She did not look up when they enteredPage 258
She did not look up when they enteredPage 258
She did not look up when they entered
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Then, half conscious of some new thing, she must have caught sight of two men instead of the usual one, for she looked up sharply; and in another moment was staggering to her feet, all hysterical laughter and sobbings, like a dying light that flickers wildly up and burns low alternately, trying at one instant to be herself and calm, when she laughed, and the next yielding to her distress, when she sobbed. She put out her hand to Osborne in a last effort to be graceful and usual; then she yielded the struggle, and fainted in his arms.
Furneaux produced a scent-bottle and a crushed cigar, such as it was his habit to smell, to present them to her nose....
But she did not revive, so Osborne took her in his arms, and carried her, as though she were a child, up the stone steps, and up the wooden, and out tothe cab. Furneaux allowed him to drive alone with her, himself following behind in another cab, which was a most singular proceeding on the part of a detective who had arrested a man accused of an atrocious murder.
Half-way to Porchester Gardens Rosalind opened her eyes, and a wild, heartrending cry came from her parched lips.
"I will have no more wine nor water—let me die!"
"Try and keep still, just a few moments, my dear one!" he murmured, smiling a fond smile of pain, and clasping her more tightly in a protecting arm. "You are going home, to your mother. You will soon be there, safe, with her."
"Oh!"—Then she recognized him, though there was still an uncanny wildness in her eyes. "I am free—it is you."
She seemed to falter for words, but raised her hands instinctively to her hair, knowing it to be all rumpled and dusty. Instinctively, too, she caught her hat from her knee, and put it on hurriedly. She could not know what stabs of pain these little feminine anxieties caused her lover. No spoken words could have portrayed the sufferings she had endured like unto her pitiful efforts to conceal their ravages. At last she recovered sufficiently to ask if her mother expected her.
"I am not sure," said Osborne. "I am not your deliverer; Inspector Furneaux discovered where you were, and went to your rescue."
"But you are with him?" and an appealing note of love, of complete confidence, crept into her voice.
"I merely happen to be with him, because he is now taking me to a felon's cell. But he lets me come in the cab with you, because he trusts me not to run away."
His smile was very sad and humble, and he laid his disengaged hand on hers, yielding to a craving for sympathy in his forlornness. But memories were now thronging fast on her mind, and she drew herself away from both hand and arm. She recalled that her last sight of him was when in the embrace of Hylda Prout in his library; and, mixed with that vision of infamy, was a memory of her letter that had been opened, whose opening he had denied to her.
And that snatch of her hand as from a toad's touch, that shrinking from the pressure of his arm, froze him back into his loneliness of misery. They remained silent, each in a corner, a world between them, till the cab was nearly at the door in Porchester Gardens. Then he could not help saying from the depths of a heavy heart:
"Probably I shall never see you again! It is good-by now; and no more Rosalind."
The words were uttered in a tone of such heart-rending sadness that they touched some nerve of pity in her. But she could find nothing to say, other than a quite irrelevant comment.
"I will tell my mother of your consideration for me. At least, we shall thank you."
"If ever you hear anything—of me—that looks black——" he tried to tell her, thinking of his coming marriage with Hylda Prout, but the explanation choked in his throat; he only managed to gasp in a quick appeal of sorrow: "Oh, remember me a little!"
The cab was at the door. She put out her hand, and he shook it; but did not offer to escort her inside the house. It was Furneaux who led her up the steps, and Osborne heard from within a shrill outcry from Mrs. Marsh. Furneaux waited until the door was closed. Then he rejoined Osborne. They went, without exchanging a syllable of talk, to Marlborough Street police-station, where Janoc and his sister were already lodged. Arrived there, Furneaux formally arrested him, "on suspicion," charged with the murder of Rose de Bercy.
"But whynow?" asked Osborne again. "What has happened to implicate me now more than before?"
"Oh, many things have happened, and will happen, that as yet you know nothing of," said Furneaux, smiling at the stolid station inspector, a man incapable of any emotion, even of surprise, and Osborne was led away to be searched for concealed weapons, or poison, before being placed in a cell.
Half an hour afterwards Furneaux walked into Winter's quarters. His chief, writing hard, hardly glanced up, and for some time Furneaux stood looking at his one-time friend with the eyes of a scientist who contemplates a new fossil.
"Well, I have Osborne safe," he said at last.
"You have, have you?" muttered Winter, scribbling rapidly; but a flush of anger rose on his forehead, and he added: "It will cost you your reputation, my good fellow!"
"Is that all?" cried Furneaux mockingly. "Why, I was looking out for worse things than that!"
Winter threw down his pen.
"You informed me last night," he snarled, "that by this hour Miss Marsh would have returned to her home. I need not ask——"
"I have just taken her there," remarked the other coolly.
Winter was thoroughly nonplused. Everybody, everything, seemed to be mad. He was staring at Furneaux when Clarke entered. The newcomer's hat was tilted a little backward, and there was an air of business-like haste in him from the creak of his boot soles to the drops of perspiration shining on his brow. He contrived to hold himself back just long enough to say, "Hello, Furneaux!" and then his burden of news broke from him:
"Well, I've got Janoc under lock and key all right."
"Oh,you'vegot somebody, too, have you?" groaned Winter. "And on what charge, pray, have you collared Janoc?"
"Why, what a question!" cried Clarke. "Didn't I tell you, sir——?"
"So true," said Winter; "I had almost forgotten.You've grabbed Janoc, and the genius of Mr. Furneaux is sated by arresting Mr. Osborne——"
Clarke slapped his thigh vigorously, doubling up in a paroxysm of laughter.
"Osborne! Oh, not Osborne at this time of day!" He leered at Furneaux in comic wonder—he, who had never dared question aught done by the little man, save in the safe privacy of his thoughts.
"And I have arrested Pauline," said Winter in grim irony.
"Who has?" asked Clarke, suddenly agape.
"I, I say. Pauline ismyprize.Iwouldn't be left out in the cold." And he added bitterly: "We've all got one!—allguilty!—a lovely story it will make for the newspapers. I suppose, to keep up the screaming farce, that we each ought to contrive to have our prisoner tried in a different court!"
Clarke's hands went akimbo. He swelled visibly, grew larger, taller, and looked down from his Olympus at the others.
"ButInever dream at night," he cried. "WhenIarrest a man for murder he is going to be hanged. You see,Janoc has confessed—that's all: he has confessed!"
