CHAPTER XVIGROWING SUSPICIONS
I hadbeen fortunate enough in my life to escape many of the shadows that lie in wait for most men. No serious betrayal of friendship had come to make me bitter or cynical: I did not—as even my profession might have taught me to do—look upon men with suspicion and distrust. I preferred to give them my confidence.
But in spite of this I found myself growing more and more distrustful of old Feng, more suspicious of his motives, more convinced that, for some reason I could not fathom, he was playing a double game.
I knew that he was on a footing with Thelma quite different from what he allowed me to believe. So much their secret interview at Bexhill had shown me. And his attitude towards the attempt made upon my life went to increase my distrust.
Had it not been that the handwriting of the note left beside my bed differed so completely from my own—why no attempt to imitate my hand had been made completely puzzled me—I should undoubtedly have been charged with attempted suicide. Thelocal police if not very brilliant, were keen enough on the affair. I wanted to give them a detailed account of everything that had led up to the attack on me—to tell them the whole amazing story. To have done this would have shown them that there was far more behind the affair than they could possibly imagine. They, of course, looked upon the matter as being within a very narrow circle. I knew, as Feng knew, that much more complicated issues were involved.
Feng, however, strenuously opposed my proposal to tell the police anything more than the barest facts, which, indeed, could not be concealed. I wondered why, and asked him.
“It will serve no good purpose,” he argued. “These local policemen have already confessed their ignorance of the man from Bradford. He was not seen to leave by train, and as, from your description of him his appearance was rather striking, I think, we may assume he did not go that way. Probably he had a car in readiness and escaped unnoticed. If you tell the police more than they know already you must inevitably drag Mrs. Audley and her husband’s affairs into a very unpleasant publicity. No, let us keep our own counsel.”
I remained in hospital two days longer. Thelma and Feng visited me each day and I could not help noticing the queer bond of understanding thatseemed to have grown up between them. Not a word was said by either of them to indicate that they were more than mere friends but—perhaps my growing suspicions were responsible—I seemed to see or to imagine evidence that their association implied very much more than I was intended to believe. Feng had always opposed my association with Thelma—had seemed, indeed, decidedly hostile to her. His hostility, at least, had apparently evaporated. Yet I found he was as strongly as ever opposed to the continuance of my intimacy with her.
Did he fear for me? Did he fear for her? Did he fear for both of us?
I could not tell. But there was no mistaking the advice he gave.
“Look here, Yelverton,” he said to me a few hours before I was to leave the hospital, “you have had a very narrow escape. You owe your life to the merest chance and you may not be so lucky in the future.”
“In the future!” I echoed. “Surely you don’t think there will be another attempt to get me out of the way?”
“Indeed, I do,” he replied very gravely. “I don’t pretend to understand the reason, but I should think it must be perfectly clear that your friendship with Mrs. Audley is involving someone in a danger so grave that they will not stick at trifles to avert it.”
“But how on earth can my friendship with Thelma affect anyone else to such a degree as that?” I demanded, with some heat. “Stanley Audley might perhaps object, but even he could hardly imagine that it was a cause for murder. And even if he did the rather elaborate plot evolved by someone would hardly have been the line he would have chosen.”
Feng shook his head. “You can rule Stanley Audley, as the husband, out of your reckoning. But what about Stanley Audley, the bank-note forger. Suppose he and his associates know that your constant efforts to find him might mean bringing the whole gang to justice? Desperate men would not hesitate at murder when the stakes involved are so great. My own belief is they fear that by your continued friendship with Mrs. Audley you will pick up a hint that will set you—and the police—on the right track. Probably they think that is your real motive. Take my advice—I mean it very seriously—and cut yourself adrift from the whole thing. Go back to London, take up your work afresh—and forget Thelma ever existed.”
“I can’t and I won’t,” I declared passionately. “I’m going to try to get the man who attacked me, and I’m going to try to find Stanley Audley. Thelma thinks he is dead. I’m going to leave no stone unturned to find out the truth. If he is really alive and returns to her—well, I should have to keepaway. In the meantime I want to discover the man who tried to murder me.”
“He will be discovered some day, you can be quite certain,” was Feng’s reply.
His tone surprised me completely: there was in it a curious ring of certainty entirely unexpected. It was as if he knew with certainty and positive conviction.
