Days became weeks, and the mystery of what had become of Noel Draycott was a mystery still. It had got into the papers; to the disgust of the Earl of Cantyre, it had become, in a sense, the topic of the hour. "Where is Noel Draycott?" was the question, set in staring capitals, which faced newspaper readers day after day. The usual things were said about the incapacity of Scotland Yard; and people were assured by the morning and evening Press that the whole affair was but another illustration of how ineffective our detective service really is.
The official methods of dealing with his house and grounds were bad enough, but when it came to the amateur detective, his lordship drew the line. It was a subject on which he expressed himself very freely.
"Think the professional is no good, do they? I can't say that I'm struck with him myself. But compared to these male and female creatures who are aping him----! There's a woman who has taken on the job of what she calls 'solving' the mystery for theDaily Screecher; they tell me they've had the greatest difficulty in keeping her out of the servants' hall, to say nothing of the butler's pantry; and the other day they found her under the dining-room table just as they were starting to lay the dinner. I've given instructions that all such persons are to be warned gently off the premises, and kept off. Of course, if any of them should stray by any unhappy accident into the lake, it will be a misfortune. Privacy is getting a thing of the past. From the tone some of these fellows take, you'd think it was their house, their grounds--not mine."
Miss Forster had gone her own way--her uncle and many of her friends put it, her own bad way. She had gone straight from Avonham to Nuthurst, her uncle's house, which had been her home for so many years. In an interview she had insisted on having with him a very few minutes after her arrival, she had given her uncle one of the surprises of his life.
"You wish me to marry Sir George Beaton?" she had informed him.
"I'm not particular about your marrying George Beaton," the distracted old man declared. "There are hundreds and thousands of men in the world besides. What's the matter with Harold Reith? I thought you liked him."
"I like him too much to marry him."
"Of course, there's that point of view. I said to him: 'If the girl does marry you, you'll want to drown her and yourself inside six weeks.' Well, that didn't seem to cheer him."
Miss Forster looked at the old gentleman with doubtful glance, as if she suspected him of malign intention.
"Such a remark on your part was quite unnecessary. Major Reith is not likely to find himself in such a situation. I am going to marry Sydney Beaton."
Had she actually dropped a live bomb at his feet, Mr. Hovenden could not have seemed more disturbed.
"That pestilent young scoundrel! Was there ever anything like a woman for sheer impossibility?"
"It is because I am conscious of what your sentiments are on the subject that I am going to leave Nuthurst."
"You're going to do--what?"
"I have an income of my own----"
"Five hundred a year."
"It's more than five hundred a year."
"How much more?"
"I'm going to take a small furnished flat in London, and I'm going to live in it. For that my income will be more than ample."
"Is the girl raving? What's the matter with my house--or with me? If it comes to that, can't I take a flat for you?"
She crossed the room, and she kissed him. Educated in the school of experience, he did not show himself so grateful as he might have done.
"What does that mean?"
"It means, my dear uncle, that it can't be done."
"What can't be done?"
"I'd better be candid with you."
"I'd sooner you weren't. Candour with you means saying something disagreeable."
"Circumstances have arisen which make me think that things are in a very bad way with Sydney."
"I shouldn't be surprised."
"You would be surprised if you knew how bad they are."
"Oh, no, I shouldn't. A young scamp like that must expect to feed on the husks which the swine have rejected. I know. Rogues sometimes do get punished even in this world."
"Does it not occur to you how impossible it is that I should remain in your house while you speak like that of my future husband?"
"Your future husband?"
"My future husband." She said it with an air of calmness which irritated the old gentleman more than any show of heat would have done.
"Violet, if ever you marry that young blackguard----"
"Stop, uncle, before you say something which I may find it hard to forgive." She spoke as if she wished him to understand that the discussion was closed; that all she had to do was to make an announcement. "I am leaving Nuthurst this afternoon; I am going up to town by the three-twenty-three. I have told Cleaver to send my things on after me and what things to send. I shan't want her. You may dismiss her or keep her on, as you please. I dare say she may be found useful in the house."
