"Well, there is, of course, a great deal more in this than meets the eye." He spun round to Mrs. Marsh: "Has your daughter undergone anything to upset her at home lately?"
"Nothing," was the answer. "One of the servants in the house has had a sort of hysteria: but that did not trouble Rosalind beyond the mere exercise of womanly sympathy."
"Any visitors? Any odd circumstance in that way?"
"No unusual visitors—except an Inspector Furneaux, who—twice, I think—had interviews with her. She was not very explicit in telling me the subject of them."
"Inspector Furneaux," muttered Winter. To himself he said: "I thought somehow that this thing was connected with Feldisham Mansions." And at once now, with a little start, he asked: "What, by the way, is the name of the servant who has had the hysteria?"
"Her name is Pauline," answered Mrs. Marsh—"a French girl."
"Ah, Pauline!" said Winter—"just so."
The fewness of his words gave proof of the activity of his brain. He knew how Clarke had obtained the diary of Rose de Bercy from Pauline, and he felt that Pauline was in some undetermined way connected with the murder. He knew, too, that she was now to be found somewhere in Porchester Gardens, and had intended looking her up for general inquiries before two days had passed. That Pauline might actually have had a hand in the crime had never entered into his speculations—he was far too hot in these days on the trail of Furneaux, who was being constantly watched by his instructions.
"I think I will see this Pauline to-night," he said. "Meantime, I can only recommend you to hope, Mrs. Marsh. These things generally have some simple explanation in the end, and turn out less black than they look. Expect me, then, at your residence within an hour."
But when Mrs. Marsh and Osborne were gone he was perplexed, remembering that this was Thursday evening, for he had promised himself on this very evening to be at a spot which he had been told by one of his men that Furneaux had visited on two previous Thursday evenings, a spot where he would see a sight that would interest him.
While he was on the horns of the dilemma as to going there, or going to Pauline, Inspector Clarke entered: and at once Winter shelved upon Clarke the business of sounding Pauline.
"You seem to have a lot of power over her—to make her give up the diary so promptly," he said to Clarke. "Go to her, then, get at the bottom of this business, and see if you cannot hit upon some connection between the disappearance of Miss Marsh and the murder of the actress."
Clarke stood up with alacrity, and started off. Presently Winter himself was in a cab, making for the Brompton Cemetery.
As for Clarke, the instant he was within sight of Porchester Gardens, his whole interest turned from Pauline Dessaulx and the vanished Rosalind to two men whom he saw in the street almost opposite the house in which Pauline lay. They were Janoc and the Italian, Antonio, and Antonio seemed to be reasoning and pleading with Janoc, who had the gestures of a man distracted.
Hanging about near them was a third man, whom Clarke hardly noticed—a loafer in a long coat of rags, a hat without any crown, and visible toes—a diminutive loafer—Furneaux, in fact, who, for his own reasons, was also interested in Janoc in these days.
Every now and again Janoc looked up at the windows of Mrs. Marsh's residence with frantic gestures, and a crying face—a thing which greatly struck Clarke; and anon the loafer passed by Janoc and Antonio, unobserved, peering into the gutter for the cast-aside ends of cigars and cigarettes.
Instantly Clarke stole down the opposite side ofthe square into which the house faced, looked about him, saw no one, climbed some railings, and then through the bushes stole near to the pavement where the foreigners stood. There, concealed in the shrubbery, he could clearly hear Janoc say:
"Am I never to see her? My little one! But I am about to see her! I will knock at that door, and clasp her in my arms."
"My friend, be reasonable!" pleaded Antonio, holding the arm of Janoc, who made more show of tearing himself free than he made real effort—with that melodramatic excess of gesture to which the Latin races are prone. "Be reasonable! Oh, she is wiser than you! She has hidden herself from you because she realizes the danger of being seen near you even in the dark. Be sure that she has longed to see you as keenly as you hunger to see her; but she feels that there must be no meeting with so many spying eyes in the world——"
"Let them spy! but they shall not keep me from the embrace of one whom I love, of one who has suffered," said Janoc, covering his face. "Oh, when I think of your cruelty—you who all the time knew where she was and did not tell me!"
"I confess it, but I acted for the best," said Antonio. "She wrote to me three days after the murder, so that she might have news of you. I met her, and received from her that bit of lace from the actress's dress which I put into Osborne's bag at Tormouth, to throw still more doubt upon him. Butshe implored me not to reveal to you where she was, lest, if you should be seen with her, suspicion of the murder should fall upon you——"
"Her heart's goodness! My sister! My little one!" exclaimed Janoc.
"Only be patient!" wooed Antonio—"do not go to her. Soon she will make her escape to France, and you also, and then you will embrace the one the other. And now you have no longer cause for much anxiety as to her capture, for the dagger cannot be found with her, since it lies safe in your room in your own keeping, and to-night you will drop it into the river, where it will be buried forever. Do not go to her——"
These were the last words of the dialogue that Clarke heard, for the tidings that "the dagger" was in Janoc's room sent him creeping away through the bushes. He was soon over the railings and in a cab, making for Soho; and behind him in another cab went Furneaux, whose driver, looking at his fare's attire, had said, "Pay first, and then I'll take you."
Clarke, for his part, had no difficulty in entering Janoc's room with his skeleton-keys—indeed, he had been there before! Nor was there any difficulty in finding the dagger. There it lay, with another, in the narrow cardboard box into which Rosalind had put both weapons on finding them behind the shelf of books in Pauline's room.
Clarke's eyes, as they fell at last upon that Saracenblade which he knew so well without ever having seen it, pored, gloated over it, with a glitter in them.
He relocked the trunk, relocked the door, and with the box held fast, ran down the three stairs to his cab—feeling himself a made man, a head taller than all Scotland Yard that night. He put his precious find on the interior front seat of the cab—a four-wheeler; for in his eagerness he had jumped into the first wheeled thing that he had seen, and, having lodged the box inside, being anxious to hide it, he made a step forward toward the driver, to tell him whither he had now to drive. Then he entered, shut the door, and, as the vehicle drove off, put out his hand to the box to feast his eyes on its contents again. But the box was gone—no daggers were there!
"Stop!" howled Clarke.