Winter leaped up.
"Confessed!" he hissed, unable to believe his ears.
"That's just it," said Clarke—"confessed!"
"But Pauline has confessed, too!" Winter almost screamed, confronting his subordinate like an adversary.
And while Clarke shrank, and gaped in dumb wonder, Furneaux, looking from one to the other, burst out laughing. Never a word he said, but turned in his quick way to leave the room. He was already in the corridor when Winter shouted:
"Come back, Furneaux!"
"Not I," was the defiant retort.
"Come back, or I shall have you brought back!"
Winter was in a white rage, but Furneaux pressed on daringly, whistling a tune, and never looking round. Clarke, momentarily expecting the roof of Scotland Yard to fall in, gazed from Furneaux to Winter and from Winter to Furneaux until the diminutive Jersey man had vanished round an angle of a long passage.
But nothing happened. Winter was beaten to his knees, and he knew it.
Winter was far too strong a man to remain long buried in the pit of humiliation into which Furneaux, aided unwittingly by Clarke, had cast him. The sounds of Furneaux's jaunty footsteps had barely died away before he shoved aside the papers on which he had been engaged previously, and reached across the table for a box of cigars.
He took one, and shoved the box towards Clarke, whose face was still glistening in evidence of his rush from Marlborough Street police-station.
"Here, you crack-pate!" he said, "smoke; it may clear your silly head."
"But I can't repeat too often that Janoc has confessed—confessed!" and Clarke's voice rose almost to a squeal on that final word.
"So has his sister confessed. In an hour or two, when the silence and horror of a cell have done their work, we shall have Osborne confessing, too. Oh, man, man, can't you see that Furneaux has twisted each of us round his little finger?"
"But—sir——"
"Yes, I know," cried Winter, in a fume of wrathand smoke. "Believe these foreign idiots and we shall be hearing of a masked tribunal, glistening with daggers, a brace of revolvers in every belt—a dozen or more infuriated conspirators, cloaked in gaberdines, gathered in a West End flat, while a red-headed woman harangues them. Furneaux has fooled us, I tell you—deliberately brought the Yard into discredit—made us the laughing-stock of the public. Oh, I shall never——"
He pulled himself up, for Clarke was listening with the ears of a rabbit. Luckily, the detective's ideas were too self-concentrated to extract much food for thought from these disjointed outpourings.
"I don't wish to seem wanting in respect, sir," he said doggedly, "but have you forgotten the diary? Why, Rose de Bercy herself wrote that she would be killed either by C. E. F. or Janoc. Now——"
"Did she mention Janoc?" interrupted Winter sharply. "In what passage? I certainlyhaveforgotten that."
Clarke, stubborn as a mule, stuck to his point, though he felt that he had committed himself.
"Perhaps I did wrong," he growled savagely, "but I couldn't help myself. You were against me all along, sir—now, weren't you?"
No answer. Winter waited, and did not even look at him.
"What was I to do?" he went on in desperation. "You took me off the job just as I was gettingkeen in it. Then I happened upon Janoc, and found his sister, and when I came across that blacked-out name in the diary I scraped it and sponged it until I could read what was written beneath. The name was Janoc!"
"Was it?" said Winter, gazing at him at last with a species of contempt. "And to throw dust in my eyes—in the eyes of your superior officer—you inked it out again?"
"You wouldn't believe," muttered Clarke. "Why, you don't know half this story. I haven't told you yet how I found the daggers——"
"You don't say," mocked Winter.
"But I do, I did," cried Clarke, beside himself with excitement. "I took them out of Janoc's lodgings, and put them in a cab. I would have them in my hands this minute if some d—d thing hadn't occurred, some trick of fate——"
Winter stooped and unlocked a drawer in his writing-desk.
"Are these your daggers?" he demanded, though Clarke was shrewd enough, if in possession of his usual senses, to have caught the note of suppressed astonishment in the Chief Inspector's voice, since this was the first he had heard of Furneaux's deliberate pilfering of the weapons from his colleague.
But something was singing in Clarke's ears, and his eyes were glued on the blades resting there in the drawer. Denial was impossible. He recognizedthem instantly, and all his assurance fled from that moment.
"Well, there!" he murmured, in a curiously broken voice. "I give in! I'm done! I'm a baby at this game. Next thing, I suppose, I'll be asked to resign—me, who found 'em, and the diary, and the letter telling Janoc not to kill her—yet."
He was looking so fixedly at the two daggers that he failed to see the smile of relief that flitted over Winter's face. Now, more than ever, the Chief Inspector realized that he was dealing with one of the most complex and subtle crimes which had come within his twenty years of experience. He was well versed in Furneaux's sardonic humor, and the close friendship that had existed between them ever since the little Jersey man joined the Criminal Investigation Department had alone stopped him from resenting it. It was clear now to his quick intelligence that Furneaux had actually planned nearly every discovery which either he himself or Clarke had made. Why? He could not answer. He was moving through a fog, blind-folded, with hands tied behind his back. Search where he would, he could not find a motive, unless, indeed, Furneaux was impelled by that strangest of all motives, a desire to convict himself. At any rate, he did not want Clarke to tread on the delicate ground that must now be covered before Furneaux was arrested, and the happy accident which had unlocked Clarke's tongue with regardto the diary would serve admirably to keep him well under control.
"Now, look here, Inspector Clarke," said Winter severely, after a pause that left the other in wretched suspense, "you have erred badly in this matter. For once, I am willing to overlook it—because—because you fancied you had a grievance. But, remember this—never again! Lack of candor is fatal to the best interests of the service. It is for me to decide which cases you shall take up and which you shall leave alone. You know perfectly well that if, by chance, information reaches you with regard to any inquiry which may prove useful to the man in charge of it, it is your duty to tell him everything. I say no more now. You understand me fully, I have no doubt. You must take it from me, without question or protest, that neither Janoc nor his sister was responsible for that crime. They may have been mixed up in it—in some manner now hidden from me—but they had no share in it personally. Still, seeing that you have worked so hard, I don't object to your presence while I prove that I am right. Come with me now to Marlborough Street. Mr. Osborne must be set at liberty, of course, but I shall confront your Anarchist friends with one another, and then you will see for yourself my grounds for being so positive as to their innocence."
"But you yourself arrested Pauline, sir," Clarke ventured to say.
