CHAPTER XIIISPUME OF THE STORM
It wasevening when I alighted from the train at the clean, spick-and-span little town of Bexhill, which in summer and autumn is so animated, yet in spring and winter is practically deserted.
Darkness had already fallen and a rough easterly wind caused the leafless boughs of the trees to crack and sway. A heavy gale was blowing in the Channel that night and the boiling surf swept in upon the shingle.
As I walked towards Bedford Avenue, that quiet select thoroughfare of detached red-brick houses which lies close to the sea, I noticed, on the opposite side of the way, two persons—a man and a girl—walking slowly in the direction which I was taking.
As they passed beneath a street-lamp, I had a good view of them. It was Thelma walking with old Doctor Feng!
I halted amazed, and instinctively drew back into the shadow of a hedge which formed the boundary of a garden. They were walking engrossed in conversation, in the direction of Mrs. Shaylor’s house.
I had no idea that they were on terms of friendship,and their apparently clandestine meeting was a complete surprise to me. Feng was bending to her, talking earnestly in an undertone, while she appeared to be listening attentively.
There flashed across my memory a moment in Mürren when I had seen the Doctor and Ruthen walking together in secret up a narrow snow-piled lane, though we all believed they were strangers. What could it possibly mean?
I allowed the pair to go ahead of me, following them at a distance and watching.
I thought I heard the girl cry “No! No!” in a distressed tone. But it might have been merely my fancy.
They walked together very slowly until they reached the corner of Bedford Avenue. Here they halted, and again I drew back into the shadow. From where I stood I could see them very plainly, for a lamp shone full upon them. No other person was in the vicinity. I could plainly see old Feng’s face and beard as he spoke evidently in deep earnest, while Thelma, wrapped in her smart squirrel coat and wearing the little fur toque which I had admired so much, stood listening.
Suddenly she appeared to utter some appeal. But the old man shook his head relentlessly. He had apparently told her something which had staggered her.
I watched, scarcely daring to draw breath, in a mist of uncertainty, jealousy and dread.
How long they stood there I could not say, but it seemed a long time. I was utterly amazed at the sight of Thelma keeping what was clearly a secret appointment with this old fellow who had often warned me against a dangerous friendship. Were both of them, I wondered, in some plot to delude and play with me. Was Thelma, after all, in league with her husband and his mysterious friends. Was old Feng for some sinister reason a member of the same queer coterie?
At last he took her hand and held it in his for a long time. Then he raised his hat and bade her farewell. She seemed glad to get rid of his presence, for she turned away and flew towards her mother’s house at the seaward end of the silent road, while he turned on his heel and strode in the direction of the station.
Rather than go direct to Mrs. Shaylor’s I followed the Doctor at a distance up the town until I saw him hurry into the station yard. Here he had unbuttoned his overcoat and glanced at his watch. Evidently a train was due.
So I turned back, and a little later I opened the garden gate, walked up the path and rang the bell. “Jock,” Mrs. Shaylor’s Airedale barked loudly, and in a few moments the neat maid opened the door.
In the artistic little hall Thelma, who had divested herself of coat and hat, came forward exclaiming gladly—
“Well, Mr. Yelverton! Whoever expected to see you tonight? Come in. Mother is out at a friend’s playing bridge, I think, and I am all alone.”
She helped me off with my coat, took my hat, and ushered me into the charming drawing-room overlooking the sea.
She switched on more lights and handed me her cigarette case, then threw herself into a big chair before the fire opposite me.
“Now, tell me what you’ve been doing,” she asked. “It is a real surprise to see you tonight.”
She was, of course, ignorant that I knew of her secret meeting with old Feng, and I felt annoyed and mistrustful.
“Well,” I said, “I have very little news and none of any importance. I came down hoping that you might have something more to tell me. My only news is that the other day I met another of our friends—Mr. Hartley Humphreys. You remember the old invalid at Mürren?”
“Oh yes, of course. He often spoke to me—a charming old boy. I recollect him perfectly. How is he?”
“Better. His lameness is cured, and he’s quite young again.”
“And you have no other news for me,” she remarked meaningly.
“You mean about Stanley. No—nothing,” I said regretfully.
