CHAPTER X.WHERE MISS MOORE WAS GOING

Itwas a relief to cease breathing the atmosphere of an apartment which was contaminated by the presence of Mr. Tom Moore. At least, that was what I felt when I was being driven with Miss Adair towards Imperial Mansions. Apparently that was her own feeling.

“Nice sort of brother that. He’s a man.”

“But what a sister! She’s a woman.”

She seemed to suspect me of a satirical intention.

“I don’t fancy, Mr. Ferguson, that all women are built exactly on Bessie’s lines.”

“Would that they were. Miss Moore is of the stuff of which our mothers should be made.”

She looked at me a little sideways; I was conscious of it, though I myself looked straight ahead.

“Are you married, Mr. Ferguson?”

I do not know why she should have asked me such a question at that particular moment, nor why the blood heated my cheeks. I answered shortly:

“No. I am not so fortunate.”

“Ah! I shouldn’t be surprised if you were so fortunate, a little later on.”

Her tone conveyed a world of meaning; though what was its signification I could not tell. I suspected her of hinting at something which I should resent; but how to set about the discovery of what she meant I did not know. She continued:

“Suppose—I say suppose, just for the sake of argument—suppose it turns out that Bessie has killed this—man, I wonder what would happen.”

“I decline to suppose the impossible.”

“But how can you say that it’s impossible? You’re not in a position to judge; you know nothing of her character, her disposition. She’s a stranger—to you.”

“I know enough of her to be sure that she is incapable of anything unworthy.”

“But how do you know?—my dear sir, how? From what you tell me, she hasn’t said an intelligent thing to you; she’s been in a condition ofnon compos mentisever since you set eyes upon her. After an hour’s exchange of conversational bonbons with a lunatic woman, how can you tell what she’s like when she’s sane?”

“Miss Adair, if you are coming as Miss Moore’s friend, be her friend; if not, I will stop the cab—you shall go back again.”

She was silent for a second or two. I suspected her of stifling a smile.

“Thank you. You need not stop the cab.” She looked at me, mischief in her eyes. “I believe, Mr. Ferguson, that you’re a Scotchman.”

There is Scotch blood in my veins; I did not see why she should charge it against me as a fault. I told her so. She laughed outright. Miss Adair was a charming woman, but I will own that I was glad when we reached our destination. She was in a provoking mood, as she showed by the remark she made as she got out of the cab.

“Now to interview this ideal conception of what our mothers should be.”

I did not reply. I followed her into the lift.

“The top floor,” I said.

But as we were passing the first floor, she started from her seat.

“There’s Bessie!” she cried.

From where I sat, as I turned my head, I was just in time to see my last night’s visitor vanish round the corner of the staircase. We were still ascending. I told the lift-man to return. When he had done so, and we were out upon the landing, the lady was already some distance along the corridor. She had passed my rooms, and was moving rapidly towards No. 64.

“Where is she going?” asked Miss Adair. “Bessie!”

Her call went unheeded. Apparently the other did not hear. She continued to hasten from us as if she were making for a particular goal, with a well-defined purpose in view. I thought it probable that the dead man’s body was still somewhere in his chambers, and certainly all the plain evidences of the tragedy would have been studiously left untouched.

“Quick!” I exclaimed. “She doesn’t know what she is doing; she is going to Lawrence’s room, where he lies murdered. We must stop her before she gets there.”

We hurried in pursuit, but had only gone a few yards when some one caught me by the arm. I had previously realised that some one else was standing in the corridor, but my attention had been too much engrossed by Miss Moore to permit of my noticing who it was. I now perceived that it was Hume. He gripped my arm with what seemed unnecessary force, his countenance betraying a degree of agitation of which I had not thought him capable.

“Ferguson!” he cried. “Miss Adair! What is Miss Moore doing here?”

His recognition surprised me, even at such a moment.

“Do you know her?”

“I believe I have that pleasure.” His words sounded like a sneer, they were so bitterly uttered. “But what’s the meaning of it all? I spoke to her, but she passed without a sign of recognition. What’s the matter with her? She looks ill; where’s she going?”

“She’s going to Lawrence’s room.”

“Ferguson!” The increased pressure of his grasp showed that his strength was greater than I imagined.

“What’s she—going there for?”

“My business is to stop her going at all, not to stand here answering idiotic questions.”

I broke from him. The delay, brief though it had been, was sufficient to baffle my intentions. Miss Moore had arrived at No. 64. A policeman was standing without, seemingly acting as guardian of the portal.

“Is this the room in which Mr. Edwin Lawrence was killed?”

Although I was still at some distance from her, I could hear her ask the question with the direct simplicity of a little child. The officer stared at her as if he could not make her out.

“Yes, miss. But you can’t go in; my orders are to admit no one without instructions. What’s your name and your business?”

“Let me pass!”

Putting out her arm, touching him on the chest, she waved him aside with an imperious gesture, as if she were a sovereign queen. In an instant she was through the door. I was on him directly she had passed from sight.

“You idiot! Why did you let her enter?”

The man seemed bewildered.

“Let her! There wasn’t much letting about it. For a lady she’s about as cool a hand as ever I saw.”

He perceived that my intention was to follow.

“Now then, none of that! You can’t go in there! Don’t you hear me say it?”

“You ass!”

I must have taken him by the shoulders more vigorously than I intended; he went spinning down the passage until the wall brought him to a standstill. Then I went after Miss Moore into the dead man’s room, Miss Adair and Hume hard upon my heels.

Edwin Lawrencewas one of the most finical men I had ever met on the subject of draughts. A properly ventilated apartment set him shivering, even in the middle of summer. The faintest suspicion of a healthy current of air made him turn up the collar of his coat. No room could be too stuffy for him. All his doors and windows he screened with heavy hangings. Behind the curtains which veiled the entrance into his dining-room I lingered, for a moment, to glance between the voluminous folds. Miss Moore was standing about the centre of the room. Something in the expression of her face, and in her attitude, caused me to hesitate. I checked the advance of Miss Adair and Hume, who pressed on me behind.