"Don't be an ass!" was the cool rejoinder."Could I refuse to arrest her? Suppose you told me now that you had killed the Frenchwoman, wouldn't I be compelled to arrestyou?"
"Ha!" laughed Clarke, in solemn mirth, "what about C. E. F.? Wouldn't it be funny if he owned up to it?"
Winter answered not a word. He was busy locking the drawer and rolling down the front of the desk. But Clarke did not really mean what he had said. His mind was dwelling on the inscrutable mystery of the daggers which he had last held in his hands in Soho and now knew to be reposing in a locked desk in Scotland Yard.
"Would you mind telling me, sir, how you managed to get hold of 'em?" he asked.
Winter did not pretend ignorance.
"You will be surprised to hear that I myself took them, disinterred them, from the poor creature's grave in Kensal Green Cemetery," he said.
Clarke's jaw dropped in the most abject amazement. The thing had a supernatural sound. He felt himself bewitched.
"From her grave?" he repeated.
"Yes."
"But who put 'em there?"
"Ah," said the other with a new note of sternness in his voice, "who but the murderer? But come, we are wasting time—that unfortunate Osborne must be half-demented. I suppose the Marlborough Street people will let him out on my authority.If not, I must get an order from the Commissioner. By gad, there will be a fiendish rumpus about this business before it is all settled!"
Clarke shivered. He saw a certain well-belovd detective inspector figuring prominently in that "rumpus," and he was in no mind to seek a new career after passing the best part of his life in the C. I. D.
But at Marlborough Street another shock awaited the Chief. He and Clarke were entering the street in a taxi when Furneaux crooked a finger at him from the pavement. Winter could not, nay, he dared not, ignore that demand for an interview.
"Stop here!" he said to Clarke. Then he sprang out, and approached Furneaux.
"Well?" he snapped, "have you made up your mind to end this tragic farce?"
"I am not its chief buffoon," sneered Furneaux. "In fact, I am mainly a looker-on, but I do appreciate its good points to the full."
Winter waved aside these absurdities.
"I have come to free Mr. Osborne," he said. "I was rather hoping that your own sense of fair dealing, if you have any left——"
"Exactly what I thought," broke in the other. "That is whyIam here. I hate correcting your mistakes, because I fancy it does you good to discover them for yourself. Still, it is a pity to spoil a good cause. Mere professional pride forces me to warn you against liberating Osborne."
"Man alive, you try me beyond endurance. Do you believe I don't know the truth—that Rose de Bercy was your wife—thatyouwere in that museum before the murder—thatyou.... Oh, Furneaux, you wring it from me. Get a pistol, man, before it is too late."
"You mean that?" cried Furneaux, his eyes gleaming with a new fire.
"Heaven knows I do!"
"You want to be my friend, then, after all?"
"Friend! If you realized half the torture——"
"Pity!" mused Furneaux aloud. "Why didn't you speak sooner? So you would rather I committed suicide than be in your hands a prisoner?"
Winter then awoke to the consciousness that this extraordinary conversation was taking place in a crowded thoroughfare, within a stone's throw of a police-station in which lay three people charged with having committed the very crime he was tacitly accusing Furneaux of, while Clarke's ferret eyes must be resting on them with a suspicion already half-formed.
"I can say no more," he muttered gruffly. "One must forego friendship when duty bars the way. But if you have a grain of humanity left in your soul, come with me and release that unhappy young man——"
Some gush of emotion wrung Furneaux's face as if with a spasm of physical pain. He held out his right hand.
"Winter, forgive me, I have misjudged you," he said.
"Is it good-by?" came the passionate question.
"No, not good-by. It is an alliance, Winter, a wiping of the slate. You don't understand, perhaps, that we are both to blame. But you can take my hand, old man. There is no stain of blood on it. I did not murder my wife. I am her avenger, her pitiless, implacable avenger—so pitiless, so implacable, that I may have erred in my harshness. For Heaven's sake, Winter, believe me, and take my hand!"
The man's magnetism was irresistible. Despite the crushing weight of proof accumulated against him, the claims of old friendship were not to be ignored. Winter took the proffered hand and squeezed it with a vehemence that not only showed the tension of his feelings but also brought tears of real anguish to Furneaux's eyes.
"I only asked you for a friendly grip, Winter," he complained. "You have been more than kind. No matter what happens, don't offer to shake hands with me again for twelve months at least."
There was no comprehending him, and Winter abandoned the effort. Moreover, Clarke's puzzled brows were bent on them.
"An alliance implies confidence," he said, and the official mask fell on his bluff features. "If you can honestly——"
Furneaux laughed, with just a faint touch of that impish humor that the other knew so well.
"Not Winter, but Didymus!" he cried. "Well, then, let us proceed to the confounding of poor Clarke.Peste!he deserves a better fate, for he has worked like a Trojan. But leave Osborne to me. Have no fear—I shall explain, a little to him, all to you."
Clarke writhed with jealousy when Winter beckoned to him. While his chief was paying the cabman, he jeered at Furneaux.
"I had a notion——" he began, but the other caught his arm confidentially.
"I was just telling the guv'nor how much we owe to you in this Feldisham Mansions affair," he said. "You were on the right track all the time. You've the keenest nose in the Yard, Clarke. You can smell an Anarchist through the stoutest wall ever built. Now, not a word! You'll soon see how important your investigations have been."
Clarke was overwhelmed by a new flood. Never before had Furneaux praised him, unless in some ironic phrase that galled the more because he did not always extract its hidden meaning. He blinked with astonishment.
With a newborn trust, which he would have failed ignominiously to explain in words, Winter led his colleagues to Marlborough Street police-station. There, after a brief but earnest colloquy with thestation inspector, he asked that Janoc and his sister should be brought to the inspector's office.
Janoc came first, pale, languid, high-strung, but evidently prepared to be led to his death that instant.
He looked at the four men, three in plain clothes and one in uniform, with a superb air of dignity, almost of superiority; in silence he awaited the inquisition which he supposed he would be compelled to undergo, but when no word was spoken—when even that phantom of evil, Clarke, paid no heed to him, he grew manifestly uneasy.
At last steps were heard, the door opened, and Pauline Dessaulx entered. Of course, this brother and sister were Gauls to the finger-tips. Each screamed, each flew to the other's arms; they raved; they wept, and laughed, and uttered incoherent words of utmost affection.