I glanced at him sharply. “You seem very certain of it,” I said.
“Well, I am pretty certain,” was his reply, with a curious expression on his usually inscrutable face. And once again came to my mind the uncanny conviction that the old fellow really knew a great deal more than he would tell me. My suspicions of him redoubled.
“Drop it, my boy,” he said kindly enough. “If you had taken my advice at first this would never have happened.”
Then for the twentieth time he went over with me every detail of the description of the mysterious stranger from Bradford. What motive lay behind the ceaseless questioning I could not imagine. Feng was not a policeman, he strongly opposed telling the police any more than we could help, yet he discussed the man from Bradford as though he expected to meet him in the street next day and arrest him on the instant.
But for what I had seen myself, but for the unmistakable “human eye” scarf-pin that I had unmistakably seen when in the throes of what was so nearly my death agony, I should have hesitated to believe that the mysterious man from Bradford could have been concerned in the attack on me. Anyone less like a criminal it would be difficult to conceive. His keen, cheery countenance, indelibly stamped on my recollection; his frank, engaging manner; his open, goodfellowship and gay-hearted discussion of any and every subject of interest that cropped up, all tended to give the lie to the suggestion that he would be a murderer in intent if not in fact. But that scarf-pin! It could not be mistaken. There could not by any stretch of coincidence be two such pins in that Stamford hotel on the same night. And upon that pin I had undoubtedly looked during that awful night when I so nearly lost my life.
Another thought had flashed upon my mind. Young Mr. Pearson had driven from Duddington to see me. I had never spoken to him before and instantly I knew that his was not the voice I had heard upon the telephone. Then I knew whose voice had come to me over the wire. It was that of the man from Bradford. I wondered I had not thought of it before. But I was sure my recollection was right.
On that last afternoon, when the hospital doctor pronounced me fit to travel back to London, I took a walk with Thelma through the town, and out along the pretty road which leads to Great Casterton. We soon left the road by a footpath which took us up the hillside and into some delightful woods, part of the ancient far-reaching Rockingham Forest. There we rested together on the trunk of a big fallen elm.
Around us the sun’s rays slanting through the foliage, fell upon the gray lichen of the huge forest trees and the light green of the bracken, while the damp sweet smell of the woods greeted our nostrils—that delightful perfume which seems peculiar to rural England in summer.
“Mr. Yelverton,” exclaimed my pretty companion, gazing suddenly into my eyes. “I—I want to ask you to forgive me. This wretched affair has happened all through me. I alone am to blame for it.”
“Blame!” I echoed, as I took her hand—“what do you mean? You are certainly not to blame. It seems I have a secret enemy who tried to kill me—I don’t know why; I have done no one any harm that I know of. But to say you are to blame is absurd.”
“Doctor Feng says you should have taken heed of the warning that was sent you concerning myself,”she replied. “He thinks, too, that another attempt will probably be made upon you—so do be careful.”
“But why? Tell me why,” I demanded.
She spread out her hands in a little gesture of helplessness and drew her cream-colored sports coat more closely around her. She looked very sweet and dainty in a close fitting little pull-on hat of cherry color in fine pliable straw, a summer frock of pale gray silk striped with cherry to match her hat, and gray suede shoes and stockings.
It never struck me at the time that if she really believed Stanley to be dead she would have worn mourning.
“Doctor Feng is very concerned about you,” she declared. “Has he told you anything?”
“No,” was my reply.
“Well, he seems very upset about something. I can’t make it out.”
“Neither can I!” I replied. “The whole affair of Stanley’s flight and the subsequent happenings are beyond my comprehension, Thelma.”
“His flight!” she exclaimed in a startled voice. “You surely don’t think that he has left me intentionally?”
“Then why doesn’t he write to you or return?” I asked pointedly.
“Perhaps,” she suggested gently, “there are circumstancesthat prevent him doing either.” I had thought she would have been offended.
“No,” I said, “he is your husband. His duty is clearly to tell you where he is and why he has not returned. I am sure he would if he really loved you,” I added recklessly.
She was plainly startled now. Whatever she knew—and I was sure she knew more than she would tell me—the idea that her husband did not really care for her was clearly new and overwhelming. She gazed at me white-faced and wide-eyed.
“If he really cares for me!” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears.
