CHAPTER VIIIN THE WEB
As wedanced Marigold told me something more about herself. She lived, I found, with three other business girls at a boarding house in Bayswater, going by tube to Dover Street each day. She had met Audley and for a time they had been rather friendly, seeing a good deal of each other. I guessed, though of course she did not tell me, that the friendship bade fair to ripen into something deeper. Then Audley had suddenly disappeared.
As our dance ended Mrs. Powell came up and we all went up the narrow wooden staircase to the balcony where, as we enjoyed our Bohemian supper, we could watch the dancing below.
It was just before midnight, when the fun was fast and furious and the “Hamyardians,” as the merry circle call themselves, were enjoying themselves in the wildest and most nonsensical fashion, that Marigold Day, glancing at her wrist watch, declared that she must go. I went down with her to the door.
“Can’t you tell me some more about Audley?” I asked just before she entered her taxi.
She shook her head. “Don’t ask me, please,” she said and she entered the taxi and was driven away towards Bayswater.
“Well, what do you think of Marigold?” asked Mrs. Powell, as I resumed my seat at the supper table.
“She’s altogether charming, of course,” I replied, “but rather—well, I don’t quite know the word. I should almost say mysterious: at any rate she seems to be troubled about something and trying to hide it.”
“That’s it, exactly,” declared my hostess. “During the past few months she seems to have become an entirely different girl. As you know, we were the closest of friends. She seems to live in constant dread of something, but she absolutely refuses to tell me what it is. Indeed, she declares there is nothing wrong, but that is nonsense. No one who knew her six months ago could fail to realize that something is very wrong indeed.”
“Do you know anything about her friend, Mr. Audley,” I ventured to ask.
“Not very much,” said Mrs. Powell. “Of course, I have met him. Marigold was getting very fond of him, I believe, but she will not talk about him.”
Powell came up and declared it was time to go andI had no opportunity of questioning Mrs. Powell any further, much as I wished to do so. However, I determined to see her again and also to meet Marigold Day and see whether either of them could give me further details about Audley. Was he the real Audley? I wondered, or the man who had taken his name.
A few days later I received a letter from Mrs. Shaylor inviting me to go to Bexhill.
I was in two minds about accepting. I wanted to see Thelma—wanted to help her and certainly did not want to lose touch with her as I might if I refused to go. But was it wise?
Of course, inclination conquered prudence and I went. I found that she and her mother lived in a pretty red-roofed, red-brick detached house, with high gables, and a small garden in front. It stood in Bedford Avenue, close to the Sackville Hotel and facing the sea.
Mrs. Shaylor, a pleasant, grey-haired woman of a very refined type, greeted me warmly and thanked me cordially for what I had done for her daughter in Mürren, while Thelma expressed her delight at seeing me again.
I got a chance during the morning of speaking to Mrs. Shaylor alone and asked her if Thelma had heard anything more of her husband.
“Not a word,” was Mrs. Shaylor’s reply. “It is amost disastrous affair for her, poor girl. The suspense and anxiety are killing her.”
“She does not look so well,” I replied. I had, in fact, been struck by the change in the girl. She was paler and thinner and it was evident the strain was telling on her rather heavily.
“I understand you did not know very much of Mr. Audley,” I said.
“Very little indeed, unfortunately,” was Mrs. Shaylor’s reply. “Thelma met him when she was staying with her aunt at the Majestic at Harrogate, and they became friendly. He appeared to have considerable means for he gave Thelma some very beautiful jewelry. He came down here once, saw me, and asked if he might marry her. He told me certain things about his relations in India, and she seemed so entirely devoted to him that I gave my consent to their marriage in three months. But, judge my surprise when a fortnight later they were married secretly and left next day for Switzerland for their honeymoon.”
“Then you really know very little of him, Mrs. Shaylor?” I asked.
“Very little indeed. It was a most foolish and ill-advised marriage. He seems to have lied to her here and then deserted her.”
“I must say I liked what I saw of him,” I said, “and I wonder whether we are right in thinking thathe really deserted her in the ordinary meaning of the word. It looks like it, of course, but it has occurred to me, though I have only very slight grounds to go on, that he is being kept away from her by some influence at which we cannot guess. He really seemed devoted to her and genuinely sorry to have to leave her.”
“Well, she certainly seems devoted to him and will not hear a word against him. But what can one think under the circumstances?”
The drawing-room opened on to a wide verandah and across the promenade we could see the rolling Channel surf beating upon the beach. The winter’s day was dull and boisterous and now and again sheets of flying spray swept across the promenade.
“He pretended to me that he was an electrical engineer,” I remarked, “but I have found out that the firm for whom he said he worked knows nothing of him.”
“That is what he also told me. But I have reason to believe that he is in fact a young man of considerable fortune. Yet, if so, why has he deserted poor Thelma?”
“I am doing my level best to find him, Mrs. Shaylor,” I said. “Some very great mystery enshrouds this affair, and I have, in your daughter’s interest, set myself to solve it.”
“I’m sure all this is extremely good of you,” shesaid, gratefully. “We are only women, and both of us powerless.”
