask you if you have any clue to the assassin," said the coroner, when he had concluded writing down the depositions. "I presume you are actively prosecuting inquiries?"
"Yes, sir," was the brief response.
"I think, gentlemen," the coroner said, turning at last to the jury, "that we can go no further with this inquiry to-day. We must leave it for the police to investigate, and if we adjourn, let us say for a fortnight, we may then, I hope, have evidence of identification before us. The case certainly presents a number of curious features, not the least being thefact that the owner of the flat has mysteriously fled. When he is found he will, no doubt, throw some light upon the puzzling affair. I have to thank you for your attendance to-day, gentlemen," he added, addressing the dozen respectable householders, "and ask you to be present again this day fortnight—at noon."
There was evident dissatisfaction among the jury, as there is always when a coroner's inquest is ever adjourned.
It is certainly the reverse of pleasant to be compelled to keep an appointment which may mean considerable out-of-pocket expense and much personal inconvenience.
One juror, indeed, raised an objection, as he had to go to do business in Scotland. Whereupon the coroner, as he rose, expressed his regret but declared himself unable to assist him. It was, he remarked, his duty as a citizen to assist in this inquiry, and to arrive at a verdict.
After that the court rose, and every one broke up into small groups to discuss the strange affair of which the Press were at present in ignorance.
Edwards had crossed the room and was speaking to me. But I heard him not. I was thinking of that triangular-bladed weapon—the "misericordia" of the middle ages—so frequently used for stealthy knife-thrusts.
"Coming?" he asked at last. This aroused me to a sense of my surroundings, and I followed him blindly out into the afternoon shopping bustle of High Street, Kensington.
Outside the Underground Station were the flower-sellers. Some were offering that tribute which the Riviera never fails to send to us Londoners in spring—sprigs of mimosa: the yellow flower which would be worn by the mysterious "E. P. K.," the written message to whom reposed in my writing-table at home.
Personally, I am not a man of mystery, but just an ordinary London business man, differing in no way to thousands of others who are at the head of prosperous commercial concerns. London with all its garish glitter, its moods of dulness and of gaiety, its petrol-smelling streets, its farces of passing life, and its hard and bitter dramas always appealed to me. It was my home, the atmosphere in which I had been born and bred, nay, my very existence. I loved London and was ever true to the city of my birth, even though its climate might be derided, and Paris claimed as the one city in which to find the acme of comfort and enjoyment.
I had not sought mystery—far from it. It had been thrust upon me, and now, as we went along the High Street in Kensington, towards the police-station, I found myself a sudden but important factor in a stern chase—a man-hunt—such as London had seldom known, for Edwards was saying to me:
"At all hazards we must find your friend Kemsley, and you, Mr. Royle, must help us. You know him, and can identify him. There are grave suspicions against him, and these must be cleared up in view of the mysterious tragedy in Harrington Gardens."
"You surely don't expect me to denounce my friend!" I cried.
"It is not a question of denouncing him. His own actions have rendered the truth patent to every one. The girl was brutally killed, and hedisappeared. Therefore he must be found," Edwards said.
"But who was it who telephoned to me, do you think?" I asked.
"Himself, perhaps. He was full of inventiveness, and he may have adopted that course hoping, when the time came, to prove an alibi. Who knows?" asked the famous inspector.
"Look here!" I said as we crossed the threshold of the police-station, "I don't believe Sir Digby was either an impostor or an assassin."
"Time will prove, Mr. Royle," he laughed with an incredulous air. "A man don't take all these precautions before disappearing unless he has a deeper motive. Your friend evidently knew of the lady's impending visit. Indeed, how could she have entered the flat had he not admitted her?"
"She might have had a key," I hazarded.
"Might—but not very likely," he said. "No, my firm conviction is that the man you know as Sir Digby Kemsley struck the fatal blow, and took the knife away with him."
I shrugged my shoulders, but did not reply.
Inside the station, we passed into the long room devoted to the officers of the Criminal Investigation Department attached to the division, and there met two sergeants who had given evidence.
I was shown the photograph of the dead unknown, calm, and even pretty, just as I had seen her lying stretched in Digby's room.
"The medical evidence was curious, Mr. Royle, wasn't it?" Edwards remarked. "That triangular knife ought not to be very difficult to trace. There surely are not many of them about."