I could not bear this. “Of course he cares for you,” I said with a laugh meant to reassure her, “but he ought to write to you anyhow. Perhaps he has done so.”
I gazed at her as she sat at my side on that glorious afternoon. Above us a pair of wood doves were softly cooing, while a thrush annoyed at our presence, uttered his clattering alarm-note to his mate. Village chimes sounded somewhere across the Welland valley, together with the shrill whistle of a railway engine.
“Thelma,” I whispered at last. “Do tell me the real and actual truth.” I looked into her grey eyes. They were as unclouded, her cheeks as cool, her candor and serenity as undisturbed as when, on thatwinter’s day amid the high-up snows she had shyly thanked me for offering to look after her during her husband’s absence. I, on the other hand, felt like a fool. My heart, though I had done my best to steel it to endurance, was torn by a thousand conflicting feelings. Wild ideas rushed through my brain. Was it possible that in her secret heart she was not altogether sorry to be rid of Stanley Audley? Had she married him hastily in an outburst of girlish passion, only to find out her mistake when desertion and solitude brought her opportunity for reflection? Was this the real explanation of her mysterious declaration that her husband would never return to her? And if so was there still a chance for me?
“Thelma,” I said softly, taking her hand in mine. “I want to speak to you, but—but I hardly know how to say it. Since you left Mürren you have never been frank with me—never confided in me—never told me the truth.” Then, after a pause I went on. “Remember I took upon myself a sacred trust, to see after you. I have carried out my promise to Stanley as any honest man should carry it out, but it seems that by doing so, I have brought a deadly hatred upon myself. Why? I ask you, Thelma—why?”
She drew a long breath, her hand trembled in mine and her eyes grew troubled.
“Mr. Yelverton,” she said at last in a trembling voice. “The question you ask me is very, very difficult for me to answer. There are, I confess to you at once, some things which I am bound for my husband’s sake to conceal, and therefore I know you will not ask me to divulge them. I can’t tell you more. You nearly lost your life because of me. I was to blame and I am very sorry.”
“But why?” I demanded. “Why ‘because of you?’ How do you come into it? Neither of us has done any harm.”
“I—I don’t know. Dr. Feng says you have secret enemies and that it is because of me. That is all I know.”
“But where is Stanley?”
“I don’t know; if I did he would be here. But I believe he is dead.”
“But have you any fresh evidence?” I asked, eagerly. “You know the man who was killed in France was not Stanley.”
“I know only what I have been told.”
“But who told you?” I persisted.
“A friend. For certain reasons the strictest secrecy has been imposed upon me. Please do not question me further. You have been my dearest and kindest friend and it is very hard to have to prevaricate with you.”
“Thelma,” I said. “I have all along striven tobe your friend, though circumstances have been so much against me. I made a promise to Stanley, and I have endeavored to keep it.”
“And at what a cost!” she exclaimed. “Yes! I thank you awfully, for you have been the best and dearest friend any girl has ever possessed. Yet you have narrowly escaped losing your own life because of your chivalry!” and her face flushed slightly.
For the second time my discretion went to the winds.
“Thelma!” I cried, “don’t talk of chivalry. Can’t you see the real reason? Can’t you realize that I love you? Can’t you love me a little in return.”
Her cheeks grew hot. “I—I don’t know,” she stammered. “It wouldn’t be right. I am married already.”
The girl’s transparent innocence was amazing. Not a shadow of a thought of wrong crossed her mind. She gazed at me as candidly and sweetly as if she had been my sister.
“But Thelma,” I pleaded, “suppose Stanley is really dead; could you care for me a little?”
For a few seconds she sat silent, then she answered in a low voice broken by emotion. “Before I can answer that we must learn the truth.”
My heart gave a great leap. There was hope for me.
“I will find out,” I declared, “whatever the cost.”
“But, Mr. Yelverton, please be careful,” she said. “Dr. Feng is terribly apprehensive. He evidently thinks you are in great danger and doesn’t want me to see you.”
“But why should he be?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I cannot make him out at all. Sometimes I think he knows more than he will ever admit about Stanley.”
But I cared nothing for Feng. My heart was singing. Thelma’s words acted as a spur to my decision to continue my investigations. I determined once more and for all to play for the biggest stake. If I lost I must accept my fate philosophically. If I won—!