The cab stopped, but it was all in vain. The loafer, who had opened the other door of the cab with swift deftness while Clarke spoke to the driver, had long since turned a near corner with box and daggers, and was well away. Clarke, standing in the street, glanced up at the sky, down at the ground, and stared round about, like a man who does not know in which world he finds himself.
Meantime, Furneaux hailed another cab, again having to pay in advance, and started off on the drive to Brompton Cemetery—where Winter was already in hiding, awaiting his arrival.
Something like a storm of wind was tearing the night to pieces, and the trees of the place of graves gesticulated as if they were wrangling. The moon had moved up, all involved in heavy clouds whose grotesque shapes her glare struck into garish contrasts of black against silver. Furneaux bent his way against the gale, holding on his dilapidated hat, his rags fluttering fantastically behind him, till he came to the one grave he sought—the cheerless resting-place of Rose de Bercy. The very spirit of gloom and loneliness brooded here, in a nook almost inclosed with foliage. As yet no stone had been erected. The grave was just a narrow oblong of red marl and turf, which the driven rain now made soft and yielding. On it lay two withered wreaths.
Furneaux, standing by it, took off his hat, and the rain flecked his hair. Then from a breast-pocket of his rags he took out a little funnel of paper, out of which he cast some Parma violets upon the mound. This was Thursday—and Rose de Bercy had been murdered on a Thursday.
Then from a breast-pocket he took a little funnel of paperPage 219
Then from a breast-pocket he took a little funnel of paperPage 219
Then from a breast-pocket he took a little funnel of paper
Page 219
After that he stood there perhaps twenty minutes, his head bent in meditation.
Then he peered cautiously into the dark about him, took a penknife with a good-sized blade from a pocket, and with it set to work to make a grave within the grave—a grave just big and deep enough to contain the box with the daggers. He buried his singular tribute and covered it over.
After this he waited silently, apparently lost in thought, for some ten minutes more.
Then, with that curious omniscience which sometimes seemed to belong to the man, he sent a strange cry into the gloom.
"Are you anywhere about, Winter?"
Nor was there anything aggressive in the call. It was subdued, sad, touched with solemnity, like the voice of a man who had wept, and dried his eyes.
There was little delay before Winter appeared out of the shadow of his ambush.
"I am!" he said; he was amazed beyond expression, yet his colleague had ever been incomprehensible in some things.
"Windy night," said Furneaux, in an absurd affectation of ease.
"And wet," said Winter, utterly at a loss how to take the other.
"Odd that we should both come to visit the poor thing's grave at the same hour," remarked Furneaux.
"Itmaybe odd," agreed Winter.
There was a bitter silence.
Then Furneaux's cold voice was heard again.
"I dare say, now, it seems to you a suspicious thing that I should come to this grave at all."
"Why should it, Furneaux?" asked his chief bluntly.
"Yes, why?" said Furneaux. "I once knew her. I told you from the first that I knew her."
"I remember: you did."
"You asked no questions as to how I came to know her, or how long, or under what circumstances. Why did you not ask? Such questions occur among friends: and I—might have told you. But you did not ask."
"Tell me now."
"Winter, I'd see you hanged first!"
The words came in a sharp rasp—his first sign of anger.
"Hanged?" repeated Winter, flushing. "You'll seemehanged?Iusually see the hanging, Furneaux!"
"Sometimes you do: sometimes you are not half smart enough!"
Furneaux barked the taunt like a dog at him.
Of the two, the big bluff man of Anglo-Saxon breed, mystified and saddened though he was, showed more self-control than the excitable little man more French than English.
"This is an occasion when I leave the smartness to you, Furneaux," he said bitterly, "though there is a sort of clever duplicity which ought to be drained out of the blood, even if it cost a limb, or a life."
"Ah, you prove yourself a trusty friend—loyal to the backbone!"
"For Heaven's sake, make no appeal to our friendship!"
"What! Appeal? I? Oh, this is too much!"
"You are trying me beyond endurance. Can'tyou understand? Why keep up this farce of pretense?"
There was genuine emotion in Winter's voice, but Furneaux's harsh laugh mingled with the soughing of the laden branches that tossed in the wind.
"Farce, indeed!" he cried. "I refuse to continue it. Go, then, and be punished—you deserve it—you, whom I trusted more than a brother."
He turned on his heel, and made off, a weird figure in those wind-blown tatters, and Winter watched him with eyes that had in them some element of fear, almost of hope, for in that hour he could have forgiven Furneaux were he standing by his corpse.
But the instinct of duty soon came uppermost. He had seen his colleague bury something in the grave, and the briefest search brought to light the daggers in their cardboard coffin. Even in that overwhelming gloom of night and shivering yews he recognized one of the weapons. A groan broke from him, as it were, in protest.
"Mad!" he sighed, "stark, staring mad—to leave this here, where he knew I must find it. My poor Furneaux! Perhaps that is best. I must defer action for a few hours, if only to give him a last chance."
While the Chief Inspector was stumbling to the gate of the Cemetery—which was long since closed to all except those who could show an official permit—one of his subordinates was viewing the Feldisham Mansions crime in a far different light. InspectorClarke, in whom elation at his discovery was chastened by chagrin at his loss, was walking towards Scotland Yard and saying to himself:
"I can prove, anyhow, that I took the rotten things from his trunk. So now, Monsieur Janoc, the next and main item is to arrest you!"
When Inspector Winter returned to his office from the cemetery he sat at his desk, gazing at the two daggers before him, and awaiting the coming of Clarke, from whom he expected to receive a full report of an interview with Pauline Dessaulx in connection with the disappearance of Rosalind.
There lay that long sought-for Saracen dagger at last: and Furneaux had it, had been caught burying it in the grave of her who had been killed by it. Was not this fact, added to the fact that Furneaux was seen in Osborne's museum before the murder—was it not enough to justify—indeed, enough to demand—Furneaux's arrest straight away? And Furneaux had visited Rose de Bercy that night—had been seen by Bertha Seward, the actress's cook! And yet Winter hesitated.... What had been Furneaux's motive? There was as yet no ray of light as to that, though Winter had caused elaborate inquiries to be made in Jersey as to Furneaux's earlier career there. And there weretwodaggers buried, not one....