"Dismiss Cleaver! At a moment's notice! I catch myself at it. And she has waited upon you hand and foot since you wore your first pair of long stockings!"
As Geoffrey Hovenden growled the words out he surveyed her as a clean-bred old mastiff might an impertinent young lap-dog. She went calmly on, holding out to him a sheet of paper:
"My address in town will be 2A Cobden Mansions, York Place. I've written it on this piece of paper in case you should forget it. It is quite respectable; you need be under no apprehension. All the occupants of Cobden Mansions are women, who have to supply satisfactory references before they are accepted as tenants. Good-bye."
Ignoring the hand which she advanced, he glared at her as if he would like to treat her to a good shaking.
"Are you in earnest?"
"I am. I know, uncle, how much I have to thank you for; please don't think I'm ungrateful because I am leaving Nuthurst. If I had married any of those hundred thousand gentlemen you just spoke of, I should have had to leave your house for his, so it comes to the same thing, because I hope that my husband will soon have a home for me. I don't suppose we shall see much of each other in future----"
"Don't talk balderdash! I'm disappointed in you, Violet, disappointed."
"I'm sorry, uncle; but I shan't cease to love you, and I hope you won't cease to love me."
"Why should I? Though your whole conduct shows you don't care a snap of your fingers for me. I don't believe you're really quite right in your head; I've half a mind to have you certified as a lunatic."
"You might find that harder than you suppose. But don't let us talk about that. You'll think better of me when I've gone. If you won't shake hands, once more good-bye. Remember, 2A Cobden Mansions. I shall be always glad to have a visit from you."
She was gone from the room, and very shortly afterwards from the house. His inclination was to stop her by strong measures, but second thoughts prevailed. He chose what he flattered himself was the wisdom of the serpent.
"If I let her think that it is a matter of complete indifference to me whether she goes or stays, she'll soon be back again. When a woman thinks that you don't care if she does make a fool of herself, she'll soon give up trying. I never thought that the girl would be such an imbecile."
When, a few days later, Sir George Beaton called, and placed him in possession of certain information, he formed a still lower estimate of his niece's mental capacity. The young man burst in on the old one just as he had finished his usual daily interview with his steward.
"Hovenden," he began, without any preliminary greeting, "what's this idea about Violet having left Nuthurst and gone to live in town?"
The old gentleman looked up from a bundle of papers which the steward had left behind.
"I don't know what you hear, but she's gone." His glance returned to the papers. "So far as I can understand, she's gone to look for your brother Sydney."
Sir George displayed signs of acute perturbation.
"Good heavens! Do you know what's the latest tale they're telling?"
"How should I? How long is it since I saw you? The worst tales about your brother I've always heard from you."
"Is that meant for---- What do you mean by that?"
"It's the truth, any way. Ever since Sydney was a small boy you've been telling tales to his discredit."
"Have I? I'm going to cap them with another: he's been committing burglary--that's his latest performance."
"Tell that to the marines. You know, George, you overdo it where Sydney is concerned; you make of him 'an 'orrible tale'; the colours with which you paint him are invariably sanguinary."
Sir George Beaton punctuated his words by striking his hand on the table at which the old gentleman was sitting.
"On the night of the Easter ball at Avonham all the women's jewellery was taken from their rooms--by Sydney."
"Who told you that?"
"Never mind who told me; it's a fact. It's the topic among the people we know."
"He did it for a lark; he has a peculiar sense of humour."
"That's how you look at it; you may well call it peculiar. There's something else which is being said of him, still more peculiar."
"He has committed murder?"
"That's what's being said."
"George, do you know you're talking of your own brother?"