She sighed, and I saw again that hardening at the corners of her mouth which seemed to come with every mention of her husband.
As for myself, my brain was in a whirl: my good resolutions, so easy to make when I was away from her, vanished like smoke. At the same time the suspicion I had felt when I saw her talking to Feng in the dark, lonely road, melted like mist before the sun. She was so frankly innocent and unspoiled; there was about her no trace of coquetry or desire to provoke admiration. The impression grew stronger and stronger as we sat chatting freely in that pretty drawing-room, with the roar of the sea and wind sounding faintly through the curtained windows that, whatever appearances might suggest, this child-bride of a few days was actually alone—more hopelessly alone in her wedded life than if she were in a convent. I saw myself looking into the depths of a soul unsullied, and for the first time, I truly believe, I began to understand dimly some of the feelings and desires that must be tearing at her heart.
“My husband can never return to me!” Over and over again her significant sentence beat itself upon my brain. I could not understand it—I hadnot the key to the riddle it contained. Yet, for some inexplicable reason it seemed to fill my mind with hope, even though I knew that, so long as Stanley Audley lived, my love for his wife could never be more than a tormenting dream. Try to disguise it how I would, the girl held me, for good or ill; she had fascinated me utterly and completely, not by the purposeful acts of the courtesan, but by her own innate sweetness and modesty. What I had seen that night puzzled me beyond measure, but in the hour I spent with her I became assured that nothing on earth could shake my conviction that in every essential she was true and good and sweet. Time, I felt, would solve the riddle sooner or later.
So I sat there, foolish and fascinated, unable to bring myself to put any serious question to her for fear of causing her sorrow or anxiety. I knew, I felt, that I was indeed walking upon thin ice, that my honor was wearing thin. Yet, I realized that Thelma was not as many other women are, and I dared not again allow the feelings that ran riot in my heart and sweep over me and submerge once more my self-control. So I steeled my heart as best I could.
She said no word of her meeting with the old doctor, who had no doubt come down from London to consult her, and had caught the last train back to Victoria.
Presently she asked—
“Can you get back tonight, Mr. Yelverton?”
“No,” I replied, “I sent my bag to the Sackville. But now tell me, have you heard anything else regarding Stanley?”
She gazed at me through the haze of her cigarette smoke, and, after a pause, replied—
“No, I’ve heard nothing.”
“But, now, do be frank with me, Thelma. What am I to think? This affair is growing serious, and I know you are worried more even than I am.”
“Mr. Yelverton, I’m absolutely bewildered. All I hear or find out only increases the mystery. But I tell you quite plainly that I begin to think—more and more—”
“What?” I asked, placing my hand upon her shoulder.
“I—I really can hardly believe it—but from what I have been told, I think Stanley is dead!”
“Who told you that?” I demanded, for it crossed my mind that Feng had done no less—that that was the reason for his visit. And yet as I watched her I saw no signs of distress. Was she merely repeating something she had been told to say. Did she, in fact, hold the key to the mystery?
“What proof have you?” I asked quickly, as she had not replied to my question.
“I have no proof, only what has been told me.”
“By whom?” I demanded.
“By a friend.”
“May I not know his name?”
She hesitated. Then she replied with narrowed brows—
“No. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you. I am under a promise of secrecy.”
“You seem to have been under some such promise all along,” I remarked rather petulantly I fear. Yet, as Thelma stood there before me under the soft shaded glow of the electric lamps she touched even a softer nerve in me. Something that was all tenderness and half regret smote me as I gazed upon her lithe graceful figure like a garden lily standing alone in the glow of a summer sunset. More and more I realized my love for her and again, insistent and not to be denied, the thought arose within me that if her husband were indeed dead, I should be free to offer her my hand! And the thought of what might be merge into the wish that it should be? Was I, indeed, a murderer at heart?
I hope that I am neither inhuman nor heartless. Once, in my early youth I used to be quickly touched by any kind of feeling; but before I met the pale handsome girl who now stood before me, life had seemed to me cold and profitless. Thelma Audley was the one woman in all the world for me.
That is why I hesitated to press her more closely concerning her informant. She was dry-eyed; could she really believe that Stanley was dead?