“Wait!” I whispered. “I want to see what she is going to do.”

I would rather have been unaccompanied; Hume’s society in particular I could have done without. But I could hardly induce him to withdraw without disturbing the girl within. That, all at once, I felt indisposed to do. At any and every risk I wanted light; to bring her back into the full possession of her reason. It needed but a brief glance to perceive that, in her present environment, she might pass through some sort of crisis which would bring about the result I so ardently desired. The constable had followed us into the room. He showed a disposition to require our retreat. I took him by the shoulder.

“Be still, man; you will do your duty best by holding your tongue.”

He perceived that there was reason in what I said. He held his tongue, and I held his shoulder.

Miss Moore was looking round as if something in the appearance of the room struck a chord in her memory, and she was endeavouring to discover what it was. She put her hand up to her forehead with the gesture with which I had become familiar.

“I have been in this room before—surely I have. I seem to know it all quite well; but I can’t think when I saw it, or how. I can’t make it out at all.”

She was glancing about her with bewildered eyes, as if seeking for some familiar object which would serve as a clue towards the solution of the puzzle. At last something arrested her attention; it was the tell-tale stain upon the carpet. She was standing within a yard or two of the spot on which I had discovered Lawrence lying. His body was gone, but his blood remained behind—a lurid disfigurement of the handsome floorcloth. She started at it.

“What is it?” She stooped down; she touched it with her finger tips; an odd little tremor seemed to come into her voice. “It—it’s dry. Why shouldn’t it be dry? What—what is it?” Still stooping, she covered her face with her hands, as if struggling to rouse her dormant memory. “It seems to bring something back to me. Something—something horrid. What can it be? Oh!”

She started upright, with a little exclamation. A new look came on her face; a suggestion of fear, of horror. She was all at once on the alert, as if in expectation of something of which she had cause to be afraid.

“This is where Mr. Edwin Lawrence was killed—killed!” Again that look of puzzlement. “That means that he was—murdered! Murdered! He fell like that.”

She made a sudden movement, as if to hurl herself headlong to the floor, which was so realistic that I started forward to save her from a fall. It was only a feint; in an instant she was back in her original position.

“Let me see how it was. He was here, and I was there.”

She moved from one place to another, as if endeavouring to recall a scene in which she had taken part. It seemed to come back to her in fragments.

“I said, ‘I’ll kill you;’ because I felt like killing him. And then—then he laughed. He said, ‘Kill me! How will you be better off for that?’ And that made me worse. I made up my mind that—that I’d kill him.”

She paused. I shuddered, clutching the curtains tighter. Although I did not turn to look at them, I knew that there was something strange on the faces of Miss Adair and Hume; that even the constable was moved to a display of unusual interest. A faint whisper reached me from the lady:

“Stop her! Don’t let her go on!”

I was conscious of a weakness in my throat, which made my voice sound as if I were hoarse, as I whispered a reply.

“I shan’t attempt to stop her. I shall let her say all that she has to say. I’m not afraid.”

I felt her pull at my coat sleeve, as a dog might do to show its sympathy.

The girl within continued. She had put her hands up to her brow again, and seemed battling with her torpid faculties. Through all that followed, in spite of the emotion which sometimes would grip me by the throat, I was conscious of the singular quality of her beauty, which caused it to increase as her agitation grew. Strangely out of keeping with the dreadful nature of some of the things she said was the air of innocence which accompanied them. She depicted herself as playing a leading part in a hideous tragedy, with the direct simplicity of a little child who confesses to faults of whose capital importance it has not the faintest notion.

“Did I kill him? Did I? Not then—no, not then. Then he came in, and it began all over again, right from the beginning; and—we quarrelled. We both said we would kill him, both of us; and he laughed. The more we said that we would kill him the more he laughed. And that—that made us worse. Then—then it came in. It! It!”

She shuddered. A look of abnormal terror came on her face. She covered her hands, uttering cries of panic fear.

“Don’t! Don’t! I won’t! I won’t! You mustn’t make me, you mustn’t! Don’t let it come near me! Don’t let it touch me! I can’t bear to think of its touching me! Oh!”

With a gasp, uncovering her eyes, she stared, affrightedly, at something which she seemed to see in front of her.

“What is it? I’m not afraid. Why should I be afraid? There is nothing the matter. I am not so easily frightened. I said I would kill him, but not like that, not like that. Did I say I’d kill him? Yes. And I did! I did! But I didn’t mean to. Did I mean to? I don’t know. Perhaps I meant to. He says I meant to, and perhaps he knows.”

She stood staring in front of her, with blank, unmeaning gaze. Then, giving herself a little shake, she seemed to wake out of a sort of dream; and to be surprised at finding herself where she was.

“What is the matter with me? Am I going mad? This is the room, and yet, although I know it, I can’t think what room it is. Something happened to me here which haunts me; and though I’m afraid to try to think what it was, I can’t help trying. Why did I come here? It was very silly. It was because he—he told me that—Edwin Lawrence was killed here.

“Edwin Lawrence? What had that man to do with me? Lawrence? I feel as if I ought to know the name. There were two of them, and one—one was killed. Oh, I remember all! I can hear that horrid noise. I can see the knives—the knives! And I can see the blood, as he falls right down upon his face, and the hack, hack, hacking! I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it! Did I—do it?”

She looked about her with an agony of appeal which it was terrible to witness. My heart sank within my breast. At that moment I could not have gone to her even had I tried.

“Let me see—how did it happen? He stood here, and—the other laughed; and then there came the knife—the long, gleaming knife—and struck him in the back; and he looked round, and—I saw his face. His face! What a face! It was as if he were looking into hell. Don’t look at me—not like that. I can’t help you! It’s too late! Turn your face away; don’t let me see it; it isn’t fair. It was the devil did it—the devil! It wasn’t I. And then it took him by the throat with a dozen hands, and with a hundred knives cut at his face, until, before my eyes, I saw him losing his likeness to a man. And then it loosed him, and the great knife struck him from the back, and he fell on his face—what was his face, and then the hack, hack, hacking! And all the time that horrid noise.”