"No," I replied faintly, for the recollection of one which I had seen only a few days prior to the tragicoccurrence—the one with the arms of the Medici carved upon its hilt, arose vividly before me.
To me, alas! the awful truth was now plain.
My suspicion regarding the culprit had, by the doctor's evidence, become entirely confirmed.
I set my jaws hard in agony of mind. What was a mystery of London was to me no longer a mystery!
Themorning of the tenth of January was one of those of gloom and darkness which are, on occasions, the blots upon London's reputation.
There seemed no fog, only a heavy, threatening cloud of night fell suddenly upon the city, and at three o'clock it might have been midnight. Streets, shops, and offices were lit everywhere, and buses and taxis compelled to light up, while in the atmosphere was a sulphurous odour with a black deposit which caused the eyes to smart and the lungs to irritate.
Londoners know those periods of unpleasant darkness only too well.
I was sitting in my room in Albemarle Street, watching Haines, who was cleaning a piece of old silver I had bought at an auction on the previous day. The collecting of old silver is, I may say, my hobby, and the piece was a very fine old Italian reliquary, about ten inches in height, with the Sicilian mark of the seventeenth century.
Haines, under my tuition, had become an expert and careful cleaner of silver, and I was watching andexhorting him to exercise the greatest care, as the ornamentation was thin, and some of the scrollwork around the top extremely fragile. It had, according to the inscription at its base, contained a bone of a certain saint—a local saint of Palermo it seemed—but the relic had disappeared long ago. Yet the silver case which, for centuries, had stood upon an altar somewhere, was a really exquisite piece of the silversmith's art.
Suddenly the telephone-bell rang, and on answering it I heard Phrida's voice asking—
"I say, Teddy, is that you? Why haven't you been over since Thursday?"
I started, recollecting that I had not been to Cromwell Road since the afternoon of the inquest—three days ago.
"Dear, do forgive me," I craved. "I—I've been so horribly busy. Had to be at the works each day."
"But you might have been over in the evening," she responded in a tone of complaint. "You remember you promised to take me to the St. James's last night, and I expected you."
"Oh, dearest, I'm so sorry," I said. "But I've been awfully worried, you know. Do forgive me!"
"Yes, I know!" she answered. "Well, I'll forgive you if you'll run over now and take me to tea at the Leslies. I've ordered the car for four o'clock. Will that suit you?"
The Leslies! They were snobbish folk with whom I had but little in common. Yet what could I do but agree?
And then my well-beloved rang off.
When I got down to Cromwell Road just before four o'clock, the darkness had not lifted.
My feelings as I passed along the big, old-fashioned hall and up the thickly-carpeted stairs to thedrawing-room were mixed ones of doubt, and yet of deep affection.
Ah, I loved Phrida—loved her better than my own life—and yet——?
Fresh in my memory was the doctor's evidence that the crime in Harrington Gardens had been committed with a thin, triangular knife—a knife such as that I had often seen lying upon the old-fashioned, walnut what-not in the corner of the room I was just about to enter. I had known it lying in the same place for years.
Was it still there?
Purposely, because I felt that it could no longer be there, I had refrained from calling upon my love, and now, when I paused and turned the handle of the drawing-room door, I hardly dared to cast my eyes upon that antiquated piece of furniture.
Phrida, who was sitting with her hat and coat already on, jumped up gaily to meet me.
"Oh, you really are prompt, Teddy!" she cried with a flush of pleasure.
Then, as I bent over her mother's hand, the latter said—
"You're quite a stranger, Mr. Royle. I expect you have been very upset over the curious disappearance of your friend. We've searched the papers every day, but could find nothing whatever about it."
Phrida had turned towards the fire, her pretty head bent as she buttoned her glove.
"No," I replied. "Up to the present the newspapers are in complete ignorance of the affair. But no doubt they'll learn all about it before long."
Then, crossing the room to pick up a magazine lying upon a chair, I halted against the old walnut what-not.
Yes, the mediæval poignard was still lying there, just as I had always seen it!
Had it been used, and afterwards replaced?
I scarcely dared to glance at it, lest I should betray any unusual interest. I felt that Phrida's eyes were watching me, that she suspected my knowledge.