Winter indulged them a few seconds. Then he broke in on their transports.
"Now, Janoc," he said brusquely, "have done with this acting! Why have you given the police so much trouble?"
"Monsieur, I swear——"
"Oh, have done with your swearing! Your sister didn't kill Mademoiselle de Bercy. She wouldn't kill a fly. Come, Pauline, own up!"
"Monsieur," faltered the girl, "I—I——"
"You took the guilt on your shoulders in order to shield your brother?"
Wild-eyed, distraught, she looked from the faceof the man who seemed to peer into her very soul to that other face so dear to her. She knew not what to say. Was this stern-visaged representative of the law merely torturing her with a false hope? Dared she say "Yes," or must she persist in self-accusation?
"Janoc," thundered Winter, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Don't you see how she is suffering for your sake? Tell her, then, that you are as innocent as she of this murder?"
The dreamer, the man who would reform an evil world by force, had the one great quality demanded of a leader—he knew a man when he met him. He turned now to Pauline.
"My sister," he said in French, "this gentleman can be trusted. He is no trickster. I had no hand in the slaying of the traitress, just though her death might be."
"Ah,Dieu merci!" she breathed, and fainted.
The police matron was summoned, and the Frenchwoman soon regained consciousness. Meanwhile, Janoc admitted readily enough that he did really believe in his sister's acceptance of the dread mission imposed on her by the revolutionary party in Russia.
"Rose de Bercy was condemned, and my sweet Pauline, alas! was deputed to be her executioner," he said. "We had waited long for the hour, and the dagger was ready, though I, too, distrusted my sister's courage. Then came an urgent letter from St. Petersburg that the traitress was respited untila certain list found among her papers was checked——"
"Found?" questioned Winter.
"By Pauline," said Janoc.
"Ah, stolen?"
Janoc brushed aside the substituted word as a quibble.
"Conceive my horror when I heard of the murder!" he cried with hands flung wide and eyes that rolled. "I was sure that Pauline had mistaken the instructions——"
"Where is the St. Petersburg letter?" broke in Furneaux.
"Sapristi! You will scarce credit. It was taken from me by a man—a Russian agent he must have been—one night in the Fraternal Club, Soho——"
"Clarke, produce it," said Furneaux, grinning.
Clarke flushed, grew white, nervously thumbed some papers in a pocketbook, and handed to Winter the letter which commenced: "St. Petersburg says ..." and ended: "You will see to it that she to whose hands vengeance has been intrusted shall fail on the 3d."
Winter read, and frowned. Furneaux, too, read.
"The 3d!" he muttered. "Just Heaven, what a fatal date to her!"
"What was I to think?" continued Janoc. "Antonio shared my view. He met Pauline at the Exhibition, and was ready, if necessary, to vouch for her presence there at the time Rose de Bercy went toher reckoning; but he is not in the inner—he had not heard of the Petersburg order."
"Yet he, and the rest of your gang, were prepared to let Mr. Osborne hang for this crime," said Winter, surveying the conspirator with a condemning eye. But his menace or scorn was alike to Janoc, who threw out his arms again.
"Cré nom!" he cried, "why not? Is he not a rich bourgeois like the rest? He and his class have crushed us without mercy for many a century. What matter if he were hanged by mistake? He could be spared—my Pauline could not. He is merely a rich one, my Pauline is a martyr to the cause!"
"Listen to me, Janoc," said Winter fiercely. "Spout what rubbish you please in your rotten club, but if ever you dare again to plot—even to plot, mind you—any sort of crime against life or property in this free country, I shall crush you like a beetle—like a beetle, do you hear, you wretched—insect! Now, get out!"
"Monsieur, my sister?"
"Wait outside there till she comes. Then leave England, the pair of you, or you will try what hard labor in a British prison can do for your theories."
Janoc bowed.
"Monsieur," he said, "a prison has made me what I am."
Pauline was candid as her brother. She had, in truth, misunderstood the respite given to her mistress, and meant to kill her on the night of the 3d. Thevisit to the Exhibition was of her own contriving. She had got rid of her English acquaintance, the cook, very easily after meeting Antonio by appointment. Then she left him, without giving a reason, and hurried back to the mansions, where, owing to her intimate knowledge of the internal arrangements, she counted on entering and leaving the flat unseen. She did actually succeed in her mission, but found Rose de Bercy lying dead.
On the floor, close to the body, was a dagger, and she had no doubt whatever that her brother had acted in her stead, so she picked up the weapon, secreted it with the dagger given her in readiness for the crime, and took the first opportunity of hiding herself, lest the mere fact that Janoc was seen in her company should draw suspicion towards him.
"Ah, but the lace? What of the piece of blood-stained lace?" demanded Furneaux.
"I wished to make sure, monsieur," was the astounding reply. "Had she not been dead, but merely wounded, I—Eh, bien!I tore her dress open, in order to feel if her heart was beating, and the bit of lace remained in my hand. I was so excited that I hardly knew what I was doing. I took it away. Afterwards, when Antonio said that the police were cooling in their chase of Osborne, I gave it to him; he told me he could use it to good effect."
"Phew!" breathed Winter, "you're a pretty lot of cutthroats, I must say. Why did you keep the daggers and the diary, sweet maid?"
"The knife that rid us of a traitress was sacred. I thought the diary might be useful to the—to our friends."
"Yet you gave it to Mr. Clarke without any demur?"
The girl shot a look at Clarke in which fright was mingled with hatred.
"He—he—I was afraid of him," she stammered.
Winter opened the door.
"There is your brother," he said. "Be off, both of you. Take my advice and leave England to-night."
They went forth, hand in hand, in no wise cast down by the loathing they had inspired. Clarke looked far more miserable than they, for by their going he had lost the prize of his life.
"Now for Osborne," whispered Furneaux. "Leave him to me, Winter. Trust me implicitly for five minutes—that is all."
Osborne was brought in by the station inspector, that human ledger who would record without an unnecessary word the name of the Prime Minister or the Archbishop of Canterbury on any charge preferred against either by a responsible member of the force. The young American was calm now, completely self-possessed, disdainful of any ignominy that might be inflicted on him. He did not even glance at Furneaux, but nodded to Winter.
"Your assurances are seemingly of little value," he said coldly.