I began to suspect that the clever old Doctor had, all along, for some reason I could not even guess at, misled me into a belief that he was antagonistic towards her, while he was, in fact, secretly her friend. She, who had fondly imagined that the riotous and exuberant happiness that had commenced in Mürren was permanent, had been sadly disillusioned by a man’s love that had only blossomed like the almond or the may.
She handed me her big silver box of cigarettes, for she, like many modern girls, was an inveterate smoker. I took one and she lit it for me with a gay expression in her eyes which seemed to belie the tragic news she had imparted to me.
That well-warmed room was indeed cozy and comfortable, for outside it was a wild night in the Channel. The heavy roar of the waves as they beat upon the beach reached us, while through the window—for the curtains had not been drawn—could be seen the regular flashes of the Royal Sovereign Lightship warning ships from the perilous rocks off Beach Head, and here and there in the blackness were tiny points of light showing that the fishing fleet were out from Rye and Hastings. The very atmosphereseemed to be changed with the wild spin-drift of the stormy sea.
I felt that though she was holding back certain facts concerning her husband—dead or alive. Perhaps she was doing so out of consideration to us both. Try as I would, I could get no further information from her. She would tell me no more concerning her suspicion of Stanley’s death, and later that night as I trudged along the storm-swept promenade to the hotel close by, I confess that I felt both baffled by Feng’s visit and annoyed at Thelma’s dogged persistence in refusing to tell me anything.
Next afternoon, while I was sitting in my office in Bedford Row, the telephone rang and a woman’s voice asked whether I was Mr. Yelverton. I took it to be a client and replied in the affirmative, whereupon the speaker said:
“I’m Marigold Day. Can I come along and see you, Mr. Yelverton?”
“Certainly,” I said. “I’ll be in till five. Is it anything important?”
“Yes. It is rather, I’ll come along in a taxi,” and she rang off hurriedly.
About a quarter of an hour later my clerk showed in the pretty mannequin from Carille’s, and when she was seated and we were alone, she said—
“I—I want to tell you something about Mr. Audley. They say the poor boy is dead!”
“Who says so?” I asked.
“Harold Ruthen. I met him in the Piccadilly Grill Room last night with a girl friend of mine, and he called me aside and told me.”
“What exactly did he tell you?” I asked eagerly.
“Well, he said that Audley had met with a motor accident somewhere in Touraine, and had been taken to the hospital at Saumur, where he had lingered for four days, and died there. He asked me to keep the matter a secret. Why—I don’t know. But if the poor boy is dead I really can’t see any object in keeping the matter a secret, do you?”
“No,” I replied.
“Well, I thought you, being his friend, would like to know,” said the girl, sadly. She made a pathetic figure, for she had been fond of Audley, and I knew that under her merry careless Bohemian ways she was capable of deep feeling.
I took her out to tea and questioned her further about Ruthen, and the story he had told her.
She had no knowledge of old Mr. Humphreys, or of Doctor Feng, but she was convinced by Ruthen’s manner that what he had told her was the truth. Besides, as the young fellow had been in such active search for his friend there seemed no motive why he should declare that he had died.
Was it from Harold Ruthen that Thelma had gained the news? Or had Ruthen told old Mr.Humphreys, who in turn, had told Feng, who had gone to Bexhill and given her the report?
But was it really true?
I expressed my doubts.
“Well, Mr. Yelverton. I’ve only told you exactly what Harold told me. He added the words: ‘After all, poor Stanley’s death will prevent a good deal leaking out. His lips are closed, and it means security to several persons.’ I wonder what he meant?”
“I wonder! He must have been in possession of some secret which closely affected certain persons,” I said. “And probably Ruthen is one of those who now feel secure.”
“Perhaps. Who knows?” the girl remarked reflectively as she crushed her cigarette-end into the ash tray and rose to leave. “At any rate, I thought you would like to know, as you seem so interested in Stanley.”
I thanked her, and left her at the corner of Chancery Lane in order to return to my office.
Saumur! I knew that it was an old-world town—the center of a wine-growing country—somewhere on the broad Loire.
I searched among my books, looked it up, and found that it was two hundred and seventy miles from Paris by the Orleans Railway, and that if I traveled by the through express, I could go directby way of St. Pierre-des-Corps and Savonnières. I resolved to make a swift journey out there and enquire for myself.