I took up the magazine idly, glanced at it, and, replacing it, returned to her side.
"Well," she asked, "are you ready?"
And then together we descended to the car.
All the way up to Abbey Road she hardly spoke. She seemed unusually pale and haggard. I asked her what was the matter, but she only replied in a faint, unnatural voice—
"Matter? Why nothing—nothing, I assure you, Teddy!"
I did not reply. I gazed upon the pretty, pale-faced figure at my side in wonder and yet in fear. I loved her—ah! I loved her well and truly, with all my soul. Yet was it possible that by means of that knife lying there so openly in that West-End drawing-room a woman's life had been treacherously taken.
Had my friend Digby, the fugitive, actually committed the crime?
When I put the whole matter clearly and with common-sense before myself, I was bound to admit that I had a strong belief of his innocence.
What would those finger-prints reveal?
The thought held me breathless. Yes, to satisfy myself I would surreptitiously secure finger-prints of my well-beloved and then in secret compare them with those found in Sir Digby's rooms.
But how? I was reflecting as the car passed by Apsley House and into the Park on its way to St. John's Wood.
Was I acting honestly? I doubted her, I quite admit. Yet I felt that if I took some object—a glass, or something with a polished surface—that she had touched, and submitted it to examination, I would be acting as a sneak.
The idea was repugnant to me. Yet with that horrible suspicion obsessing me I felt that I must do something in order to satisfy myself.
What inane small talk I uttered in the Leslies' big, over-furnished drawing-room I know not. All I remember is that I sat with some insipid girl whose hair was flaxen and as colourless as her mind, sipping my tea while I listened to her silly chatter about a Cook's tour she had just taken through Holland and Belgium. The estimable Cook is, alas! responsible for much tea-table chatter among the fair sex.
Our hostess was an obese, flashily-dressed, dogmatic lady, the wife of the chairman of a big drapery concern who, having married her eldest daughter to a purchased knighthood, fondly believed herself to be in society—thanks to the "paid paragraphs" in the social columns of certain morning newspapers. It is really wonderful what half-guineas will do towards social advancement in these days! For a guinea one's presence can be recorded at a dinner, or an at home, or one's departure from town can be notified to the world in general in a paragraph all to one's self—a paragraph which rubs shoulders with those concerning the highest in the land. The snobbery of the "social column" would really be amusing were it not so painfully apparent. A good press-agent will, for a fee, give one as much publicity and newspaper popularity as that enjoyed by a duke, and most amazing is itthat such paragraphs are swallowed with keen avidity by Suburbia.
The Leslies were an average specimen of the upper middle-class, who were struggling frantically to get into a good set. The old man was bald, pompous, and always wore gold pince-nez and a fancy waistcoat. He carried his shop manners into his drawing-room, retaining his habit of rubbing his hands in true shop-walker style when he wished to be polite to his guests.
His wife was a loud-tongued and altogether impossible person, who, it was said, had once served behind the counter in a small shop in Cardiff, but who now regarded the poor workers in her husband's huge emporium as mere money-making machines.
By dint of careful cultivation at bazaars and such-like charitable functions she had scraped acquaintance with a few women of title, to whom she referred in conversation as "dear Lady So and So, who said to me the other day," or "as my friend Lady Violet always says."
She had buttonholed me at last, though I had endeavoured to escape her, and was standing before me like a pouter-pigeon pluming herself and endeavouring to be humorous at the expense of a very modest little married woman who had been her guest that afternoon and had just left after shaking my hand.
Women of Mrs. Leslie's stamp are perhaps the most evil-tongued of all. They rise from obscurity, and finding wealth at their command, imagine that they can command obeisance and popularity. Woe betide other women who arouse their jealousy, for they will scandalise and blight the reputation of the purest of their sex in the suburban beliefthat the invention of scandal is the hallmark of smartness.
At last I got rid of her, thanks to the arrival of an elegant young man, the younger son of a well-known peer, to whom, of course, she was at once all smiles, and, presently, I found myself out in the hall with Phrida. I breathed more freely when at last I passed into the keen air and entered the car.
"Those people are impossible, dearest," I blurted out when the car had moved away from the door. "They are the most vulgar pair I know."
"I quite agree," replied my well-beloved, pulling the fur rug over her knees. "But they are old friends of mother's, so I'm compelled to go and see them sometimes."