"Where doesthiscome in, thisseconddagger...?" wondered Winter, a maze of doubt and horror clouding his brain.
Just then Clarke arrived, rather breathless, jubilant, excited, but Winter had already hidden the daggers instinctively—throwing them into a drawer of his writing-desk.
"Well, what news of Miss Marsh?" he asked, with a semblance of official calm he was far from feeling.
"The fact is, sir, I haven't been to Pauline Des——"
"What!"
"I was nearly at her door when I came across Gaston Janoc——"
"Oh, Heavens!" muttered Winter in despair. "You and your eternal Janocs——"
The smiling Clarke looked at his chief in full confidence that he would not be reprimanded for having disobeyed orders. Suddenly making three steps on tiptoe, he said in Winter's ear:
"Don't be too startled—here's an amazing piece of information for you, sir—it was Gaston Janocwho committed the Feldisham Mansions murder!"
Winter stared at him without real comprehension. "Gaston Janoc!" his lips repeated.
"I want to apply to-morrow for a warrant for his arrest," crowed Clarke.
"But, man alive!—don't drive me distracted," cried out Winter; "what are you talking about?"
"Oh, I am not acting on any impulse," said Clarke, placidly satisfied, enthroned on facts; "I may tell you now that I have been working on the Feldisham Mansions affair from the first on my own account. I couldn't help it. I was drawn to it as a needle by a magnet, and I now have all the threads—ten distinct proofs—in my hands. It was Gaston Janoc did it! Just listen to this, sir——"
"Oh, do as you like about your wretched Anarchist, Clarke," said Winter pestered, waving him away; "I can't stop now. I sent you to do something, and you should have done it. Miss Marsh's mother is half dead with fright and grief; the thing is pressing, and I'll go myself."
With a snatch at his hat, he rushed out, Clarke following sullenly to go home, though on his way northward, by sheer force of habit, he strolled through Soho, looked up at Janoc's windows, and presently, catching sight of Janoc himself coming out of the restaurant on the ground floor, nodded after him, muttering to himself: "Soon now——" and went off.
But had he shadowed his Janoc just then, it might have been well! The Frenchman first went into a French shop labeled "Vins et Comestibles," where he bought slices of sausage and a bottle of cheap wine, from which he got the cork drawn—he already carried half a loaf of bread wrapped in paper, and with bread, sausage, and wine, bent his way throughspitting rain and high wind, his coat collar turned up round his neck, to a house in Poland Street.
An unoccupied house: its window-glass thicker than itself with grime, broken in some of the panes, while in others were roughly daubed the words: "To Let." But he possessed a key, went in, picked up a candlestick in the passage, and lit the candle-end it contained.
At the end of the passage he went down a narrow staircase of wood, then down some stone steps, to the door of a back cellar: and this, too, he opened with a key.
Rosalind was crouching on the floor in the corner farthest from the door, her head bent down, her feet tucked under her skirt. She had been asleep: for the air in there was very heavy, the cellar hardly twelve feet square, no windows, and the slightest movement roused a cloud of dust. The walls were of rough stone, without break or feature, save three little vaulted caves like ovens in the wall facing the door, made to contain wine bottles and small barrels: in fact, one barrel and several empty bottles now lay about in the dust. Besides, there were sardine tins and a tin of mortadel, and relics of sausage and bread, with which Janoc had lately supplied his prisoner, with a bottle half full of wine, and one of water: all showing very dimly in the feeble rays of the candle.
She looked at him, without moving, just raisingher scornful eyes and no more, and he, holding up the light, looked at her a good time.
"Lady," he said at last, "I have brought you some meat, wine, and bread."
She made no answer. He stepped forward, and laid them by her side; then walked back to the door, as if to go out, coughing at the dust; but stopped and leant his back on the wall near the door, his legs crossed, looking down at her.
"Lady," he said presently, "you still remain fixed in your obstinacy?"
No answer: only her wide-open reproving eyes dwelt on him with their steady accusation like a conscience, and her hand stuck and stuck many times with a hat-pin her hat which lay on her lap. Her gown appeared to be very frowsy and unkempt now; her hair was untidy, and quite gray with dust on one side, her face was begrimed and stained with the tracks of tears; but her lips were firm, and the wonderful eyes, chiding, disdainful, gave no sign of a drooping spirit.
"You will say nothing to me?" asked Janoc.
No answer.
"Is it that you think I may relent and let you free, lady, because my heart weakens at your suffering? Do not imagine such a thing of me! The more you are beautiful, the more you are sublime in your torture, the more I adore you, the more my heart pours out tears of blood for you, the more I am inflexible in my will. You do not know me—Iam a man, I am not a wind; a mind, not an emotion. Oh, pity is strong in me, love is strong; but what is strongest of all is self-admiration, my worship of intelligence. And have I not made it impossible that you should be let free without conditions by my confession to you that it was my sister Pauline who killed the actress? I tell you again it was Pauline who killed her. It was not a murder! It was an assassination—a political assassination. Mademoiselle de Bercy had proved a traitress to the group of Internationals to which she belonged: she was condemned to death; the lot fell upon Pauline to execute the sentence; and on the day appointed she executed it, having first stolen from Mr. Osborne the 'celt' and the dagger, so as to cast the suspicion upon him. I tell you this of my sister—of one who to me is dearest on earth; and, having told you all this, is it any longer possible that I should set you free without conditions? You see, do you not, that it is impossible?"
No answer.
"I only ask you to promise—to give your simple word—not to say, or hint, to anyone that Pauline had the daggers. What a risk I take! What trust in you! I do not know you—I but trust blindly in the highly-evolved, that divine countenance which is yours; and since it was with the object of saving my sister that you came here with me, my gratitude to you deepens my trust. Give me, then, this promise, Miss Marsh!"
Now her lips opened a little to form the word "No," which he could just catch.
"Sublime!" he cried—"and I am no less sublime. If I was rich, if I had a fair name, and if I could dare to hope to win the love of a lady such as you, how favored of the gods I should be! But that is—a dream. Here, then, you will remain, until the day that Pauline is safely hidden in France: and on that day—since for myself I care little—I will open this door to you: never before. Meanwhile, tell me if you think of anything more that I can do for your comfort."
No answer.
"Good-night." He turned to go.