"Mr. Winter is quite blameless," snapped Furneaux, obviously nettled by the implied reproof. "Please attend to me, Mr. Osborne—this affair rests wholly between you and me. Learn now, for the first time, I imagine, that Rose de Bercy was my wife."
Osborne did truly start at hearing that remarkable statement. Clarke's mouth literally fell open; even the uniformed inspector was stirred, and began to pare a quill pen with a phenomenally sharp knife, this being the only sign of excitement he had ever been known to exhibit.
"Yes, unhappily for her and me, we were married in Paris soon after she ran away from home," said Furneaux. "I—I thought—we should be happy. She had rare qualities, Mr. Osborne; perhaps you discovered some of them, and they fascinated you as they fascinated me. But—she had others, whichIlearnt to my sorrow, whileyouwere spared. I cannot explain further at this moment. I have only to say that you are as free from the guilt of her death—asIam!"
Winter alone was conscious of a queer note in the little man's voice as he dwelt on the comparison. He seemed to be searching for some simile of wildest improbability, and to have hit upon himself as supplying it. But Osborne was in no mood for bewilderment. He cared absolutely nothing about present or future while the horrible past still held the pall it had thrown on his prospects of bliss with Rosalind.
"In that event, one might ask why I am here," he said quietly. "Not that I am concerned in the solving of the riddle. You have done your worst, Mr. Furneaux. You can inflict no deeper injury on me. If you have any other vile purpose to serve by telling me these things, by all means go right ahead."
Furneaux's eyes glinted, and his wizened cheeks showed some token of color, but he kept his voice marvelously under control.
"In time you will come to thank me, Mr. Osborne," he said. "To-day you are bitter, and I am not surprised at it, but you could never have been happy in your marriage with Miss Rosalind Marsh while the shadow of suspicion clung to you. Please do not forget that the world believes you killed Rose de Bercy. If you walked forth now into Regent Street, and the word went around that you were there, a thousand people would mob you in a minute, while ten thousand would be prepared to lynch you within ten minutes. I have played with you, I admit—with others, too, and now I am sorry—to a certain extent. But in this case, I was at once detective, and judge, and executioner. If you wantonly transferred your love from the dead woman to the living one, I cared not a straw what you suffered or how heavily you were punished. That phase has passed. To-day you have justified yourself. Within twenty-four hours you will be free to marry Rosalind Marsh, because your name will have lost the smirch nowplaced on it, while your promise to Hylda Prout will be dissolved. But for twenty-four hours you must remain here, apparently a prisoner, in reality as much at liberty as any man in London. Yes, I vouch for my words——" for at last wonder and hope were dawning in Osborne's eyes—"my chief, Mr. Winter, will tell you that I have never spoken in this manner without making good what I have said—never, I repeat. If I could spare you the necessity of passing a night in a cell I would do so; but I cannot. You are the decoy duck for the wild creature that I mean to lay hands on before another day has closed. Make yourself as comfortable as possible—the inspector will see to that—but Imustkeep you here, a prisoner in all outward semblance. Are you willing?"
"For Heaven's sake——" began Osborne.
"For Rosalind's sake, too," said Furneaux gravely. "No, I can answer no questions. She has more to bear than you. She does not know what to believe, whom to trust, whereas you have my solemn assurance that all will soon be well with both you and her. You see, I am not craving your forgiveness—yet. It suffices that I have forgivenyou, since your tribulation will end quickly, whereas mine remains for the rest of my days. Ididlove Rose de Bercy: you did not.... Ah, bah! I am growing sentimental. Winter, have you ever seen me weep? No; then gag me if you hear me talking in this strain again. Come, I have much to tell you.Good-day, Mr. Osborne. The hours will soon fly; by this time to-morrow you will be gay, light-hearted, ready to shout your joy from the housetops—ready even to admit that a detective may be bothered with that useless incubus—a heart."
Osborne took a step towards him, but Furneaux sprang out and banged the door. Winter caught the millionaire by the shoulder.
"I am as thoroughly in the dark as you," he said. "Perhaps not, though. I have a glimmer of light; you, too, will begin to see dimly when you have collected your thoughts. But you must let Furneaux have his way. It may not be your way—it certainly is not mine—but he never fails when he promises, and, at any rate, you must now be sure that no manner of doubt rests in the minds of the police where you are concerned. It is possible, after Furneaux and I have gone into this thing fully, that you may be released to-night——"
"Mr. Winter," cried Osborne, in whose veins the blood was coursing tumultuously, "let that strange man justify his words concerning Miss Marsh, and I shall remain here a month if that will help."
Some tears, some tea, a bath, a change of clothing—where is the woman who will not vie with the Phœnix under such conditions, especially if she be sound in mind and limb? An hour after her arrival at Porchester Gardens, Rosalind was herself again, a somewhat pale and thin Rosalind, to be sure, but each moment regaining vigor, each moment taking huge strides back to the normal.
Of course, her ordered thoughts dwelt more and more with Osborne, but with clear thinking came a species of confusion that threatened to overwhelm her anew in a mass of contradictions. If ever a man loved a woman then Osborne loved her, yet she had seen him in the arms of that dreadful creature, Hylda Prout. If ever a man had shown devotion by word and look, then Osborne was devoted to her, yet he had taken leave of her with the manner of one who was going to his doom. Ah, he spoke of "a felon's cell." Was that it? Was it true what the world was saying—that he had really killed Rose de Bercy? No, that infamy she would never believe. Yet Furneauxhad arrested him—Furneaux, the strange little man who seemed ever to say with his lip what his heart did not credit.
During those weary hours in Poland Street, when she was not dozing or faint with anxiety, she had often recalled Furneaux's queer way of conducting an inquiry. She knew little or nothing of police methods, yet she was sure that British detectives did not badger witnesses with denunciations of the suspected person. In newspaper reports, too, she had read of clever lawyers who defended those charged with the commission of a crime; why, then, was Osborne undefended; what had become of the solicitor who appeared in his behalf at the inquest? Unfortunately, she had no friend of ripe experience to whom she could appeal in London, but she determined, before that day closed, to seek those two, the solicitor and Furneaux, bidding the one protect Osborne's interests, and demanding of the other an explanation of his gross failure to safeguard her when she was actually carrying out his behests.
Mrs. Marsh, far more feeble and unstrung than her daughter, was greatly alarmed when Rosalind announced her intention.
"My dear one," she sobbed, "I shall lose you again. How can you dream of running fresh risk of meeting those terrible beings who have already wreaked their vengeance on you?"