Next morning I left London and in the afternoon of the following day I entered a small hotel, the Budan, at the end of the long stone bridge which spans the Loire at Saumur. I lost no time in making my inquiries in the old Huguenot town, famed for its sparkling wines. At the Prefecture of Police I saw the Prefect himself, a brisk little man with a stubble of white hair, most courteous and attentive.
An automobile accident, and fatal? He would have the records examined, if I would return next morning.
I dined, spent the evening in the Café de la Paix adjoining the Post Office, and next morning returned to the Prefect.
Again he received me most courteously in his barely furnished office, and when I was seated he rang his bell, whereupon an inspector in plain clothes entered with some papers in his hand.
“It is, I find, true, monsieur, that an Englishman named Audley, christian name Stanley, native of London, was motoring with two men named Armand Raves and Henry Chest on the road between Langeais and Cinq-Mars, when, in turning a sharp corner, they ran into a wall, and the Englishman was injured. He was brought to the St. Jean Hospitalhere, put to bed unconscious and died four days later. In his pocket was found a wallet containing a number of notes of the Banque d’Angleterre of five pounds and fifty pounds. They were sent by us to the Banque de France to hold for any claim by relatives, but curious enough, they were at once recognized as forgeries!”
“Forgeries!” I gasped, pretending ignorance.
“Yes, Monsieur,” said the Prefect of Police, while the Inspector spread out his papers on his Chief’s desk.
“This telegram, Monsieur, is from the Bank of England, in London, sent through Scotland Yard, and says, ‘Numbers of notes reported in telegram of 5th are part of South American forgeries. Kindly send them to us for record.’ They have been sent to London,” he added.
“But the men who were in the car with Mr. Audley. Where are they?”
“Ah! Monsieur! We do not know,” replied the shrewd old French official. “We only know the names and addresses they gave to the agent of police.”
“The addresses they gave proved false, Monsieur le Prefect,” remarked the inspector. “But we photographed them all—including the dead man,—and we have a hue-and-cry out for them.”
“You have a photograph of the dead man!” I cried.
“Yes, Monsieur. It is on file among our photographs.”
“Cannot I see it?” I asked.
“Tomorrow, when we shall have further prints. Ours have been sent on to Paris.”
“I would very much like to see it,” I said. “I am a lawyer from London, and my inquiry concerns a strange string of circumstances. This fact that forged bank-notes were found upon the man who died is truly amazing.”
“It may be amazing, but it is nevertheless a fact,” declared the old official.
“But did the injured man make any statement before he died?” I asked.
The inspector adjusted his pince-nez and searched thedossier.
“I think he did,” he said. “Ah! yes! Here we are,” and he took out a sheet of paper. “On the morning before he died he spoke to Soeur Yvonne, and uttered these words in English, ‘I am very sorry for all I have done. I would never have done the bad turns to Harry or to George unless it had been to gain money. But I could not resist it. They made me join in the scheme of printing false bank-notes, though I warned them of the peril. I know I must die, for the doctor told me so this morning.My only wish is that little Thelma may be made happy. That is my only wish. Let her discover the truth!’ Who ‘little Thelma’ may be, monsieur, we have, of course, no means of knowing.”
“And was that the only statement made by Stanley Audley immediately before he died,” I asked.
“Yes, monsieur. He died three hours later,” replied the inspector.
“He said nothing else—nothing more concerning Thelma?” I asked anxiously.
“Those words were the only ones he uttered, monsieur,” replied the inspector. “It is fortunate that Soeur Yvonne knows English, having been a nursing sister in London. Of course, there is no doubt that all three men were making a tour of France distributing spurious English notes, for, within a few days of the accident, many forged notes were brought to the notice of the police in Nantes, Orleans, Marseilles and Bordeaux. All of them had been changed into French notes, and no doubt in that car was a large sum of money.”
“Was nothing else of interest found in the dead man’s possession?”
“Nothing except a card-case, a silver cigarette case, a wallet containing 220 francs, the return half of a first-class ticket from Brussels to Marseilles and a tram-ticket taken in Barcelona.”