"You made me a promise," she said at the last moment.
"I have kept it," he said. "This afternoon, at great risk to myself, I wrote to your mother the words: 'Your daughter is alive and safe.' Are you satisfied?"
"Thank you," she said.
"Good-night," he murmured again.
Having locked the door, he waited five minutes outside silently, to hear if she sobbed or wailed in there in the utter dark: but no sound came to him. He went upstairs, put out the light, put down the candlestick in the passage, and was just drawing back the door latch, when he was aware of a strong step marching quickly along an almost deserted pavement.
After a little he peeped out and recognized the heavy figure of Inspector Winter. Even Janoc, the dreamer, whose dreams took such tragic shape, was surprised for an instant.
"How limited is the consciousness of men!" he muttered. "That so-called clever detective little guesses what he has just passed by."
But Winter, too, might have indulged in the same reflection: "How limited the consciousness of Janoc! He doesn't know where I am passing to—to visit and question his sister Pauline!"
Winter, a little further on, took a taxicab to Porchester Gardens, got out at the bottom of the street, and was walking on to Mrs. Marsh's temporary residence, when he saw Furneaux coming the opposite way.
Winter wished to pretend not to see him, but Furneaux spoke.
"Well, Providence throws us together somehow!"
"Ah! Why blame Providence?" said Winter, with rather a snarl.
"Not two hours ago there was our chance meeting by that graveside——"
The "chance" irritated Winter to the quick.
"You have all the faults of the French nature," he said bitterly, "without any of its merits: its levity without its industry, its pettiness without its minuteness——"
"And you the English frankness without its honesty. The chief thing about a Frenchman is hisintelligence. At least you do not deny that I am intelligent?"
"I have thought you intelligent. I am damned if I think you so any longer."
"Oh, you will again—soon—when I wish it. We met just now at a grave, and there was more buried in that grave than the grave-diggers know: and we both stood looking at it: but I fancy there were more X-rays in my eye to see what was buried there than in yours!"
Driven beyond the bounds of patience, Winter threw out an arm in angry protest.
"Ha! ha! ha!" tittered Furneaux.
An important official at Scotland Yard must learn early the value of self-control. Consumed with a certain sense of the monstrous in this display of untimely mirth, Winter only gnawed a bristle or two of his mustache. He looked strangely at Furneaux, and they lingered together, loath to part, having still something bitter and rankling to say, but not knowing quite what, since men who have been all in all to each other cannot quarrel without some childish tone of schoolboy spite mingling in the wrangle.
"I believe I know where you are going now!" jeered Furneaux.
"Ah, you were always good at guessing."
"Going to pump the Pauline girl about Miss Marsh."
"True, of course, but not a very profound analysis considering that I am just ten yards from the house."
"Don't you even know where Miss Rosalind Marsh is?" asked Furneaux, producing a broken cigar from a pocket and sniffing it, simply because he was well aware that the trick displeased his superior.
"No. Do you?" Winter jeered back at him.
"I do."
"Oh, the sheerest bluff!"
"No, no bluff. I know."
"Well, let me imagine that it is bluff, anyway: for brute as a man might be, I won't give you credit for beingsucha brute as to keep that poor old lady undergoing the torments of hell through a deliberate silence of yours."
"Didn't you say that I have all the bad qualities of the Latin temperament?" answered Furneaux. "Now, there is something cat-like in the Latin; a Spaniard, for example, can be infernally cruel at a bullfight; and I'll admit thatIcan, too. But 'torments of hell' is rather an exaggeration, nor will the 'torments' last mortally long, for to-morrow afternoon at about four—at the hour that I choose—in the hour that I am ready—Miss Marsh will drive up to that door there."
"Evidently you were not born in Jersey, but in Gascony," Winter said sourly.
"Wrong again! A Jersey man will bounce any Gascon off his feet," said Furneaux. "And, just to pile up the agony, here is another sample for you, since you accuse me of bluffing. To-morrow afternoon, at that same hour—about four—I shall havethat scoundrel Osborne in custody charged with the murder in Feldisham Mansions."
"Mr. Osborne?" whispered Winter, towering and frowning above his diminutive adversary. "Oh, Furneaux, you drive me to despair by your folly. If you are mad, which I hope you are, that explains, I suppose, your delusion that others are mad, too."
"Genius is closely allied with insanity," said Furneaux carelessly; "yet, you observe that I have never hinted any doubt as to your saneness. Wait, you'll see: my case against Osborne is now complete. A warrant can't be refused, not even by you, and to-morrow, as sure as you stand there, I lay my hand on your protégé's shoulder."
Winter nearly choked in his rage.
"All right! We'll see about that!" he said with a furious nod of menace. Furneaux chuckled; and now by a simultaneous impulse they walked apart, Furneaux whistling, in Winter a whirlwind of passion blowing the last shreds of pity from his soul.
He was soon sitting at the bedside of Pauline Dessaulx, now convalescent, though the coming of this strange man threw her afresh into a tumult of agitation. But Winter comforted her, smoothed her hand, assured her that there was no cause for alarm.
"I know that you took Mademoiselle de Bercy's diary," he said to her, "and it was very wrong of you not to give it up to the police, and to hide yourself as you did when your evidence was wanted. But, don't be frightened—I am here to-night to see if youcan throw any light on the sad disappearance of Miss Marsh. The suspense is killing her mother, and I feel sure that it has some connection with the Feldisham Mansions affair. Now, can you help me? Think—tell me."
"Oh, I cannot!" She wrung her hands in a paroxysm of distress—"If I could, I would. I cannot imagine——!"
"Well, then, that part of my inquiry is ended. Only, listen to this attentively. I want to ask you one other question: Why did you leave the Exhibition early on the night of the murder, and where did you go to?"
"I—I—I, sir!" she said, pointing to her guiltless breast with a gaping mouth; "I, poor me, Ileft——?"
"Oh, come now, don't delude yourself that the police are fools. You went to the Exhibition with the cook, Hester Se——"
"And she has said such a thing of me? She has declared thatIleft——?"
"Yes, she has. Why trouble to deny it? You did leave—By the way, have you a brother or any other relative in London——?"
"I—I, sir! A brother? Ah, mon Dieu! Oh, but, sir——!"