She held up her arms in an anguish of supplication.

“Oh Lord, in what have I offended that this thing should come upon me? If I have sinned, surely my punishment is greater than my sin. That you should lay this burden on me, to bear for ever, and for ever, and for ever! Take it from me, let me wake to find it is a dream—the nightmare of a haunted night! For if it should be true, if it should be true, what is there for me but the torture fires of an eternal hell? Have mercy on me, Lord, have mercy!”

She broke into a paroxysm of sobbing. She shed no tears, hers were dry sobs; but it seemed as if they were tearing her to pieces. Then they ceased. Again a shudder went all over her, and again she seemed to come back to a curious wakefulness, out of a fevered dream.

“I’m not well; I can’t be; I wish I were. It is as if I were two persons, and each keeps losing the other. Can there be two persons in one body? My brain seems blurred—as if it were in two parts. When I am using one part, the other—the other’s all confused. It’s not as it should be. I feel sure that I haven’t always been like this; something must have happened to make me so. When I try to think what it is, I’m afraid; and yet I can’t help trying. I know—I know it was in this room it happened; but what could it have been? What brought me to this room at all? When was it that I came?

“There’s something in my head that I can’t catch hold of—it keeps eluding me. If I only could get hold of it, I’d understand—I’m sure I should.—What would it be that I should understand? I’m afraid to think! It’s awful that I should be afraid of what would come to me if understanding came, especially as I want it so much to come. I seem to be haunted; is it by a vision, or by something which really happened? I wish I could sit down and quietly think it out. If I could put the pieces of the puzzle together I might know what it means. But I can’t; I’m all restless; I can’t keep still.

“Why is it that I am always seeing this man lying dead upon the floor? Why do I seem to be striking at his back? It is so strange. It is not a knife I’m striking with, not a common knife; it is something different—and worse. It comes out of nothing; and, all the time, there’s the noise. It is not I who make the noise, no, I don’t speak—I can’t—I daren’t—it’s It. But it keeps on strike, strike, striking, and the blood all comes upon my cloak. I know I had a cloak on, I remember how it kept getting in my way. And then—he falls. And that’s all—until it begins all over again, and I am standing in a room, in the moonlight, and he sits up in bed and looks at me—he, my friend.”

She held out her hands in front of her, with a pleasant inflection on the final word.

“And I can’t think of what took place before. I feel that I ought to know who I am, and what brought me here; but I can’t quite lay my hand on it. The people are there, but I can’t quite make out their faces, or who they are, or what they want with me. They all look at me, and I can hear them clapping. Then it all comes back to the man lying dead upon the floor; that’s where it all seems to begin and end. I wonder if I killed him. I wish I knew. It is so strange that I may have killed him and yet not know. I know that he deserved to be killed, but did I do it?”

Glancing round, her eyes rested on the door in the opposite corner which led into Lawrence’s bedroom. She crossed to it.

“What’s in here?”

She turned the handle and went in. I was at the door within five seconds of her passing through it; Miss Adair, Hume, and the constable still at my heels. We must have presented a spectacle which was not without its comic side as we went scurrying across the carpet. But what I saw as I looked into that bedchamber banished from my mind all thoughts of the incongruous; it must, for the time being, have paralysed the muscles of the body; or I do not think that I should have remained for even so long as I did a silent witness of that piteous scene.

One of the first things I realised was the presence in the room of Inspector Symonds. He, in company with a colleague, was submitting the contents of the apartment to an official examination. As Miss Moore entered the two men turned and stared—as well they might. She, on her part, paid them no attention; they were at her back, in an alcove, formed by the bay of the window, in which stood a bureau, whose drawers they were ransacking. Her eyes saw one thing, and one thing only—something which lay under a sheet upon the bed.

“What’s that?” she asked herself. “What’s under the sheet?”

She went towards the bed doubtfully, as if uncertain as to the direction which her adventure might be taking. We watched her, silent. The officials, I take it, were for the moment too much taken aback by her appearance to know what to make of her. While for me, that was one of the occasions in my life on which I lost my presence of mind. If I had known what to do I could not have done it; my nerves were all in a flutter, like so many loose strings. She went close up to the bed; then stood still, looking down at the something whose shape she saw outlined.

“What is it under the sheet?”

She lifted up a corner, then let it fall. “It’s the man I saw lying dead.” I saw her tremble. A new look came on her face—half curiosity, half awe. “I wonder if I should know him if I saw him now? If it would all come back to me? I wonder if it would?”

She turned down the sheet so as to expose the dead man’s head and face. She stared at him with looks of growing horror. The terror of the sight seemed to be gradually forcing itself upon her brain. Stooping a little forward, she began to move farther and farther from the bed. Her voice became husky.

“I killed him; it hacked, hacked, hacked; his blood is on my cloak and hands; the dead man lying on the floor.”

She stopped. The something on the bed apparently had for her a dreadful fascination. She seemed to be in two minds as to whether or not to go close to it again, as if she would, and yet would not. Miss Adair touched me on the arm.

“Stop! Don’t let her go to it! Don’t!”

Her words and touch woke me from a sort of trance. I awoke to a clear realisation of the full horror of the situation—the young girl, with her poor, numbed brain, trying experiments on the man just murdered.

“You go to her,” I said. “See if she knows you.”

It was time some friendly hand was interposed. Inspector Symonds and his colleague showed signs of intervention on their own account, and on lines of their own. Miss Moore began to turn slowly towards the bed.

“I wonder if I could make out where I struck him, and where it hacked.”

Miss Adair moved forward.

“Bessie!” she cried.

The girl turned and saw her, and appeared to struggle with the darkness which was in her brain. The contest seemed physical as well as mental; she swayed to and fro; I thought that she would fall. Then reason got the upper hand; a wave of consciousness swept over her. She drew herself upright, and she ran to Miss Adair.

“Florrie!” she exclaimed.

She burst into tears—real tears this time, not the dry sobs which, a few minutes before, seemed to be tearing her to pieces. She cried like a child.