I paused for a moment. Then I said:
“I really came down here, Mrs. Shaylor, to put several direct questions to you. I wonder if you will answer them and thus lighten my task. I am a solicitor, as perhaps you already know.”
“Certainly. What are they?”
“Has your daughter ever known a man named Harold Ruthen?”
The lady’s face changed, and her brows contracted slightly. “Why do you ask that?” she asked.
“Because it has a direct bearing upon the present situation.”
“Well—yes. I believe she has, or had, a friend of that name. A man who lives in Paris.”
“Was he a friend of Audley’s?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Have you ever heard of a girl named Marigold Day—a mannequin at Carille’s?”
“Never.”
I paused. Then I bent towards her and said, very earnestly, “Has it ever struck you, Mrs. Shaylor, that your daughter knows just a little more concerning Stanley Audley than she has yet told us?”
“Why do you ask that question?” she inquired.
“Well—because somehow it has struck me so,” Isaid. “And I will go a little further. I believe she knows where her husband is, but—for some reason or other—fears to betray him!”
“Is that your suspicion?” she asked, in a low strained voice.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Mr. Yelverton,” she said very slowly. “I admit that it is mine also! I’ve questioned Thelma time after time, but she will tell me nothing—absolutely nothing!”
“Are there any more facts you can tell me—anything to throw further light upon these strange circumstances?” I asked her.
“No,” was her reply. “I’m afraid I know nothing else. Thelma is worried. I feel terrified lest the real truth—whatever it may be—concerning her husband, be disclosed.”
Thelma came in and we talked of other matters. She made great fun of my position as her “temporary husband” at Mürren and seemed in better spirits than when I came down.
After luncheon we went for a stroll together through the driving health-giving breeze to Cooden Beach, and then back for tea. Thelma wore a serviceable golf suit, thick brogues and carried a stick, while her Airedale “Jock” ran at our side.
On the way I told her of my adventure at the Ham-bone Club. She was much interested in thequeer pranks of the Hamyardians and to find out how much she knew, I told her about Marigold Day: in fact I deliberately “enthused” about her. I watched her closely, but it was evident Marigold’s name meant nothing to her. Then I went on the more open tack and tried to get some further facts from her. It was in vain: she seemed as determined to keep her knowledge to herself as I was to get at the truth.
At last, as we neared the house, I made a direct attack.
“Now look here, Thelma,” I said, “do be frank. You know where Stanley is, don’t you?”
She went pale: it was evident that it had never struck her that I might guess at the truth.
“Why do you say that?” she asked sharply.
“Because I am certain Stanley has enemies and wants help.”
“Enemies!” she said, with an attempt to laugh “why should he have enemies? What do you mean?”
“All that I have said. Cannot you trust me? If your husband is in hiding for some unknown reason I should not betray him.”
“I have promised to say nothing,” she said blankly. “I cannot break my promise.”
“Why does he not return to you?”
“There is a reason—he never can. We must live apart in future.”
“Why?”
She shrugged her shoulders, and after a few moments of hesitation replied—
“There are certain facts, Mr. Yelverton, that I am forbidden by Stanley to disclose. I have told you that we cannot be united again. That is all. Please make no further inquiries.”
“But I will. You have been left in my care,” I asserted.
“If you do!—if you do it—it may be at your peril,” she declared, in a hard unnatural voice, looking curiously at me as she opened the gate. “Recollect, Mr. Yelverton, that my words are a warning.”
“But why?” I cried.
“I—I unfortunately cannot tell you,” was her reply, and we re-entered her charming home together.
I returned to London more mystified than ever. The dual personality of Stanley Audley, combined with the fact that his wife undoubtedly knew of his whereabouts; her steadfast determination not to disclose one single fact, and the strange threats I had heard Ruthen utter, all combined to puzzle me beyond measure.
For a couple of days I did my best to attend to business, but constantly I found my mind dwellingon the mystery of Stanley Audley. I could not concentrate on legal problems and most of my work fell on Hensman’s shoulders.
On the third night, after my visit to Bexhill, when I returned to my rooms from the office, I found, lying upon my table, a typewritten note which had been delivered that afternoon. It bore the Hammersmith postmark.
Tearing it open I read some lines of rather indifferent typing, as follows:—
“You have formed a friendship with Mrs. Thelma Audley. I warn you that such friendship, if continued, will be at the cost of your own life. Divert your love-making into another direction. I have no personal animosity against you but you are placing yourself in the way of powerful interests, and you will be removed if necessary.”
“You have formed a friendship with Mrs. Thelma Audley. I warn you that such friendship, if continued, will be at the cost of your own life. Divert your love-making into another direction. I have no personal animosity against you but you are placing yourself in the way of powerful interests, and you will be removed if necessary.”
I read and re-read this strange message. Thelma’s warning leaped to my mind. Was there, then, a real risk to myself in the strange coil?
Then something—sheer obstinacy I suppose—came to my help and I declared to myself that I would go ahead with my self-imposed task; that nothing—least of all mere cowardice—should induce me to give it up.