"Really you must calm yourself. You went away from the Exhibition at an early hour. There is no doubt about it, and you must have a brother or some person deeply interested in you, for some man afterwardsgot hold of the cook, Bertha Seward, and begged her for Heaven's sake not to mention your departure from the Exhibition that night. He gave her money—she told me so. And Inspector Clarke knows it, as well as I, for Hester Seward has told me that he went to question her——"
"M'sieurClarke!"—at the name of "Clarke," which she whispered after him, the girl's face turned a more ghastly gray, for Clarke was the ogre, the griffon, the dragon of her recent life, at the mere mention of whom her heart leaped guiltily. Suddenly, abandoning the struggle, she fell back from her sitting posture, tried to hide her face in the bedclothes, and sobbed wildly:
"I didn't do it! I didn't do it!"
"Do what? Who said you had done anything?" asked Winter. "It isn'tyouthat Mr. Clarke suspects, you silly child, it is a man named——"
She looked up with frenzied eyes to hear the name—but Winter stopped. In his hands the unhappy Pauline was a little hedge-bird in the talons of a hawk.
"Named?" she repeated.
"Never mind his name."
She buried her head afresh, giving out another heart-rending sob, and from her smothered lips came the words:
"It wasn't I—it was—it was——"
"It was who?" asked Winter.
She shivered through the whole of her delicate frame, and a low murmur came from her throat:
"You have seen the diary—it was Monsieur Furneaux."
Oddly enough, despite his own black conviction, this was not what Winter expected to hear.
He started, and said sharply:
"Oh, you are stupid. Why are you saying things that you know nothing of?"
"May Heaven forgive me for accusing anyone," she sobbed hoarsely. "But it was not anybody else. It could not be. You have seen the diary—it was Mr. Furneaux, or it was Mr. Osborne."
"Ah, two accusations now," cried Winter. "Furneaux or Osborne! You are trying to shield someone? What motive could Mr. Furneaux, or Mr. Osborne, have for such an act?"
"Was not Mr. Osborne her lover? And was not Mr. Furneaux her—husband?"
"Her——!"
In that awesome moment Winter hardly realized what he said. Half starting out of his chair, he glared in stupor at the shrinking figure on the bed, while every drop of blood fled away from his own face.
There was a long silence. Then Winter, bending over her, spoke almost in the whisper of those who share a shameful secret.
"You say that Mr. Furneaux was her husband? You know it?"
She trembled violently, but nerved herself to answer:
"Yes, I know it."
"Tell me everything. You must! Do you understand? I order you."
"She told me herself when we were friends. She was married to him in the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois in Paris on the 7th of November in the year '98. But she soon left him, since he had not the means to support her. I have her marriage certificate in my trunk."
Winter sat some minutes spellbound, his big round eyes staring at the girl, but not seeing her, his forehead glistening. This, then, supplied the long-sought motive. The unfaithful wife was about to marry another. This was the key. An affrighting callousness possessed him. He became the cold, unbending official again.
"You must get up at once, and give me that certificate," he said in the tone of authority, and went out of the room. In a little while she placed the paper in his hands, and he went away with it. Were she not so distraught she might have seen that it shook in his fingers.
Now he, like Clarke, held all the threads of an amazing case.
The next afternoon Furneaux was to arrest Osborne—it was for him, Winter, then, to anticipate such an outrage by the swift arrest of Furneaux. But was he quite ready? He wished he could secure another day's grace to collate and systematize each link of his evidence, and he hurried to Osborne'shouse in order to give Osborne a hint to vanish again for a day or two. Nevertheless, when at the very door, he paused, refrained, thought that he would manage things differently, and went away.
On one of the blinds of the library as he passed he saw the shadow of a head—of Osborne's head in fact, who in that hour of despair was sitting there, bowed down, hopeless now of finding Rosalind, whom he believed to be dead.
Though Mrs. Marsh had that evening received a note from Janoc: "Your daughter is alive," as yet Osborne knew nothing of it. He was mourning his loss in solitude when a letter was brought to him by Jenkins. He tore it open. After an uncomprehending glare at the written words he suddenly grasped their meaning.
The writer believes that your ex-secretary, Miss Hylda Prout, could tell you where Miss Rosalind Marsh is imprisoned.
The writer believes that your ex-secretary, Miss Hylda Prout, could tell you where Miss Rosalind Marsh is imprisoned.
"Imprisoned!" That was the word that pierced the gloom and struck deepest. She was alive, then—that was joy. But a prisoner—in what hole of blackness? Subject to what risks? In whose power? In ten seconds he was rushing out of the house, and was gone.
During the enforced respite of a journey in a cab he looked again at the mysterious note. It was a man's hand; small, neat writing; no signature. Who could have written it? But his brain had no roomfor guessing. He looked out to cry to the driver: "A sovereign for a quick run."
To his woe, Hylda Prout was not in her lodgings when he arrived there. During the last few days he had known nothing of her movements. After that flare-up of passion in the library, the relation of master and servant had, of course, come to an end between them; and the lady of the house in Holland Park where Hylda rented two rooms told him that Miss Prout had gone to see her brother for the weekend, and was not expected back till noon on the following day.
And Osborne did not know where her brother lived! His night was dismal with a horror of sleeplessness.
Long before midday he was in Hylda's sitting-room, only to pace it to and fro in an agony of impatience till two o'clock—and then she came.
"Oh, I have waited hours—weary hours!" he cried with a reproach that seemed to sweep aside the need for explanations.
"I am so sorry!—sit here with me."
She touched his hand, leading him to a couch and sitting near him, her hat still on, a flush on her pale face.
"Hylda"—her heart leapt: he called her "Hylda"!—"you know where Miss Marsh is."
She sprang to her feet in a passion.
"So it is to talk to me about another woman that you have come? I who have humbled myself, lost my self-respect——"
Osborne, too, stood up, stung to the quick by this mood of hers, so foreign to the disease of impatience and care in which he was being consumed.
"My good girl," he said, "are you going to be reasonable?"
"Come, then," she retorted, "let us be reasonable." She sat down again, her hands crossed on her lap, a passionate vindictiveness in her pursed lips, but a mock humility in her attitude.
"Tell me! tell me! Where shall I find her?" and he bent in eager pleading.