Andwe—we five men—remained for a moment or two, in silence, looking on. In our breasts, I imagine, were widely different emotions. Surprise, and something else, was, apparently, the dominant feeling of Inspector Symonds and his colleague. They exchanged a few whispered words. Then the Inspector made a movement towards Miss Moore, with something in his mien I did not like. I placed myself in front of him.

“Well, sir,” I inquired, “what do you want?”

He looked at me askance; then turned towards the policeman who had been placed in the passage to guard the outer door.

“What is the meaning of these people being here? I thought I told you to admit no one. Is this the way you obey orders?”

The policeman was apologetic.

“Well, sir, that young lady was through before I knew what she was up to. Then this gentleman sent me flying down the passage, and the rest of ’em got in; it was more than I could do to stop them.”

The Inspector showed himself indisposed to accept his satellite’s excuses.

“Tell that for a tale, my man; you will hear of this again. I will only have men with me who are able to carry out to the letter the instructions I give them.” He addressed himself to me. “Mr. Ferguson, if you are not careful you will get yourself into trouble. You appear not to realise the serious nature of your conduct. It is not what I should have expected from a gentleman in your position. Surely you cannot wish to place yourself in opposition to the law?”

“Thank you for your warning; and don’t you trouble yourself about my wishes. Let me advise you not to step out of the four corners of your province; men circumstanced as you are sometimes take liberties, which is a mistake.”

“Stand on one side, Mr. Ferguson. I do not take my instructions from you. I wish to speak to that young lady.”

“Then speak to her from where you are—though what you can have to say to her is more than I am able to imagine. She is not well, and does not want to be brought into too close contact with undesirable strangers.”

“Not well? What is the matter with her?”

“I might reply by inquiring what affair that is of yours; but I don’t mind informing you that she suffers from hallucinations.”

“Hallucinations? Oh, they’re hallucinations, are they?”

There was something in his tone for which I could have knocked him down. He spoke to her across the room.

“What is your name?”

“My name? I don’t know what my name is.”

“Not know your name? Come, that won’t do. Tell me what your name is.”

“The lady does not know her name; do you not hear her say so? You will doubt the lady’s word, Mr. Symonds, at your peril.”

“Remove your hand; do you wish to dislocate my shoulder? You forget your own strength, as well as other things, Mr. Ferguson. If you will not tell me who this lady is, and she herself cannot, then I must detain her till inquiries have been made.”

“Detain her? What do you mean?”

“This lady has forced her way into this room, and I have myself heard her, with my own ears, accuse herself, at least, of participation in the murder of this unfortunate man.”

His colleague chimed in: “There can be no sort of doubt upon that point. I heard her too. She said, ‘I killed him.’”

He went to the other side of the bed, and replaced the sheet over the dead man’s head and face. The policeman put in his word.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but she’s been behaving in the most extraordinary manner in the other room. It seems, from what she’s been saying, and doing, that she was there when the gentleman was being murdered, and she’s been acting it all over to herself again as it were. Struck him with a great knife, she said she did.”

“You heard her admit that she struck him with a knife?”

“I did—more than once; and these two gentlemen, and that lady heard her, too. She said that she meant to kill him all along; and then she said she struck him in the back with a great knife, and he fell forward on his face; and she acted how she struck him, and how he fell.”

“In face of that statement my duty’s plain; the lady must be detained.”

He was going on, but I cut him short.

“Then I say that the lady shall not be detained; I will save you, Mr. Symonds, from making one of the most serious mistakes you ever made in your life. Miss Adair, escort the lady from the room. I will see that no one touches her. Now, constable, out of the way.”

I moved towards the policeman, who did not wait for me to touch him. He slipped aside. The Inspector interposed.

“Now, Mr. Ferguson, I warn you to be careful. May I ask you, Dr. Hume, to explain to this gentleman what are the consequences of impeding the police in the execution of their duty. You might also point out to him how worse than futile such attempts always are.”

Hume was standing near the door. Now he came into the middle of the room. I was surprised by the alteration which had taken place in his appearance since I had observed him last. He seemed to have all at once grown old. Outwardly he was cool and calm; but I, who had some knowledge of the man, perceived that he was making a strenuous effort to retain the mastery of himself in face of some most unusual emotion. He spoke with an exaggeration of his usual deliberative manner.

“You are aware, Mr. Symonds, that I am not a likely person to interfere with the police in the execution of their duty; but it happens, in this case, that I am acquainted with this young lady, and am sure that she has had no more to do with this crime than”—he paused, he drew in his lips, as if to moisten them—“I have. The account which your officer has given you of her behaviour in the adjoining room is very far from being an accurate representation. She is at present suffering from an obscure mental disease. If you were to proceed to arrest her you would run an imminent risk of permanently disturbing the balance of her brain, and of driving her stark mad. The act, and the responsibility for the consequences of the act, would be yours. Let me finish, Inspector. I quite understand that if you were to allow her to pass entirely from your purview you would be assuming a weighty responsibility in a different direction. I am therefore prepared to give you my personal guarantee that she shall remain at your disposal as witness, or in any other capacity, until it has been made plain that she has had no connection whatever with this most unfortunate affair.”

“First of all, what is the lady’s name, who is she, and where does she live?”

“She is Miss Bessie Moore, the well-known actress, and she lives with this other lady, Miss Florence Adair, at 22, Hailsham Road, Brompton.”

“I’m not much of a theatre-goer, but I have heard of Miss Bessie Moore. I wasn’t aware that she was——” He finished his sentence by touching his forehead with his finger.

“I am prepared to certify that, at present, she is mentally incapable; and that to place her under arrest would be to imperil not only her sanity, but her life.”

“Very good. And in the presence of these witnesses you undertake to produce her whenever she’s required.”

“I do.”

“And does Mr. Ferguson join you in that undertaking?” I informed him that I did. “And where is Miss Moore going now?”

“To her own home.”

“One of our men ought to go with her.”

“One of your men will do nothing of the kind,” I observed.