"Ah!" I sighed. "I suppose the old draper will buy a knighthood at this year's sale for the King's Birthday, and then his fat wife will have a tin handle to her name."
"Really, Teddy, you're simply awful," replied my companion. "If they heard you I wonder what they would say?"
"I don't care," I replied frankly. "I only speak the truth. The Government sell their titles to anybody who cares to buy. Ah! I fear that few men who really deserve honour ever get it in these days. No man can become great unless he has the influence of money to back him. The biggest swindler who ever walked up Threadneedle Street can buy a peerage, always providing he is married and has no son. As old Leslie buys his calicoes, ribbons and women's frills, so he'll buy his title. He hasn't a son, so perhaps he'll fancy a peerage and become the Lord Bargain of Sale."
Phrida laughed heartily at my biting sarcasm.
Truth to tell, though I was uttering bitter sentiments, my thoughts were running in a very different direction. I was wondering how I could best obtain the finger-prints of the woman who held my future so irrevocably in her hands.
I had become determined to satisfy myself of my love's innocence—or—can I write the words?—of her guilt!
And as I sat there beside her, my nostrils again became filled by that sweet subtle perfume—the perfume of tragedy.
Twodays passed.
Those finger-prints—impressions left by a woman—upon the glass-topped specimen table in Sir Digby's room and on the door handle, were puzzling the police as they puzzled me. They had already been proved not to be those of the porter's wife, the lines being lighter and more refined.
According to Edwards, after the finger-prints had been photographed, search had been made in the archives at Scotland Yard, but no record could be found that they were those of any person previously convicted.
Were they imprints of the hand of my well-beloved?
I held my breath each time that black and terrible suspicion filled my mind. I tried to put them aside, but, like a nightmare, they would recur to me hourly until I felt impelled to endeavour to satisfy myself as to her guilt or her innocence.
I loved her. Yes, passionately and truly. Yet, somehow, I could not prevent this ever-recurring suspicion to fill my mind. There were so many small points to be elucidated—the jingle of thegolden bangles, and especially the perfume, which each time I entered her presence recalled to me all the strange and unaccountable happenings of that fatal night.
Again, who was the poor, unidentified victim—the pale-faced, pretty young woman who had visited Digby clandestinely, and gone to her death?
Up to the present the police notices circulated throughout the country had failed to establish who she was. Yet, if she were a foreigner, as seemed so likely, identification might be extremely difficult; indeed, she might ever remain a mystery.
It was nearly ten o'clock at night when I called at Cromwell Road, for I had excused myself for not coming earlier, having an object in view.
I found Phrida in the library, sweet and attractive in a pale blue gown cut slightlydécolletée. She and her mother had been out to dinner somewhere in Holland Park, and had only just returned.
Mrs. Shand drew an armchair for me to the fire, and we all three sat down to chat in the cosiness of the sombre little book-lined den. Bain, the old butler, who had known me almost since childhood, placed the tantalus, a syphon and glasses near my elbow, and at Phrida's invitation I poured myself out a drink and lit a cigarette.
"Come," I said, "you will have your usual lemonade"; and at my suggestion her mother ordered Bain to bring a syphon of that harmless beverage.
My love reached forward for one of the glasses, whereupon I took one and, with a word of apology, declared that it was not quite clean.
"Not clean!" exclaimed Mrs. Shand quickly.
"There are a few smears upon it," I said, and adding "Excuse my handkerchief. It is quiteclean," I took the silk handkerchief I carried with me purposely, and polished it with the air of a professional waiter.
Both Phrida and her mother laughed.
"Really, Mr. Royle, you are full of eccentricities," declared Mrs. Shand. "You always remind me of your poor father. He was most particular."
"One cannot be too careful, or guard sufficiently against germs, you know," I said, handling the clean glass carefully and pouring out the lemonade from the syphon.
Phrida took the glass from my hand, and laughing happily across its edge, drank. Her fingers were leaving tell-tale impressions upon its surface. And yet she was unconscious of my duplicity. Ah! yes, I hated myself for my double dealing. And yet so filled was I now by dark and breathless suspicion, that I found myself quite unable to resist an opportunity of establishing proof.