"No. How is it possible that I should tell you?"
"But you do know! Somehow you do! I see and feel it. Tell it me, Hylda! Where is she?"
She looked up at him with a smiling face which gave no hint of the asp's nest of jealousy which the sight of his agony and longing created in her bosom. And from those calm lips furious words came out:
"Why, I horribly hate the woman—and since I happen to know that she is suffering most vilely, do you think it likely that I would tell you where she is?"
He groaned, as his heart sank, his head dropped, his hope died. He moved slowly away to a window; then, with a frantic rush was back to her, on his knees, telling her of his wealth—it was more than she could measure!—and he had a checkbook in his pocket—all, one might say, was hers—she had only to name a sum—a hundred thousand, two hundred—anything—luxury for life, mansions, position—justfor one little word, one little act of womanly kindliness.
When he stopped for lack of breath, she covered her eyes with the back of her hand, and began to cry; he saw her lips stretched in the tension of her emotion.
"Why do you cry?—that achieves nothing—listen——" he panted.
"To be offered money—to be so wounded—I who——" She could not go on.
"My God! Then I offer you—what you will—my friendship—my gratitude—my affection—only speak——"
"For another woman! Slave that you are to her! she is sweet to you, is she, in your heart? But she shall never have you—be sure of that—not while I draw the breath of life! If you want her free, I will sell myself for nothing less than yourself—you must marry me!"
Her astounding demand struck him dumb. He picked himself slowly up from her feet, walked again to the window, and stood with his back to her—a long time. Once she saw his head drop, heard him sob, heard the words: "Oh, no, not that"; and she sat, white and silent, watching him.
When he returned to her his eyes were calm, his face of a grim and stern pallor. He sat by her, took her hand, laid his lips on it.
"You speak of marriage," he said gently, "but just think what kind of a marriage that would be—forced,on one side—I full of resentment against you for the rest of my life——"
Thus did he try to reason with her, tried to show her a better way, offering to vow not to marry anyone for two years, during which he promised to see whether he could not acquire for her those feelings which a husband——
But she cut him short coldly. In two years she would be dead without him. She would kill herself. Life lived in pain was a thing of no value—a human life of no more value than a fly's. If he would marry her, she would tell him where Miss Marsh was: and, after the marriage, if he did not love her, she knew a way of setting him free—though, even in that case, Rosalind Marsh should never have him—she, Hylda, would see to that.
For the first time in his life Osborne knew what it was to hate. He, the man accused of murder, felt like a murderer, but he had grown strangely wise, and realized that this woman would die cheerfully rather than reveal her secret. He left her once more, stood ten minutes at the window—then laughed harshly.
"I agree," he said quite coolly, turning to her.
She, too, was outwardly cool, though heaven and hell fought together in her bosom. She held out to him a Bible. He kissed it.
"When?" she asked.
"This day week," he said.
She wrote on a piece of paper the address of a house in Poland Street; and handed it to him.
"Miss Marsh is there," she said, as though she were his secretary of former days, in the most business-like way.
He walked straight out without another word, without a bow to her.
When he was well out of the house he began to run madly, for there was no cab in sight. But he had not run far when he collided with Inspector Furneaux.
"Mr. Osborne," said Furneaux—"one word. I think you are interested in the disappearance of Miss Marsh? Well, I am happy to say that I am in a position to tell you where that lady is."
He looked with a glitter of really fiendish malice in his eyes at the unhappy man who leant against a friendly wall, his face white as death.
"Are you ill, sir?" asked Furneaux, with mock solicitude.
"Why, man, your information is a minute late," muttered Osborne; "I have it already—I have bought it." He held out the paper with the address in Poland Street.
Furneaux gazed at him steadily as he leant there, looking ready to drop; then suddenly, eagerly, he said:
"You say 'bought': do you mean with money?"
"No, not with money—with my youth, with my life!"
Furneaux seemed to murmur to himself: "As I hoped!" And now the glitter of malice passed away from his softened eyes, his forehead flushed a little, out went his hand to Osborne, who, in a daze of misery, without in the least understanding why, mechanically shook it.
"Surely, Mr. Osborne," said Furneaux, "Miss Marsh would consider that a noble deed of you, if she knew it."
"She will never know it."
"Oh, never is a long time. One must be more or less hopeful. Unfortunately, I am compelled to inform you that I am here to arrest you——"
"Me? At last! For the murder?"
"It was to be, Mr. Osborne. But, come, you shall first have the joy of setting free Miss Marsh, to whom you have given so much—there's a cab——"
Osborne followed him into the cab with a reeling brain. Yet he smiled vacantly.
"I hope I shall be hanged," he said, in a sort of self-communing. "That will be better than marriage—better, too, than deserving to be hanged, which might have been true of me a few minutes ago. Why, I killed a woman in thought just now—killed her, with my hands. Yes, this is better. I should hate to have done that wretched thing, but now I am safe—safe from—myself."
As Furneaux and Osborne were being driven rapidly to Poland Street, bent on the speedy release of Rosalind, Inspector Winter, for his part, was seeking for Furneaux in a fury of haste, eager to arrest his colleague before the latter could arrest Osborne. At the same time Clarke, determined to bring matters to a climax by arresting Janoc, was lurking about a corner of Old Compton Street, every moment expecting the passing of his quarry. Each man was acting without a warrant. The police are empowered to arrest "on suspicion," and each of the three could produce proof in plenty to convict his man.
As for Winter, he knew that where Osborne was Furneaux would not be far that day. Hence, when in the forenoon he received notice from one of his watchers that Furneaux had that morning deliberately fled from observation, he bade his man watch Osborne's steps with one eye, while the other searched the offing for the shadow of Furneaux, on the sound principle that "wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together."
Thus Osborne's ride to Holland Park to see HyldaProut had been followed; and, two hours afterwards, while he was still waiting for Hylda's arrival, Winter's spy from behind the frosted glass of a public-house bar had watched Furneaux's arrival and long wait on the pavement. He promptly telephoned the fact to Winter, and Winter was about to set out westward from Scotland Yard when the detective telephoned afresh to say that Mr. Osborne had appeared out of the house, and had been accosted by Furneaux. The watcher, quite a smart youngster from a suburban station, hastened from his hiding-place. Evidently, Furneaux was careless of espionage at that moment. He hailed a cab without so much as a glance at the man passing close to Osborne and himself on the pavement, and it was easy to overhear the address given to the driver—a house in Poland Street.