Hume said the same thing with a greater flow of language.

“If you give me notice of Miss Moore’s being required, for any purpose whatever, I will undertake to produce her within the hour. More, if I have reason to suspect my capacity to continue that guarantee I will advise you on the instant.”

“Good. On that understanding Miss Moore is at liberty to go—for the present.”

We four went out of the room, the two women in front, Hume and I behind. Miss Moore had not spoken while the argument was being carried on with the inspector. When we reached the corridor she turned to me.

“Where am I going to be taken? I want to speak to you.”

“You had better return with Miss Adair to Mrs. Peddar’s room—for the present, at any rate. I will come to you immediately.”

“You will be sure to come?”

She laid her hand upon my arm.

“Certain. I will be there almost as soon as you are.”

Hume came forward.

“I also wish to speak to you.”

“You? No! I don’t wish to speak to you—not to you!”

She shrank from him as if he had been some leprous thing. When they had gone he turned to me with eyes in which there was a strange something, whose meaning, just then, I did not attempt to decipher; though I was dimly conscious, as my eyes looked into his, of an odd sensation of wonder as to whether the doctor himself might not be going mad.

“What is it which actuates your moves in this game which you are playing? To save your neck, do you propose to hang her, as well as Philip Lawrence?”

That is what he said to me. To save my neck! The words rang in my ears as I mounted towards the housekeeper’s room. They were to me as the germ of an idea.

Thegirl was changed. I perceived it as soon as I was in Mrs. Peddar’s room. She stood behind the table, and, as I entered, turned her face away. Her attitude suggested doubt, hesitation, even shame. It was so different to the spontaneous burst of friendship which, hitherto, when she saw me, had brought her to my side.

Miss Adair was seated with her hands lying open on her knee; in her bearing there was also dubiety, and in Mrs. Peddar’s as, leaning against her sideboard, she fidgeted with the fringe of her black apron. The air was so charged with the spirit of uncertainty that, as soon as I entered, it affected me. We each of us seemed to be unwilling to meet the other’s glances. It was with an effort I broke the uncomfortable silence.

“I don’t think, Miss Moore, that I should lose any time in going home with Miss Adair.”

“Going home? Where is my home? Yes, I know I ought to know, and I do know more than I did, but—I can’t just find it.”

“Never mind about that, Miss Adair will see you’re all right. Now put your hat on, and off you go. I’m afraid that I must hurry you.”

I was thinking of Inspector Symonds down below, and how extremely possible it was that he might change his mind. She made no movement, but continued looking down on to the floor, her brow all creased in lines of pain.

“Do you think—I—killed that man?”

“I am sure that you did not.”

She glanced up at me, her brow smoothed out, light in her eyes.

“You are sure? Oh? What makes you sure?”

“My own common sense. I have seen your brother, and I have heard from him what was the errand which took you to Edwin Lawrence. I can understand how your mind was strained, and what a very little more was needed to make that strain too much. But that in what took place you did nothing of which you have cause to be ashamed, I am convinced.”

“But she thinks I did it, and so does she; and—I’m not sure.”

She pointed first to Miss Adair and then to Mrs. Peddar.

“You’re dreaming. Miss Adair knows you too well to suppose the incredible.”

“But she does think I did it. Don’t you?”

In reply Miss Adair put her elbows on the table and her face on her hands, and burst into tears.

“Bessie!” she cried.

I was dumfounded.

“You see. And she thinks so too. And that man, he thinks so; he wanted to lock me up. Will he—lock me up?”

She asked the question with a little gasp, so expressive of loneliness and terror, that it cut me to the heart. I tried to speak with a confidence I did not feel.

“The police are famous for their blunders. In cases such as this, if they had their way, they’d lock up every one they could lay their hands on. There’s one question I want to ask you before you go—was there no one else present in that room last night except you and Edwin Lawrence?”

“Yes—you were there.”

“I!”

She said it with a directness which struck me as with a crowbar.

“Yes, you were there. I thought, when I saw you sitting up in bed, in the moonlight, that I had seen your face before, and I’ve been thinking so all the time; and now it’s all come back to me—you were there. Don’t you remember that you came into the room?”

She spoke with a touch of sudden excitement. Mrs. Peddar resented her words with unusual heat.

“You wicked girl! To say such a thing, after all that he has done for you! You’ll be saying next that I was there.”

I endeavoured to appease my enthusiastic partisan.

“Gently, Mrs. Peddar. I am not at all sure that what Miss Moore says is not correct. I, too, suffered last night from dreams. I dreamed that I went to Edwin Lawrence’s rooms, and saw him murdered; whether I saw with the actual or the spiritual eye, I cannot tell; but, in any case, all that I did see was seen as in a glass darkly.”

“Did you see me?”

“I cannot be certain. I saw some one who I now believe to have been you.”

“Did you see It?”

“It?”

“The—the creature—the dreadful thing!”

“My vision was blurred; I saw nothing plain, it had all the indistinctness of a nightmare, but—I was oppressed by the consciousness of some hideous presence in the room. What was—the thing?”

“I don’t know; I can’t think. I’m afraid to try! It did it all.”

“Wasn’t it—a wild beast? It made a noise like one, or—was it my imagination?”

“The dreadful noise! I’ve heard it ever since. I hear it all the time—I hear it now. Can’t you—hear it now?”

She looked about her with frightened eyes.

“That certainly is your imagination; there’s not a sound. But was there no one else there in the room besides you, and Edwin Lawrence, and—I?”

“There was the other man.”

“Was that other man his brother?”

“I don’t just know; I can’t quite think. But, if I saw him again, I should know him, I feel sure I should, as I’ve known you.”

“Did they quarrel, the two men?”

She shook her head.

“It will all come back to me, perhaps, piece by piece; but not yet, not yet. But you were there, and you saw I did not kill him?”

“What I saw I cannot tell; as with you it was all a blur. But that you did not kill him I am as sure as that the sky is above.”

“I am so glad. You have made me so happy.”

“It needs but a little thing to make your happiness.”

“What is your name?”