"Don't I know it? You've seen in the papers about this Noel Draycott who is missing; he's one of the men who accused him that night at poker. They say that after Sydney had made off with the women's jewels he came across Draycott, there was a row, and he killed him. And this is the man Violet has gone to London to look for! She's not the only person who is doing it. And I'll say this--I hope that neither she nor anyone else will find him. I don't want to have my name entered in the Newgate Calendar, nor to see my brother finish at the gallows."
"Is it possible, do you think, that Violet can know of this--of these charges which are alleged against him?"
"I'm told it's because she knows that she's gone to town. She's got some cranky notion in her head that this is a case in which, for love's sake, the world would be well lost. To associate love with a man like that!"
It was hard to see what Violet Forster had gained by her change of residence, even from her own point of view; she felt that herself. She was conscious that Cobden Mansions was not Nuthurst, and that her particular corner in that tall, ugly, red brick building left a deal to be desired. And so far as she could see, she had done no good by coming; she had learnt absolutely nothing of Sydney Beaton's whereabouts; she could not have learnt less had she chosen to stray in the woods at Nuthurst instead of the highways and by-ways of London.
She had never got over the difficulty which had beset her at the first, that she had not been able to decide which was the best way to carry on her search. She had always the one dreadful fact to remember, that she was not the only person who wanted to get within touch of Sydney. If she was not careful she might do him the worst possible turn, by placing him in the hands of his enemies. That, in the sense in which she used the word, he was an innocent man she had no doubt whatever; but whether that sense was one which would commend itself to the authorities was the problem which caused her many a sleepless night, which took the roses out of her cheeks, the light from her eyes, the spring from her steps; which had transformed the blooming, light-hearted, high-spirited maiden into a nervous, shrinking, white-faced woman. She who had never known what it was to have an hour's illness, had suddenly become the victim of headaches which would not go. Such headaches! It seemed as if some terrible weight were pressing on her brain, making it difficult even for her to open her eyes. Major Reith caught her one day while she was in the grip of one of the very worst of them. Coming unannounced into her little sitting-room, he found her lying face downwards on the couch. Starting up, turning towards him her pallid face, they regarded each other with mutual discomfiture.
He spoke first: "I beg your pardon, but--I did knock."
Assuming a more orthodox position, she conjured up--it seemed with difficulty--a faint, wan smile.
"I'm not surprised. It's I who should apologise; this absurd head of mine makes me feel so stupid that anyone might knock half a dozen times without my knowing it."
Her appearance startled him; to him she seemed genuinely ill; the change which had taken place in her hurt him more than he would have cared to say. He was so unwilling that she should see the concern on his face that he turned his face from her under the pretence of putting his hat upon a chair.
"Have you seen a doctor?"
"What's the use? Medicine won't cure me, at least the sort of stuff a doctor would prescribe."
"Suppose you get really bowled over, what then?" She did not answer; she shut her eyes and sat still. "Do you know you are beginning to strike me as an extremely obstinate person?"
"Are you only just beginning to find that out?"
"You'll be a case for the hospital before very long, and then what good will you have done, for yourself, for anyone?"
"That's a question which I put to myself--so often. Please don't bully me. You never have seen me cry, have you? But I shall cry if you do; and I feel that if I once start I shall never stop. Have you any news? That's the medicine I want, and a doctor who will give it me."
"I'm more than half disposed to telegraph to someone who'd pack you off to the sea; you'll brood yourself ill."
"The sea won't do me any good; I've told you the only medicine which will. Have you any?"
"News? Of a sort. The regiment is all at sixes and sevens; in the whole of its history there's never been such a state of things before."
"What's wrong now with your precious regiment?"
"Everything. There's a bad spirit abroad in the mess; there's continual friction, the fellows are all at loggerheads, there's something that jars."
"So there ought to be, amongst such a set of individuals as constitute your mess."
"I've something to tell which you may regard as some of that medicine you are looking for."
"Have you? That's good; what is it?"
"It depends upon the point of view whether it's good or whether it's bad; from one point of view it's uncommonly bad."
"I hope that's not mine."