Why to Poland Street Winter could not conceive. At all events, the fact that the drive was not to a police-station inspired him with the hope that Osborne's arrest was for some reason not yet an accomplished fact, and he, too, set off for Poland Street, which happily lay much nearer Scotland Yard than Holland Park.
Meantime, Osborne and Furneaux were hastening eastward in silence, Osborne with his head bent between his clenched hands, and an expression of face as wrenched with pain as that of a man racked with neuralgia. It was now that he began to feel in reality the tremendousness of the vow he had justmade to marry Hylda Prout, in order to set Rosalind free. Compared to that his impending arrest was too little a thing for him to care about. But as they were spinning along by Kensington Gardens, a twinge of curiosity prompted him to ask why he was to be arrested now, after being assured repeatedly that the police would not formulate any charge against him.
Furneaux looked straight in front of him, and when he answered, his voice was metallic.
"There was no escaping it, Mr. Osborne," he said. "But be thankful for small mercies. I was waiting there in the street for you, intending to pounce on you at once, but when I knew that you had sacrificed yourself for Miss Marsh, I thought, 'He deserves to be permitted to release her': for, to promise to marry Miss Prout——"
"What are you saying? How could you possibly know that I promised to marry Miss Prout?"
Osborne's brain was still seething, but some glimmer of his wonted clear judgment warned him of the exceeding oddity of the detective's remark.
"Well, you told me that you had 'bought' the knowledge of her whereabouts with 'your youth and your life'—so I assumed that there could be no other explanation."
"Still, that is singularly deep guessing——!"
"Well, if you demand greater accuracy, I foresaw exactly what would be the result of your interview with your late secretary, in case you really did carefor Miss Marsh. Therefore, I brought about the interview because——"
"Youbrought it about?" cried Osborne in a crescendo of astonishment.
"Yes. You see I am candid. You are aware that I knew where Miss Marsh could be found, and I might have given you the information direct. But I preferred to write a note telling you that you must depend on Miss Prout for tidings."
"Ah! it was you, then, who sent that note! But how cruel, how savagely cruel! Could you not have told me yourself? Don't you realize that your detestable action has bound me for life to a woman whom—Oh, I hope, since you are about to arrest me, that you will prove me guilty, for if I live, life henceforth will hold nothing for me save Dead Sea fruit!"
He covered his eyes, but Furneaux, whose face was twitching curiously, laid a hand on his knee, and said in a low voice:
"Do not despair. You are not the only man in the world who suffers. I had reasons—and strong reasons—for acting in this manner. One reason was that I was uncertain of the depth of your affection for Miss Marsh, and I wished to be as certain as you have now made me."
"But how on earth could that concern you, the depth or shallowness of my affection for Miss Marsh?" asked Osborne in a white heat of anger and indignation.
"Nevertheless, it did concern me," answered Furneauxdryly; "I cannot, at present, explain everything to you. I had a suspicion that your affection for Miss Marsh was trivial: if it had been, you would then have shown a criminal forgetfulness of the dead woman whom so recently you said you loved. In that event, you would have found me continuing the part I have played in regard to you—anything but a friend. As matters stand, I say I may yet earn your gratitude for what to-day you call my cruelty."
Osborne passed his hands across his eyes wearily.
"I fear I can neither talk myself, nor quite understand what you mean by your words," he murmured. "My poor head is rather in a whirl. You see, I have given my promise—I have sworn on the Bible to that woman—nothing can ever alter that, or release me now. I am—done for——"
His chin dropped on his breast. He had the semblance of a man who had lost all—for whom death had no terrors.
"Nevertheless, I tell you that I forecasted the result of your interview with Hylda Prout," persisted Furneaux. "Even now I do not see your reason for despair. I knew that Miss Prout had an ardent attachment to you; I said to myself: 'She will surely seek to sell the information in her possession for what she most longs for, and the possibility is that Osborne may yield to her terms—always provided that his attachment to the other lady is profound. If it is not profound, I find out by this device;if it is profound, he becomes engaged to Miss Prout, which is a result that I greatly wish to bring about before his arrest.'"
"My God! why?" asked Osborne, looking up in a tense agony that might have moved a less sardonic spirit.
"For certain police reasons," said Furneaux, smiling with the smug air of one who has given an irrefutable answer.
"But what a priceIpay for these police reasons! Is this fair, Inspector Furneaux? Now, in Heaven's name, is this fair? Life-long misery on the one hand, and some trick of officialism on the other!"
The detective seemed to think the conversation at an end, since he sat in silence and stared blankly out of the window.
Osborne shrank into his corner, quite drooping and pinched with misery, and brooded over his misfortunes. Presently he started, and asked furiously:
"In what possible way did Hylda Prout come to know where Miss Marsh was hidden, to use your own ridiculous word?"
"Miss Prout happens to be a really clever woman," answered Furneaux. "In the times of Richelieu she would have governed France from analcôve. You had better ask her herself how she obtained her knowledge. Still, I don't mind telling you that Miss Marsh has been imprisoned in a wine-cellar by a certain Anarchist, a great man in his way, and that your former secretary has of late days developedquite an intimate acquaintance with Anarchist circles——"
"Anarchist?" gasped Osborne. "My Rosalind—imprisoned in a wine-cellar?"
"It is a tangled skein," purred Furneaux with a self-satisfied smirk; "I am afraid we haven't time now to go into it."
The cab crossed Oxford Circus—two minutes more and they were in Soho.
Winter at that moment was on the lookout for Furneaux at the corner of a shabby street which traverses Poland Street. As for Clarke, he had vanished from the nook in Compton Street where he was loitering in the belief that Janoc would soon pass. In order to understand exactly the amazing events that were now reaching their crisis it is necessary to go back half an hour and see how matters had fared with Clarke....
During his long vigil, he, in turn, had been watched most intently by the Italian, Antonio, who, quickly becoming suspicious, hastened to a barber's shop, kept by a compatriot, where Janoc was in hiding. Into this shop he pitched to pant a frenzied warning.