"But, mother darling, you shall come with me—there are lives at stake——"
"Of what avail are two women against creatures like these Anarchists?"
"We shall go to Scotland Yard and obtain police protection. Failing that, we shall hire men armed with guns to act as our escort. Mother, I did not die in that den of misery, but I shall die now of impotent wrath if I remain here inactive and let Mr. Osborne lie in prison for my sake."
"For your sake? Rosalind? After what you have told me?"
"Oh, it is true, true! I feel it here," and an eager hand pressed close to her heart. "My brain says, 'You are foolish—why not believe your eyes, your ears?' but my heart bids me be up and doing, for the night cometh when no man can work, and I shall dream of death and the grave if I sleep this day without striking one blow for the man that loves me."
"Yet he said——"
"Bear with me, mother dear! I cannot explain, I can only feel. A woman's intuition may sometimes be trusted when logic points inexorably to the exact opposite of her beliefs. And this is a matter that calls for a woman's wit. See how inextricably women are tangled in the net which has caught Osborne in its meshes. A woman was killed, a woman found the poor thing's body, a woman gave the worst evidence against Osborne, a woman has sacrificed all womanliness to snatch him from me. Ah, where is Pauline Dessaulx? She, too, is mixed up in it. Hasshe discovered the loss of the daggers? Has she fled?"
Rosalind rose to her feet like one inspired, and Mrs. Marsh, fearing for her reason, stammered brokenly her willingness to go anywhere and do anything that might relieve the strain. When her daughter began to talk of "daggers" she was really alarmed. The girl had alluded to them more than once, but poor Mrs. Marsh's troubled brain associated "daggers" with Anarchists. That any such murderous-sounding weapons should be secreted in a servant's bedroom at Porchester Gardens, be found there by Rosalind, and carried by her all over London in a cab, never entered her mind. Perhaps the sight of Pauline would in itself have a soothing effect, since one could not persist in such delusions when the demure Frenchwoman, in the cap and apron of respectable domestic service, came in answer to the bell. So Mrs. Marsh rang: and another housemaid appeared.
"Please send Pauline here," said the white-faced mother.
"Pauline is out, ma'm," came the answer.
"Will she return soon?"
"I don't know, ma'm—I—I think she has run away."
"Run away!"
Two voices repeated those sinister words. To Rosalind they brought a dim memory of something said by Janoc, to Mrs. Marsh dismay. The threewere gazing blankly at each other when the clang of a distant bell was heard.
"That's the front door," exclaimed the maid. "Perhaps Pauline has come back."
She hurried away, and returned, breathless.
"It isn't Pauline, ma'm, but a lady to see Miss Rosalind."
"What lady?"
"She wouldn't give a name, miss; she says she wants to see you perticular."
"Send her here.... Now, mother, don't be alarmed. This is not Soho. If you wish it, I shall get someone to wait in the hall until we learn our mysterious visitor's business."
Most certainly, the well-dressed and elegant woman whom the servant ushered into the room was not of a type calculated to cause a pang of distrust in any household in Porchester Gardens. She was dressed quietly but expensively, and, notwithstanding the heat of summer, so heavily veiled that her features were not recognizable until she raised her veil. Then a pair of golden-brown eyes flashed triumphantly at the startled Rosalind, and Hylda Prout said:
"May I have a few words in private with you, Miss Marsh?"
"You can have nothing to say to me that my mother may not hear," said Rosalind curtly.
The visitor smiled, and looked graciously at Mrs. Marsh.
"Ah, I am pleased to have this opportunity of meeting you," she said. "You may have heard of me. I am Hylda Prout." ... Then, seeing the older woman's perplexity, she added: "Since you do not seem to know me by name, let me explain that Mr. Rupert Osborne, of whom you must have heard a good deal, is my promised husband."
Mrs. Marsh might be ill and worried; but she was a well-bred lady to the marrow, and she realized instantly that the stranger's politeness covered a studied insult to her daughter.
"Has Mr. Osborne sent you as his ambassador?" she asked.
"No, he could not: he is in prison. But your daughter and I have met under conditions that compel me to ask her now not to interfere in the efforts I shall make to secure his release."
"Please go!" broke in Rosalind, and she moved as if to summon a servant.
"I am not here from choice," sneered Hylda. "I have really come to plead for Mr. Osborne. If you care for him as you say you do I want you to understand two things: first, that your pursuit is in vain, since he has given his word to marry me within a week, and, secondly, that any further interference in his affairs on your part may prove disastrous to him. You cannot pretend that I have not warned you. Had you taken my advice the other day, Rupert would not now be under arrest."
Mrs. Marsh was sallow with indignation, but Rosalind,though tingling in every fiber, controlled herself sufficiently to utter a dignified protest.
"You had something else in your mind than Mr. Osborne's safety in coming here today: I do not believe one word you have said," she cried.
"Oh, but you shall believe. Wait one short week——"
"I shall not wait one short hour. Mr. Osborne's arrest is a monstrous blunder, and I am going this instant to demand his release."
"He has not taken you into his confidence, it would seem. Were it not for his promise to me you would still be locked in your den at Poland Street."
"Some things may be purchased at a price so degrading that a man pays and remains silent. If Mr. Osborne won my liberty by the loss of his self-respect I am truly sorry for him, but the fact, if it is a fact, only strengthens my resolution to appeal to the authorities in his behalf."
"You can achieve nothing, absolutely nothing," shrilled Hylda vindictively.
"I shall try to do much, and accomplish far more, perhaps, than you imagine."
"You will only succeed in injuring him."
"At any rate, I shall have obeyed the dictates of my conscience, whereas your vile purposes have ever been directed by malice. How dare you talk of serving him! Since that poor woman was struck dead by some unknown hand you have been his worstenemy. In the guise of innocent friendship you supplied the police with the only real evidence they possess against him. Probably you are responsible now for his arrest, which could not have happened had I been at liberty during the past two days. Go, and vent your spite as you will—no word of yours can deter me from raising such a storm as shall compel Mr. Osborne's release!"
For a second or two those golden-brown eyes blazed with a fire that might well have appalled Rosalind could she have read its hidden significance. During a tick of the clock she was in mortal peril of her life, but Hylda Prout, though partially insane, was not yet in that trance of the wounded tiger which recks not of consequences so that it gluts its rage.