I watched her as she, in all innocence, leaned back in the big saddle-bag chair holding her glass in her hand and now and then contemplating it. The impressions—impressions which could not lie—would be the means of exonerating her—or of condemning her.
Those golden bangles upon her slim white wrist and that irritating perfume held me entranced. What did she know concerning that strange tragedy in Harrington Gardens. What, indeed, was the secret?
My chief difficulty was to remain apparently indifferent. But to do so was indeed a task. I loved her, aye, with all my strength, and all my soul. Yet the black cloud which had fallen upon her was one of impenetrable mystery, and as I sat gazing upon her through the haze of my cigarettesmoke, I fell to wondering, just as I had wondered during all those hours which had elapsed since I had scented that first whiff of Parfait d'Amour, with which her chiffons seemed impregnated.
At last she put down her empty glass upon the bookshelf near her. Several books had been removed, leaving a vacant space.
Mrs. Shand had already risen and bade me good-night; therefore, we were alone. So I rose from my chair and, bending over her, kissed her fondly upon the brow.
No. I would believe her innocent. That white hand—the soft little hand I held in mine could never have taken a woman's life. I refused to believe it, and yet!
Did she know more of Sir Digby Kemsley than she had admitted? Why had she gone to his flat at that hour, lurking upon the stairs until he should be alone, and, no doubt, in ignorance that I was his visitor?
As I bent over her, stroking her soft hair with my hand, I tried to conjure up the scene which had taken place in Sir Digby's room—the tragedy which had caused my friend to flee and hide himself. Surely, something of a very terrible nature must have happened, or my friend—impostor or not—would have remained, faced the music, and told the truth.
I knew Digby better than most men. The police had declared him to be an impostor; nevertheless, I still believed in him, even though he was now a fugitive. Edwards had laughed at my faith in the man who was my friend, but I felt within me a strong conviction that he was not so black as pigheaded officialdom had painted him.
The Council of Seven at Scotland Yard mightbe a clever combination of expert brains, but they were not infallible, as had been proved so many times in the recent annals of London crime.
Phrida had not referred to the tragedy, and I had not therefore mentioned it.
My sole object at the moment was to obtain possession of the empty glass and carry it with me from the house.
But how could I effect this without arousing her suspicion?
She had risen and stood with her back to the blazing fire, her pretty lips parted in a sweet smile. We were discussing a play at which she had been on the previous evening, a comedy that had taken the town by storm.
Her golden bangles jingled as she moved—that same light metallic sound I had heard in the darkness of the staircase at Harrington Gardens. My eager fingers itched to obtain possession of that glass which stood so tantalisingly within a couple of feet of my hand. By its means I could establish the truth.
"Well, Teddy," my beloved said at last, as she glanced at the chiming clock upon the mantelshelf. "It's past eleven, so I suppose I must go to bed. Mallock is always in a bad temper if I keep her up after eleven."
"I suppose that is only natural," I laughed. "She often waits hours and hours for you. That I know."
"Yes," she sighed. "But Mallock is really a model maid. So much better than Rayne."
Personally, I did not like the woman Mallock. She was a thin-nosed, angular person, who wore pince-nez, and was of a decidedly inquisitive disposition. But I, of course, had never shownany antagonism towards her; indeed, I considered it diplomatic to treat her with tact and consideration. She had been maid to the oldest daughter of a well-known and popular countess before entering Phrida's service, and I could well imagine that her principal topic of conversation in the servants' hall was the superiority of her late mistress, whose service she had left on her marriage to a wealthy peer.
"I'm glad she is an improvement upon Rayne," I said, for want of something else to say, and, rising, I took her little hand and pressed it to my lips in farewell.
When she had kissed me I said:
"I'll just finish my cigarette, and I can let myself out."
"Very well. But look in to-morrow, dear, won't you?" she replied, as I opened the door for her to pass. "Better still, I'll ring you up about three o'clock and see what you are doing. Oh! by the way, mother wants to remind you of your promise to dine with us on Wednesday night. I quite forgot. Of course you will—eight o'clock as usual."
"Wednesday!" I exclaimed vaguely, recollecting the acceptance of Mrs. Shand's invitation about a week previously. "What date is that?"
"Why, the fourteenth."
"The fourteenth!" I echoed.