"Sauriac says that Inspector Clarke has been up your stairs—may have entered your rooms—and I myself have just seen him prowling round Old Compton Street!"
Agitation mastered Janoc; he, who so despised those bunglers, the police, now began to fear them.Out he pelted, careless of consequences, and Antonio after him.
He made straight for his third-floor back, and, losing a few seconds in his eagerness to unlock the door, rushed to the trunk in which he had left the two daggers, meaning to do away with them once and for all.
And now he knew how he had blundered in keeping them. He looked in the trunk and saw, not the daggers, but the gallows!
For the first time in his life he nearly fainted. Political desperadoes of his type are often neurotic—weak as women when the hour of trial is at hand, but strong as women when the spirit has subdued the flesh. During some moments of sheer despair he knelt there, broken, swaying, with clasped hands and livid face. Then he stood up slowly, with some degree of calmness, with no little dignity.
"They are gone," he said to Antonio, pointing tragically.
Antonio's hands tore at his hair, his black eyes glared out of their red rims with the look of a hunted animal that hears the hounds baying in close pursuit.
"This means the sure conviction either of her or me," went on Janoc. "My efforts have failed—I must confess to the murder."
"My friend!" cried Antonio.
"Set free Miss Marsh for me," said Janoc, and he walked down the stairs, without haste, yet briskly—Antoniofollowing him at some distance behind, with awe, with reverence, as one follows a conqueror.
Janoc went unfalteringly to his doom. Clarke, seeing him come, chuckled and lounged toward him.
"It is for me you wait—yes?" said Janoc, pale, but strong.
"There may be something inthat," said Clarke, though he was slightly taken aback by the question.
"You have the daggers—yes?"
This staggered him even more, but he managed to growl:
"You may be sure of that."
"Well, I confess! I did it!"
At last! The garish street suddenly assumed roseate tints in the detective's eyes.
"Oh, you do?" he cried thickly. "You confess that you killed Rose de Bercy on the night of the 3d of July at Feldisham Mansions?"
"Yes, I confess it."
Clarke laid a hand on Janoc's sleeve, and the two walked away.
As for Antonio, in an ecstasy of excitement he cast his eyes and his arms on high together, crying out, "O Dio mio!" and the next moment was rushing to find a cab to take him to Porchester Gardens. Arrived there, he rang, and the instant Pauline appeared, she being now sufficiently recovered to attend to her duties, his right hand went out in a warning clutch at her shoulder.
"Your brother is arrested!" he cried.
With her clenched fists drawn back, she glared crazily at him, and her face reddened for a little while, as if she were furious at the outrage and suddenness of his news. Then her cheeks whitened, she went faint, sank back into the shelter of the hall, and leant against an inner doorway, her eyes closed, her lips parted.
"Oh, Pauline, be brave!" said Antonio, and tears choked his voice.
After a time, without opening her eyes, she asked:
"What proofs have they?"
"They have found the daggers in his trunk."
"ButIhave the daggers!"
"No, that woman who lived here, your supposed friend, Miss Marsh, stole the daggers from you, and Janoc secured them from her."
She moaned, but did not weep. She, who had been timid as a mouse at sight of Clarke, was now braver than the man. Presently she whispered:
"Where have they taken him to?"
"He will have been taken to the Marlborough Street police-station."
After another silence she said:
"Thank you, Antonio; leave me."
Passionately he kissed her hand in silence, and went.
She was no sooner alone than she walked up to her room, dressed herself in clothes suited for an out-of-door mission, and went out, heedless and dumb when a wondering fellow-servant protested. She calleda cab—for Marlborough Street; and now she was as calm and strong as had been her brother when he gave himself up to Clarke.
Her cab crossed Oxford Circus about ten minutes ahead of the vehicle which carried Furneaux and Osborne; and as she turned south to enter Marlborough Street, she saw Winter, who had lately visited her, standing at a corner awaiting the arrival of Furneaux.
"Stop!" Pauline cried to her driver: and she alighted.
"Well, you are better, I see," said Winter, who did not wish to be bothered by her at that moment.
"Sir," said Pauline solemnly in her stilted English, "I regret having been so unjust as to tell you that it was either Mr. Furneaux or Mr. Osborne who committed that murder, since it was I myself who did it."
"What!" roared Winter, stepping backward, and startled most effectually out of his official phlegm.
"Sir," said Pauline again, gravely, calmly, "it was not a murder, it was an assassination, done for political reasons. As I have no mercy to expect, so I have no pardon to ask, and no act to blush at. It was political. I give myself into your custody."
Winter stood aghast. His brain seemed suddenly to have curdled; everything in the world was topsy-turvy.
"So that was why you left the Exhibition—tokill that poor woman, Pauline Dessaulx?" he contrived to say.
"That is the truth, sir. I could bear to keep it secret no longer, and was going now to the police-station to give myself up, when I saw you."
Still Winter made no move. He stood there, frowning in thought, staring at nothing.
"And all the proofs I have gathered against—against someone else—all these are false?" he muttered.
"I am afraid so, sir," said Pauline, "since it was I who did it with my own hands."
"And Mr. Osborne's dagger and flint—where do they come in?"
"It was I who stole them from Mr. Osborne's museum, sir, to throw suspicion upon him."
"Oh, come along," growled Winter. "I believe, I know, you are lying, but this must be inquired into."
Not unkindly, acting more like a man in a dream than an officer of the law, he took her arm, led her to the cab from which she had just descended, and the two drove away together to the police-station higher up the street.
Thus, and thus only, was Inspector Furneaux saved from arrest that day. Two minutes later he and Osborne passed the very spot where Pauline found Winter, and reached Poland Street without interference.
Furneaux produced a bunch of keys when he ranup the steps of the house. He unlocked the door at once, and the two men entered. Evidently Furneaux had been there before, for he hurried without hesitation down the kitchen stairs, put a key into the cellar door, flung it open, and Osborne, peering wildly over his shoulder, caught a glimpse of Rosalind sitting on the ground in a corner.
She did not look up when they entered—apparently she thought it was Janoc who had come, and with fixed, mournful eyes, like one gazing into profundities of vacancy, she continued to stare at the floor. Her face and air were so pitiable that the hearts of the men smote them into dumbness.