I left, promising to call again next day, and wandered out upon the broad bridge that spans the Loire and affords such a splendid view up the broad valley. What could the dying man have meant by that reference to Thelma?
I spent a very anxious day, trying to idle away the time in the little museum in the Hotel de Ville and inspecting the treasures of the ancient church of St. Pierre. In the afternoon I watched the training of a number of cavalry officers on the exercise ground, and after dinner went to a cinema.
Next morning I returned eagerly to the Prefect and the inspector appeared with several photographs. One showed the wrecked car at the scene of the accident and beside it stood two men.
“They are the men Raves and Chester,” remarked the inspector.
“Who is the one leaning against the car. The one with the cap in his hand?” I asked.
“That is the Englishman, Chester.”
And I had recognized him instantly as Harold Ruthen!
“And the dead man?”
He showed me a picture of a man taken with his head upon a pillow. But it was not that of Stanley Audley, but of a round-faced man with a small moustache—evidently the man who, when home inHalf Moon Street had assumed the name of Audley, while the real Audley lived as Mr. Graydon.
Sight of those photographs staggered me. What message did the false Audley wish to convey to Thelma? Was it concerning the whereabouts or movements of her husband?
So Ruthen had been one of the rapidly moving party which had gone to France in order to pass the spurious notes, and with such disastrous results. It was true that Stanley Audley had been killed, but he was not the man of whom I was in such diligent search, not the man to whom Thelma had been married!
That afternoon I sent a telegram to Thelma at Bexhill, assuring her that her husband was not dead, and that same evening I left Saumur for London.
Next evening when I arrived at Russell Square, I saw upon my table one of those now familiar envelopes. It had been sent by express messenger from Crouch Hill, and not from Hammersmith. On tearing it open I read—
“You are still beating the wind! As you will not heed any warning and are still trying to meddle with affairs that do not concern you, do not be surprised if you receive a sudden shock. Your visit to Saumur was a perilous one for more reasons than one. The truth is too deeply hidden for you ever to discover it. Why court death as you are daily doing?”
“You are still beating the wind! As you will not heed any warning and are still trying to meddle with affairs that do not concern you, do not be surprised if you receive a sudden shock. Your visit to Saumur was a perilous one for more reasons than one. The truth is too deeply hidden for you ever to discover it. Why court death as you are daily doing?”
So my enemies already knew of my rapid journey to the Loire, though I had not told a soul, except my partner Hensman! Evidently a close watch was being kept upon my movements.
Ruthen was back in town, glad I suppose to escape from a very embarrassing position, for it was clear that both men had immediately made themselves scarce, leaving their friend to his fate.
At the office next day I told Hensman of what I had discovered, and showed him the note that I had received on the previous night.
“Really, Rex, the puzzle seems to grow more and more complicated every day, doesn’t it? The change of names, from one man to the other seems so very curious. And yet, of course, Audley must have married in his own name.”
“But that remark about Little Thelma,” I said. “The fellow just before he died expressed a hope that she might be happy and that was his only wish. ‘Let her discover the truth,’ he said.”
“Which plainly shows that, whatever we may surmise, Thelma does not know the truth,” my partner remarked, leaning back in his writing chair.
With that I agreed. Yet our discovery threw no light on the friendship between the two men who had met at Mürren, the Doctor and old Humphreys; their friendship with the foppish young fellow who was a friend of Stanley’s and was now proved to beone of a gang of forgers, and on Thelma’s secret friendship with old Feng.
I rang up Bexhill half-an-hour later, and over the ’phone told Thelma that I had ascertained definitely that the man fatally injured in the motor accident in France was not her husband.
She drew a long sigh of relief.
“It is really awfully good of you, Mr. Yelverton, to take such a keen interest in me and go to all that trouble.”
“I know the truth as far as the report of Stanley’s accident goes—not the whole truth, Mrs. Audley,” I said. “I only wish I did. Won’t you give me the key to the situation.”
I heard her laugh lightly, a strange hollow laugh it was.
“Ah! I only wish—I only wish I dare,” she replied. Then she added, “Good-bye. What you have told me relieves my mind greatly and also places a new complexion upon things. Good-bye, Mr. Yelverton—and a thousand thanks. Mother is here and sends her best wishes.”
I acknowledged them, and we were then cut off.