“You have heard it more than once. My name is Ferguson—John Ferguson.”

“John!” Returning to her former self, she said it with the simplicity of a little child. She nestled close up to me, as if for comfort. My pulses throbbed. “Why is it that I feel safe when I am near you, and that the nearer I am to you the safer I feel?”

“God grant that you may always feel safe when you are near to me.”

My voice was husky.

“I believe that I always shall feel safe when you are near; I believe I always shall.”

She looked up at me with eyes in which there was something which seemed to burn into my soul. It was with difficulty I kept myself from putting my arm about her. When I spoke, it was awkwardly enough, and with a lumbering choice of ungainly words.

“The tangle is greater than I thought. It seems to be drawing us together. God moves in a mysterious way, and it may be His purpose that, under this blood-red shadow, our lives shall draw closer to each other. For my part, I am content.” I waited for her to speak; she was still; but she rested one hand upon my arm, and I trembled. “Don’t let yourself be troubled by fantastic fears. Rest assured that your heart is stainless as are your hands. I know. Look up, the light is coming! Your innocence will be made plain to all the world, and to yourself. For it seems that of yourself you’re chief doubter.”

“I did doubt; I’m easier now. I don’t doubt at all when you are near. I wonder why?”

“I wonder, too. But, come, there are a dozen things which I must do. You must be bundled off. Mrs. Peddar, where is this young lady’s hat?”

Mrs. Peddar passed into an inner room, presently returning with a hat. While its owner was putting it on, Miss Adair came up to me. I had been aware that the two women had been watching us with wide-open eyes and gaping mouths; now one of them gave partial expression to her feelings.

“What on earth is there between you two? Have you known each other all your lives, or did you meet for the first time last night?”

“That is a question for the metaphysicians. I seem to have known her all my life.”

“And has she known you all hers? Is that what I’m to think?”

“There is one thing you are not to think—you are not to think that she had any hand in what was done.”

“But it’s all so awful! It’s all come upon me in an instant: it’s taken me unawares. What am I to think after what she said, and did, in that room?”

“You are to be sure that she is as innocent as a child.”

“But what am I to think? It seems now that you both were there. I have no doubt whatever that the man quite deserved being killed; if she didn’t kill him, then did you?”

“God forbid!”

Miss Moore had her hat on. She made a discovery.

“I had a cloak. I feel sure I had a cloak. Where’s it gone?”

“Never mind about your cloak; it’s warm enough to-day, you’ll be able to do quite well without it.”

I caught Miss Adair’s glance; plainly she remembered what I had said about the condition of that garment; there was renewed suspicion in her eye. I turned to Mrs. Peddar.

“We don’t want to go through the main entrance; isn’t there another way?”

“There is the service lift, and there are the service stairs.”

“The very thing; show us where they are.”

She showed us where they were; and we three went down the servants’ staircase, through a back door, into a side street, no one saying us nay. I saw the two girls into a cab. As they were starting Miss Moore leaned her head out. She looked at me with eyes which were, to me, like magnets. Her lips formed a single word:

“John!”

As the hansom drove off, and, turning the corner, passed from sight, I felt as if something had gone out of my life.

AsI returned to my chambers my whole being seemed to be a battlefield on which conflicting thoughts and feelings were fighting to a finish. I had not supposed that my nature could have been utterly disorganized by occurrences such as those which had come crowding upon me during the last few hours.

I am a hard man. My life has been lived, for the most part, in odd corners of the world, where, single-handed, I have fought the fight for fortune; in places where human life is not held of much account, and where one would have thought as little of killing such a man as Edwin Lawrence appeared to have been, as destroying any other noxious animal. I have ever been a fighter. Men have called me “Fighting John.” I have had to defend my own life, and have not hesitated, when circumstances required, to take the lives of others. I learnt, long ago, that there are occasions when killing is not alone the best, but the only cure.

But I have had nothing to do with women. I have never been on familiar terms with one of them. I have always been aware that they are better than I, and that consciousness has made me shy of them, as of a church. But while one knows that a church is a place for sinners, one’s sense of decency tells one that evil ought not to come into contact with a woman. So I have kept clear. Until that night.

Now Providence alone knew what had happened. Since I had seen her standing in the moonlight at my window, the foundations of my life seemed to have been going under. It was absurd; yet true. What could she care for such as I—an adventurer from the four corners of the world, soiled with something of the grime from each of them. What right had I to think of such as she—a young girl, in the first fulness of her wondrous beauty, mentally, morally, socially far above my reach; the idol of the town, with, at her feet, some of the greatest in the land. It was midsummer madness; which, in my case, was the less excusable since, for me, it was the time of autumn.

But she had called me “John.” That was in her hour of sorrow, of which I had taken advantage. The hour would pass, and then I should not even be “Mr. Ferguson,” but simply one of the crowd in the street. I might take a seat at the theatre, to watch her play, but she would not even glance to see if I was in it. That would be a black hour for me. But with her all would be well.

But would the hour of her sorrow quickly pass? Back in my own room I tried to think; but, like her, I was afraid. I had been an idiot to let her return to Hailsham Road. What kind of an ass would he be who placed his trust in Inspector Symonds. I had had my experiences of the police. In all countries of the world they were the same—fools when they were not knaves. If he, or any of his myrmidons, laid a hand on her, what could I do? I was in a country where, even if you knocked a policeman down, it was regarded as a crime. And Miss Adair—she had her doubts. Great powers! what could the woman be made of, to have lived so long with such an angel, and yet doubt her perfect innocence! Apart from such thick-headedness on the part of a woman of common sense, it was dreadful to think of the girl living in an atmosphere of suspicion, when complete confidence was the one thing needful.

Why had I let her return to Hailsham Road? She would have been safer with Mrs. Peddar, or—God forgive me for thinking that she would have been safer still with me.