"Yes, why? Really, you look quite scared, Freddy. What's the matter. Is anything terrible going to happen on that date?" she asked, looking at me with some concern.
"Going to happen—why?" I asked, striving to calm myself.
"Oh—well, because you look so horribly pale. When I told you the date you gave quite a jump!"
"A jump? Did I?" I asked, striving to remain calm. "I didn't know, but, really, I'm filled with great disappointment. I'm so sorry, but it will be quite impossible for me to dine with you."
"Another engagement?" she said in a rather irritated tone. "Going to some people whom you like better than us, of course. You might tell the truth, Teddy."
"The truth is that I have a prior engagement," I said. "One that I cannot break. I have to fulfill faithfully a promise I gave to a very dear friend."
"Couldn't you do it some other time?"
"No," I answered. "Only on the evening of the fourteenth."
"Then you can't come to us?" she asked with a pout.
"I'll look in after," I promised. "But to dine is entirely out of the question."
I saw that she was annoyed, but next moment her lips parted again in a pretty smile, and she said:
"Very well, then. But remember, you will not be later than ten, will you?"
"I promise not to be, dearest," I answered, and kissing her, she ascended to her room.
The fourteenth! It was on that evening I had to carry out the promise made to Digby and meet the mysterious lady at the Piccadilly Circus Tube Station—the person whose initials were "E. P. K." and who would wear in her breast a spray of mimosa.
I returned to the library, and for a second stood thinking deeply. Would I, by that romantic meeting, be placed in possession of some further fact which might throw light upon the mystery? Ah! would I, I wondered?
The empty glass caught my eye, and I was aboutto cross and secure it when Bain suddenly entered. Seeing me, he drew back quickly, saying: "I beg pardon, sir. I thought you had gone. Will you take anything more, sir?"
"No, not to-night, Bain," was my reply.
Whereupon the old servant glanced around for the missing glass, and I saw with heart-sinking that he placed it upon the tray to carry it back to the servants' quarters.
The link which I had been so careful in preparing was already vanishing from my gaze, when of a sudden I said:
"I'll change my mind, Bain. I wonder if you have a lemon in the house?"
"I'll go to the kitchen and see if cook has one, sir," replied the old man, who, placing down the tray, left to do my bidding.
In an instant I sprang forward and seized the empty tumbler, handling it carefully. Swiftly, I tore a piece off the evening paper, and wrapping it around the glass, placed it in the pocket of my dinner jacket.
Then, going into the hall, I put on my overcoat and hat, and awaited Bain's return.
"I shan't want that lemon!" I cried to him as he came up from the lower regions. "Good-night, Bain!" and a few moments later I was in a taxi speeding towards Albemarle Street, with the evidence I wanted safe in my keeping.
That finger-prints remained on the polished surface of the glass I knew full well—the prints of my beloved's fingers.
But would they turn out to be the same as the fingers which had rested upon the glass-topped specimen-table in Digby's room?
Opening the door with my latch-key, I dashedupstairs, eager to put my evidence to the proof by means of the finely-powdered green chalk I had already secured—the same as that used by the police.
But on the threshold of my chambers Haines met me with a message—a message which caused me to halt breathless and staggered.
"Sir Digby Kemsleywas here an hour ago, sir. He couldn't wait!" Haines exclaimed, bringing himself to attention.
"Sir Digby!" I gasped, starting. "Why, in heaven's name, didn't you ring me up at Mrs. Shand's?" I cried.
"Because he wouldn't allow me, sir. He came to see you in strictest secrecy, sir. When I opened the door I didn't know him. He's shaved off his beard and moustache, and was dressed like a clergyman."
"A clergyman!"
"Yes, sir. He looked just like a parson. I wouldn't have known him in the street."
"An excellent ruse!" I exclaimed. "Of course, Haines, you know that—well—that the police are looking for him—eh?"
"Perfectly well, but you can trust me, sir. I'll say nothing. Sir Digby's a friend of yours."
"Yes, a great friend, and I feel that he's falsely accused of that terrible affair which happened at his flat," I said. "Did he promise to call again?"
"He scribbled this note for you," Haines said, taking up a letter from my blotting-pad.
With trembling fingers I tore it open, and upon a sheet of my own notepaper read the hurriedly written words—