Mrs. Marsh, really frightened, rushed to the electric bell, and the jar of its summons, faintly audible, seemed to banish the grim specter that had entered the room, though unseen by other eyes than those of the woman who dreamed of death even while she glowered at her rival. Her bitter tongue managed to outstrip her murderous thoughts in the race back to ordered thought.
"You are powerless," she taunted Rosalind, "but, like every other discarded lover, you cling to delusions. Now I shall prove to you how my strength compares with your weakness. You speak of appealing to the authorities. That means Scotland Yard, I suppose. Very well. I, too, shall go there, inyour very company, if you choose, and it will then be seen which of us two can best help Mr. Osborne."
The housemaid appeared.
"Please show this person out," said Rosalind.
"My carriage is waiting—Rupert's carriage," said Hylda.
"After she has gone, Lizzie," said Rosalind to the maid, "kindly get me a taxicab."
Porchester Gardens is well out to the west, so the taxicab, entered in a fever of haste by Rosalind and her mother, raced ahead of Osborne's bays in the flight to Westminster. Hylda Prout had experienced no difficulty in securing the use of the millionaire's carriage. She went to his Mayfair flat, paralyzed Jenkins by telling him of his master's arrest, assured him, in the same breath, that she alone could prove Osborne's innocence, and asked that all the resources of the household should be placed at her disposal, since Mr. Osborne meant to marry her within a few days. Now, Jenkins had seen things that brought this concluding statement inside the bounds of credibility, so he became her willing slave in all that concerned Osborne.
Winter was sitting in his office, with Furneaux straddled across a chair in one corner, when Johnson, the young policeman who was always at the Chief Inspector's beck and call, entered.
"Two ladies to see you, sir," he said.
Furneaux's eyes sparkled, but Winter took thetwo cards and read: "Mrs. Marsh; Miss Rosalind Marsh."
"Bring them here," he said.
"I rather expected the other one first," grinned Furneaux, who was now evidently on the best of terms with his Chief.
"Perhaps she won't show up. She must be deep, crafty as a fox, or she could never have humbugged me in the way you describe."
"My dear Winter, coincidence is the best dramatist yet evolved. You were beaten by coincidence."
"But you were not," and the complaint fell querulously from the lips of one who was almost unrivaled in the detection of crime.
"You forget thatIsupplied the coincidence. Clarke, too, blundered with positive genius. I assure you that, in your shoes, I must have acted with—with inconceivable folly."
"Thank you," said Winter grimly.
Rosalind and her mother came in. Both ladies had been weeping, but the girl's eyes shone with another light than that of tears when she cried vehemently:
"You are the responsible official here, I understand. I have no word forthatman," and she transfixed Furneaux with a tragic finger, "but I do appeal to someone who may have a sense of decency——"
"You have come to see me about Mr. Osborne?"broke in Winter, for Rosalind's utterance was choked by a sob.
"Yes, of course. Are you aware——"
"I am aware of everything, Miss Marsh. Please be seated; and you, too, Mrs. Marsh. Mr. Osborne is in no danger whatsoever. I cannot explain, but you must trust the police in this matter."
"Ah, sohesaid," and Rosalind shot a fiery glance at the unabashed Furneaux.
"Seen anybody?" he asked, with an amiable smirk.
"What do you mean?"
"Has anybody been gloating over Mr. Osborne's arrest?"
For the life of her, Rosalind could not conceal the surprise caused by this question. She even smothered her resentment in her eagerness.
"Mr. Osborne's typist, a woman named Hylda Prout, has been to see me," she cried.
"Excellent! What did she say?"
"Everything that a mean heart could suggest. But you will soon hear her statements. She is coming here herself, or, at least, so she said."
"Great Scott!"
Furneaux sprang up, and ran to the bell. For some reason which neither Mrs. Marsh nor her daughter could fathom, the mercurial little Jersey man was wild with excitement; even Winter seemed to be disturbed beyond expression. Johnson came, and Furneaux literally leaped at him.
"Ring up that number, quick! You know exactly what to say—and do!"
Johnson saluted and vanished again; Winter had chosen him for his special duties because he never uttered a needless word. Still, these tokens of activity in the police headquarters did not long repress the tumult in Rosalind's breast.
"If, as you tell me, Mr. Osborne is in no danger——" she began; but Winter held up an impressive hand.
"You are here in order to help him," he said gravely. "Pray believe that we appreciate your feelings most fully. If this girl, Hylda Prout, is really on her way here we have not a moment to lose. No more appeals, I beg of you, Miss Marsh. Tell us every word that passed between you and her. You can speak all the more frankly if I assure you that Mr. Furneaux, my colleague, has acted throughout in Mr. Osborne's interests. Were it not for him this young gentleman, who, I understand, will soon become your husband, would never have been cleared of the stigma of a dreadful crime.... No, pardon me, not a syllable on that subject.... What did Hylda Prout say? Why is she coming to Scotland Yard?"
Impressed in spite of herself, Rosalind gave a literal account of the interview at Porchester Gardens. She was burning to deliver her soul on matters that appeared to be so much more important, such as the finding and loss of the daggers, thestrange behavior of Pauline Dessaulx, the statement, now fiery bright in her mind, made by Janoc when he spoke of his sister's guilt—but, somehow, the tense interest displayed by the two detectives in Hylda Prout's assertions overbore all else, and Rosalind proved herself a splendid witness, one able to interpret moods and glances as well as to record the spoken word.
Even while she spoke a lurid fancy flashed through her brain.
"Oh, gracious Heaven!" she cried. "Can it be——"
Winter rose and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"You have endured much, Miss Marsh," he said in a voice of grave sympathy. "Now, I trust to your intelligence and power of self-command. No matter what suspicions you may have formed, you must hide them. Possibly, Mr. Furneaux or I may speak or act within the next half-hour in a manner that you deem prejudicial to Mr. Osborne. I want you to express your resentment in any way you may determine, short of leaving us. Do you understand? We shall act as on the stage; you must do the same. You need no cue from us. Defend Mr. Osborne; urge his innocence; threaten us with pains and penalties; do anything, in short, that will goad Hylda Prout into action in his behalf for fear lest you may prevail where she has failed."
A knock was heard at the door. He sank back into his seat.
"Do you promise?" he muttered.
"Yes," she breathed.