On what did the woman found her doubts? And the Inspector his? That was the mischief. On the surface the thing looked doubtful; if I were to speak of certain things, I knew they might look worse. A dozen knew now that she was present in the room. She could be dragged into the witness-box, at any rate, and then—then what might she not be forced to say. She had gone with unfriendly intentions; he had been killed while she was there; she ran away without a whisper to any one of what had been done. What deductions might not be drawn, by an unfriendly critic, from that bare statement of the facts. I dared not think of the risks she would run till all the truth was told.

“What is the truth?” I cried.

Unconsciously, I spoke aloud. Though, had I thought, I should not have hesitated, since I supposed I was alone. But, no sooner had I spoken, than my bedroom door was opened, and some one stood on the threshold, looking out at me.

“It’s you, is it? Come here!”

Hume was the speaker. He spoke and looked as if I were the intruder; not he. His presence took me by surprise; so that at first, in my bewilderment, I could only stare. Then I moved towards him.

“What are you doing there?”

“Come, and you shall see.”

I pushed past him into the room. As I looked round, in my amazement at the man’s audacity, I was speechless. The whole place was in confusion. He had been turning my belongings topsy-turvy—searching drawers, examining cupboards, scrutinising everything of mine which he could lay his hands upon. My property was scattered everywhere—on chairs, on tables, on the floor. On the rail of the bed were laid my pyjamas and a towel; and on the bed itself was displayed, at its widest, the plum-coloured cloak.

When I realised that he had unearthed that piece of apparently damning evidence, it was enough.

“You hound!”

I would have taken him by the throat; but, springing back, he pointed a revolver at my face.

“Stop that! I’ve had to deal with men like you before, John Ferguson. Attempt to touch me, and I’ll save the hangman his pains.”

I, also, on previous occasions had had to deal with men like him; more dangerous men than he was, free from all the restraints of civilisation, whom use had made handy with a pistol. There was something in the way in which he gripped his weapon which told me that he was not yet acquainted with all its capabilities. I dodged; struck up; the pistol went flying through the air. I took him by the waist; lifted him off his feet; held him tight; and shook him. If you have the trick of it, it is surprising how quickly you can shake the breath clean out of a man’s body, or, if you wish to go so far, by shaking him you can break his back, and make an end. My desires were less extensive. I shook him till I had him quiet; then I lowered him till his face was on a level with mine.

“Now, Dr. Hume, please tell me why I shouldn’t kill you?”

He could but gasp, and that with pain.

“You can—kill me—if you like. You killed him. Killing’s—your line.”

“And what’s your line? Sneaking, like a thief, into a man’s room, and prying into his possessions like some dirty nigger? However, since you are here, we’ll come to an understanding, you and I, before you go.”

I dropped him on to the floor, where he lay like a log, struggling to get back some of his breath. I picked up his revolver. It was a natty little thing, though not of the kind one carries where a gun is one of the chief necessities of existence. There a gun, to be worth anything, should send a bullet through an inch board at the distance of a dozen yards; it was all his would do to send a bullet through the skin of a man. I locked the door, and I waited for him to get his breath again.

“When you are ready, Dr. Hume.”

I sat and watched him. He had followed me with his eyes as I moved about the room; starting as I picked up his pistol. Now he returned me glance for glance. He was getting the better of his breathlessness; and presently raised himself to a sitting posture.

“You should be in a freak museum, Ferguson.”

“Indeed. Why?”

“You’re a prodigy of bone and muscle.”

“You should remember it.”

“I’ve but just now made the discovery. I shall have to refurbish my faith in the labours of Hercules and the story of Samson.” He was, as it were, arranging himself inside his clothes. “I don’t resent your physical configuration; it’s educative, as showing what the strength of a man may be. It’s a pity you should be a—— Are you only a fool, or are you something else as well?” He stood up, still arranging himself inside his clothes. He pointed to the plum-coloured cloak. “What’s this?”

“It’s what I’m going to wring your neck for.”

“Is that so? I don’t doubt your capacity, but why exercise it in this particular instance?”

“Then you must satisfy me that, though the heavens fall, no one outside this room shall ever learn there is such a garment in existence—and that you’ll find it difficult to do.”

“You wish me to tell no one of what I’ve found?”

“It’s not an affair of a wish.”

“Ferguson, you’re stark mad.”

“You’ve told me so before. You’re a specialist. You should know that a homicidal lunatic is not the sort to trifle with. Label me like that.”

“But you’re mad in the wrong direction.”

“What’s the right direction to be mad?”

“That cloak’s Miss Moore’s.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Let me inform you that to save her from harm I’d give my life.”

“Say that again.”

“To save her from harm I’d give my life. It sounds like bombast, but it’s plain truth.”

“Hume, I may be mad, but I’m not so mad as you think.”

“You’re madder, if you don’t believe me I don’t know why I should make a confidant of you, of all men; but there are illogical moments in which men feel constrained to strip themselves bare. Perhaps this is such a moment in my life. Miss Moore is the only woman I ever loved. That’s a line from a play, but it’s true, for all that.”

“Why do you say it to me?”

“What’s the meaning of that cloak being in your wardrobe?”

“Why did you go to my wardrobe to look for it?”

“Man, I wasn’t looking for that. I was looking for something with which to hang you. And I found this, and those. This is a towel. There’s blood on it. See! The marks of bloody fingers. You wiped your hands on it when, last night, you came from Lawrence’s room.”

“That is what you make of it. I see.”

“Those are the pyjamas which you were wearing. There are stains on them. See here, on the front of the jacket; on the breeches, too.”

“What is the deduction which you draw from that?”

“I don’t know. I did know. But now I don’t.”

His tone was one of intense dejection. He looked towards the bed. I considered for a moment. Then I spoke.

“You’re quite right, Hume. The cloak is Miss Moore’s.”

He turned round quickly.

“Do you want to hang her now instead of Philip? Or do you want to hang them both?”

“You talk too much of hanging. I mean you and I to understand each other before you leave this room; and we shan’t get there by blinking facts. I say that the cloak’s Miss Moore’s. You perceive that it’s caked with blood.”

“I see.”