"I dare say it won't be. You know that throughout I've declined to express a positive opinion about that poker business of Beaton's."
"I do; and I've hated you for it."
"I'm beginning to think that there may be something in your point of view after all."
"Really? That is condescension; and what has brought it about--you're beginning to think?"
"I know what you think, and I know why; you must forgive me if my thoughts are on a different plane. You consider one man only, there's nothing that matters except him; to me there's a very great deal. I'm a soldier; to me the service is first and last; my regiment is all in all."
"Do you think I don't know that?"
"That affair of Beaton's was bad enough in all conscience; it's a tale which will be told of the regiment for many a day; but if it's going to be reopened I don't know what will become of us--I honestly do not."
"You don't believe that justice should be done even if the heavens fall?"
"I'm not sure that it is not better that one man should suffer, even though unjustly, rather than that a great and glorious tradition should be dragged in the mud and made a mock of."
"Your sentiments do you infinite discredit; I wonder, since you hold them, that I ever let you speak to me."
"Yes--well, I do hold them, and I'm going to continue to speak to you whether you let me or not."
"You haven't got your medicine."
"Young Tickell has made an announcement to the mess which is likely to cause trouble. He laid a cheque on the table for the amount which was in the pool that night, and he said that, as circumstances had arisen which caused him to doubt, he felt that he would like the money to be held in trust till the point was finally decided."
"Bravo, Jackie! Conscience moves in a mysterious way; that really is medicine."
"Yes, I thought you'd think so; it doesn't occur to you to think what the young gentleman's action means for the rest of us."
"I'm hopeful that it will cause your consciences to move in a mysterious way; I've always insisted that the age of miracles is still with us."
"Tickell as good as said that he doubted that Dodwell and Draycott had said the thing which was not, and if we had not all of us behaved infamously."
"You prefer the French point of view of thechose jugée; isn't that the phrase with which they decline to let injustice be set right?"
"The thing's done--that was bad enough; but if it's all going to be reopened it may be made infinitely worse; Tickell's action practically laid an unpleasant imputation upon every one of us."
"I shall write to Mr. Tickell and tell him how glad I am to find that there is in him the making of an honest man."
"What did you say to him that night at the Avonham ball?" Although the major paused for an answer, none came. "I believe that what you said, whatever it was, was the direct cause of his present action. Now what did you say?"
The lady rose from the couch, with a smile which, this time, was childlike and bland.
"I say that your medicine has already done me some good, and I think that the fresh air of the heavens may do me more. Regent's Park is within easy distance. Would you favour me with your society if I were moved to stroll in it? I will go and put my hat on." She turned again just as she was leaving the room. "By the way, who is the correspondent who has favoured this morning'sDaily Screecherwith that mysterious communication; do you think it was manufactured in the office? I fancy that mysterious communications sometimes are."
"You credit me with a knowledge of journalistic methods which I don't possess."
"You saw it?" He nodded. "What do you think of it?"
"I would rather not think of it at all."
"That seems to be your attitude in all such matters; you're like the ostrich who thinks that he hides himself and escapes from an unpleasant predicament by hiding his head in the sand. You see, I've got to think."
"Then, if I were you, I shouldn't."
"TheDaily Screechersays that a correspondent has favoured them with an account of certain extraordinary occurrences which took place at Avonham on the night of the Easter ball. If the statement is true, and it seems to bear on it the hall-mark of truth, then it throws a very lurid light on the continued mysterious disappearance of Captain Noel Draycott. It goes on to say that searching and exhaustive inquiries are being made into the statement, the result of which will be published in an early issue. In the meantime it assures its readers that sensational, and even astounding, developments may shortly be expected. I suppose you are capable of telling me if you think that that communication was manufactured in the office?"
The major showed a disposition to fidget, on which the lady commented.
"It's no use your shuffling your feet, or looking down at your boots, or fingering your tie; everything is quite all right. Will you please tell me what you think?"