"Come in!" cried Winter, and the imperturbable Johnson ushered in Hylda Prout. Even in the storm and stress of contending emotions Rosalind knew that there was a vital difference between the reception accorded to the newcomer and that given to her mother and herself. They had been announced, their names scrutinized in advance, as it were, whereas Hylda Prout's arrival was expected, provided for; in a word, the policeman on guard had his orders and was obeying them.
"Well, thisisa surprise, Miss Prout," exclaimed Furneaux before anyone else could utter a word.
"Is it?" she asked, smiling scornfully at Rosalind.
"Quite. Miss Marsh told us, of course, of your visit, and I suppose that your appearance here is inspired by the same motive as hers. My chief, Mr. Winter, has just been telling her that the law brooks no interference, yet she persists in demanding Mr. Osborne's release. She cannot succeed in obtaining it, unless she brings a positive order from the Home Secretary——"
"I shall get it," vowed Rosalind, to whom it seemed that Furneaux's dropped voice carried a subtle hint.
"Try, by all means," said Furneaux blandly. "Nevertheless, I strongly advise you ladies, all three, to go home and let matters take their course."
"Never!" cried Rosalind valiantly. "You must either free Mr. Osborne to-night or I drive straightfrom this office to the House of Commons. I have friends there who will secure me a hearing by the Home Secretary."
Furneaux glanced inquiringly at Winter, whose hand was stroking his chin as if in doubt. Hylda Prout took a step nearer the Chief Inspector. Her dress brushed against the drawer which contained the daggers, and one of those grewsome blades had pierced Rose de Bercy's brain through the eye.
"The Home Secretary is merely an official like the rest of you," she said bitingly. "Miss Marsh may appeal to whom she thinks fit, but the charge against Mr. Osborne will keep him in custody until it is heard by a magistrate. Nothing can prevent that—nothing—unless——" and her gaze dwelt warily on Furneaux for a fraction of an instant—"unless the police themselves are convinced that the evidence on which they rely is so flimsy that they run the risk of public ridicule by bringing it forward."
"Ha! ha!" laughed Furneaux knowingly.
"I think I am wasting time here," cried Rosalind, half rising.
"One moment, I pray you," put in Winter. "There is some force in Miss Prout's remarks, but I am betraying no secret in saying that Mr. Osborne's apparently unshakable alibi can be upset, while we have the positive identification of at least three people who saw him on the night of the crime."
"Meaning the housekeeper, the driver of the taxicab, and the housemaid at Feldisham Mansions?"said Hylda coolly, and quite ignoring Rosalind's outburst.
"At least those," admitted Winter.
"Are there others, then?"
"Really, Miss Prout, this is most irregular. We are not trying Mr. Osborne in this room."
"I see there is nothing for it but to carry my plea for justice to the Home Secretary," cried Rosalind, acting as she thought best in obedience to a lightning glance from Furneaux. "Come, mother, we shall soon prove to these legal-minded persons that they cannot juggle away a man's liberty to gratify their pride—and spite."
Hylda's eyes took fire at that last word.
"Go to your Home Secretary," she said with measured venom. "Much good may it do you! Whileyouare being dismissed with platitudesIshall have rescued my affianced husband from jail."
"Dear me! this is most embarrassing. Your affianced husband?"
Furneaux cackled out each sentence, and looked alternately at Hylda and Rosalind. There was no mistaking his meaning. He implied that the one woman was callously appropriating a man who was the acknowledged suitor of the other.
Hylda laughed shrilly.
"That is news to you, Mr. Furneaux," she cried. "Yet I thought you were so clever as to be almost omniscient. Come now with me, and I shall prove to you that the so-called identification of Mr. Osborneby Hester Bates and Campbell, the chauffeur, is a myth. The hysterical housemaid I leave to you."
Winter leaned back in his chair and waved an expostulating hand.
"'Pon my honor, this would be amusing if it were not so terribly serious for Osborne," he vowed.
"If that is all, I prefer to depend on the Home Secretary," said Rosalind.
"Let her go," purred Hylda contemptuously. "I can make good my boast, but she cannot."
"Boasting is of no avail in defeating a charge of murder," said Furneaux. "Before we even begin to take you seriously, Miss Prout, we must know what you actually mean by your words."
"I mean this—that I, myself, will appear before Hester Bates in such guise that she will swear it was me, and not Mr. Osborne, whom she saw on the stairs that night. If that does not suffice, I shall meet Campbell at the corner of Berkeley Street, if you can arrange for his presence there, and tell him to drive me to Feldisham Mansions, and he will swear that it was I, and not Mr. Osborne, who gave him that same order on the night of the third of July. Surely, if I accomplish so much, you will set Rupert at liberty. Believe me, I am not afraid that you will commit the crowning blunder of arrestingmefor the murder, after having arrested Janoc, and his sister,andRupert."
Winter positively started. So did Furneaux.Evidently they were perturbed by the extent of her information. Hylda saw the concern depicted on their faces; she laughed low, musically, full-throated.
"Well, is it a bargain?" she taunted them.
"Of course——" began Winter, and stopped.
"There is no denying the weakness of our position if you can do all that," said Furneaux suavely.
"Pray do not let me detain you from visiting the House of Commons," murmured Hylda to Rosalind.
"Perhaps, in the circumstances, you had better wait till to-morrow," said Winter, rising and looking hard at Rosalind.
This man had won her confidence, and she felt that she was in the presence of a tragedy, yet it was hard to yield in the presence of her rival. Tears filled her eyes, and she bowed her head to conceal them.
"Come, mother," she said brokenly. "We are powerless here, it would seem."
"Allow me to show you the way out," said Winter, and he bustled forward.
In the corridor, when the door was closed, he caught an arm of each and bent in a whisper.
"Furneaux was sure she would try some desperate move," he breathed. "Rest content now, Miss Marsh. If all goes well, your ill-used friend will be with you to-night. Treat him well. He deserves it. He did not open your letter. He sacrificed himself in every way for your sake. He even promised to marry that woman, that arch-fiend, in order to rescue you from Janoc. So, believe him, for heis a true man, the soul of honor, and tell him from me that he owes some share of the restitution of his good name in the eyes of the public to your splendid devotion during the past few minutes."
Not often did the Chief Inspector unbend in this fashion. There was no ambiguity in his advice. He meant what he said, and said it so convincingly that Rosalind was radiantly hopeful when she drove away with her mother.