“I believe that blood to be Edwin Lawrence’s. The proof is easy; you have only to subject it to a microscopical examination you will know. The stain on my pyjamas came off her cloak. That on the towel was where she wiped her hands, not where I wiped mine. The water in which she washed them I threw into the road. It was bright red. Not only were her hands reeking wet, there were smears upon her face as well.”

“Ferguson!”

“Those are the facts. I’ve made it a rule of my life never to dodge a fact which I don’t like; I hit at it. And it’s because I hit at those facts that I know they don’t mean she killed him; I know she didn’t.”

“How do you know?”

I laughed.

“Because I know her; perhaps you don’t.”

“I’ve known her the better part of my life.”

“And I only since last night, when she came through my window with shining hands.”

“But how can you know she didn’t, unless you know who did? Did you?”

I laughed again.

“I did not. Lawrence sharped me; I suspected it last night, now I’m sure; but I shouldn’t have killed him merely because he was too clever; at least, not like that. You’re a poor judge of character if you suppose I should.”

“I care nothing for you, or for your character. It’s of her I’m thinking. She might have done it in a fit of temporary insanity.”

“She might; but she didn’t.”

“Then what was the meaning of her conduct in his room just now?”

“You’re a mental pathologist; you should know better than I.”

“It’s because I’m a mental pathologist that I—fear. Symonds suspects. I shouldn’t be surprised if he arrests her within four and twenty hours. He’ll hang her if he finds this cloak.”

“Oh no, he won’t. Nor, if Symonds is the idiot you suppose—he may be, since you’re a judge of idiots—will she remain long under arrest. I shall free her.”

Hume had been pacing up and down like an unquiet spirit. Now he stopped to snarl at me like an angry wolf.

“If you think brawn and muscle can prevail against the police you are a fool.”

“As it happens I am not a fool on those particular lines, because I think nothing of the kind. I shall use other means to free her.”

“What other means?”

“I shall confess.”

“But I thought you said you didn’t do it.”

“Nor did I; nor did she. If Symonds must have a victim, better I than she. To go to the gallows for her sake would be heaven well won.”

Hume stared. I might have been shaking him again, his breath came so hardly.

“What—do you mean?”

“My good Hume, don’t you be afraid for Miss Moore. I assure you she’s in no danger.”

“You say you only saw her for the first time last night.”

“But that’s a century ago. A myriad things have taken place since, so now it’s just as if I’d known her all my life.”

He kept his head averted, looking at me sideways; it was the first time he had shown an indisposition to meet me face to face.

“It’s like that? I see.” He drew in his lips to moisten them. “A case of the world well lost for her.”

“You’ve hit it, Hume.”

“Suppose, for illustration’s sake, that this and that were fitted together so as to make it seem—only seem, you understand—that you actually did kill Lawrence, what then?”

“I don’t know what it is, but, in this instance, something seems to be warping your natural intelligence, or I’m persuaded that you’d perceive, as I perceive, that the truth will out, and that before very long.”

“Then am I to take it you’ll walk away with banners flying?”

“I don’t know about the banners flying, but I’ll walk away.”

“With her?”

“You’ve no right to say that.”

“And what right do you suppose you have to say what you’ve been saying, when you know that she’s to me the light of my eyes, the breath of my nostrils? when, these dozen years and more, since she was a little child in little frocks, I’ve waited on her will, won for her a place upon the stage I hate because she loved it, blazoned abroad her fame, because to be famous was her pleasure, although I knew that every cry of applause took her farther from me still, and farther! And now you come and say that you saw her for the first time last night, yet talk glibly of having known her all your life, and brag of being ready to sacrifice yourself for her. Do you think if she were herself she’d accept your sacrifice?—you speak of knowing her, and yet think that? Go to!—But, see here, if you burn with a desire to make yourself a scapegoat, I am willing.”

“You are willing?”

“She’ll never be. But if we put together here a little, there a little, line upon line, we’ll make out your guilt so clearly that there’s not a jury which wouldn’t see it, nor a judge who wouldn’t hang you. Shall we arrange it between us, you and I?”

“You are very good.”

“That she’ll be in gaol by this time to-morrow is pretty positive; I shouldn’t be surprised if Symonds was applying for a warrant at this moment. If you think that you will free her by merely going and saying, ‘I did it, it wasn’t she,’ you are under a delusion. She’ll not be freed like that; they’ll need chapter and verse. You’ll have to tell a plain tale plainly; how you planned the thing, how you did it, how you sought to hide your guilt by throwing the blame of it on her.

“Your tale will want corroboration; the support of independent evidence. I could say a thing or two, with perfect truth, which would go some way towards hanging you. Your concealment of the fact that you were in the room would look ugly, if treated well, and there’s the girl who saw you flying from it as if the devil were behind you. There’s the tell-tale marks upon the towel, on the pyjamas; there are a dozen things, without invention. And with—oh, we could manufacture a good round tale which would bear the strictest investigation, and which, without the slightest shadow of a doubt, would set her free for ever. Shall we set about it now?”

I was silent.

“There’s some one knocking at my door.”

Some one was beating a tattoo upon the panel.

“So there is; and some one in a hurry, it would seem. Perhaps it’s Symonds. If so, you might make a clean breast of it at once. I’ll corroborate with what I know. Then she need never fear arrest at all.”

Butit was not Symonds. It was a messenger-boy—an impertinent young rascal.

“Mr. John Ferguson? I thought every one was out, I’ve been knocking for the last ten minutes.”

“Have you indeed? I trust the delay has caused you no serious inconvenience. Yes, I am Mr. John Ferguson.”

“No answer.”

He thrust an envelope into my hand, and, turning on his heel, was about to march away. I caught him by the shoulder.

“Pardon me—one second! From whom does this communication come?”

“I say there’s no answer.”

He wriggled in my grasp.

“I hear you—still, if you could manage to wait for a moment, I think it might be worth your while. Let me beg of you to enter.”

Drawing him into the room, I shut the door. He surveyed me with indignation.

“My orders are that when there’s no answer I’m not to wait.”

“Good boy! Always obey orders.”

The address on the envelope was typewritten; as were the sentences on the sheet of paper it contained.

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