"It's difficult to say."
"That means that you think there is a bona fide correspondent and that the communication is genuine."
"I'll put it this way--it's a wonder to me that something hasn't peeped out already. You and I know that the facts that the papers have got are not the real ones; there are--how many persons?--goodness only knows!--who are in a position to supply them with something which is a great deal nearer the truth--the whole truth, that is."
"And you think that one of those persons has?"
"Who knows? So far what struck me most about the matter is, that in spite of the boasted argus eyes of the newspapers, how easy it is to keep things from them. Even the approximate truth of what took place at Avonham would make--if they knew it--the fortunes of half a dozen journalists; and in America they would have got it, long ago; it's possible that here they're going to get it now."
The girl's smile had again become wan and faint.
"You're a comfortable counsellor; that paragraph in theScreechergave me my headache; your medicine did it good; but now it's as bad again as ever. I don't think that I care to stroll in the park--even with you."
"Whether you care or not you are coming. Go and put on your hat; or am I to carry you off without it?"
The girl hesitated; then, without a word, quitted the room. She was absent some minutes; a hat is not put on in a second. When she returned there was something about her eyes which filled the major with uncomfortable suspicions. In silence she led the way downstairs, and he followed.
It did not promise to be a very agreeable stroll, although the weather was fine. He seemed to find it hard to make conversation; she certainly declined to help him. They were into the park before a dozen sentences had been exchanged. Then, when they had walked quite a little distance without a word being spoken, all at once, as if moved by a sudden impulse, she made an effort to relieve the situation.
"If we walk on much longer, mumchance, like two dumb statues, people will think one of two things; either that we are married--I've been given to understand that husbands and wives never speak to each other when they take their walks abroad--or else that we have quarrelled."
He bore himself as if he had a poker down his back, and his eyes were fixed straight in front of him as he replied:
"I've not the least objection to their thinking the first."
"I dare say; but I have. Will you please talk to me about the weather."
Before he had a chance to air his eloquence upon that well-worn subject, something happened which rendered it unnecessary for him to say anything at all. A taxicab had gone rushing past, and as it passed, its occupant, a lady, put out her head to look at them. The cab had not gone another fifty yards before she stopped it. As they approached she was standing on the footpath with the obvious intention of accosting them. Her tone as she did so was enthusiastic.
"Miss Forster! This is a pleasure."
Judging from the expression on the young lady's face she was more than doubtful if it was a pleasure which was common to them both.
"Jane Simmons!" she exclaimed.
The other shook her by no means ill-looking head, and she laughed.
"Not Simmons; my name is Spurrier, Julia Spurrier. Most fortunate my meeting you like this, Miss Forster; I have for some time been most anxious to have a talk with you. Is there anywhere where I can say a few words to you in private? I believe you will regard what I have to say as of the first importance--to you, Miss Forster. I know what I am saying."
Miss Spurrier was very well dressed; as regards appearance she was really smarter than Miss Forster. All her extremely nice clothes looked as if they had come from the hands of artists, and her hat was a dream. She stood with one well-gloved hand resting on a long-handled parasol--it was a sunny afternoon; with one champagne-coloured shoe she seemed to be describing figures on the ground; her head was held a little back at an angle which became her. It was not easy to recognise in this elegant personage Jane Simmons in her cap and apron. Major Reith, who, with old-fashioned courtesy, stood with his hat in his hand, seemed as if he did not know what to make of her; while possibly the singularity of Miss Forster's bearing was owing to the fact that she was divided between anger and amazement, with possibly a touch of fear lurking in the corner of her heart. She seemed to be in doubt as to whether it would be better and wiser to enter into conversation with this disreputable person, or to pass contemptuously on. When, at last, she did speak, it was with the plain intention of giving the other to understand that she was to keep what Miss Forster considered her place.
"Have you anything to say to me? Can't you say it here?"
"In the presence of Major Reith?" The lady swung her parasol in that gentleman's direction, and she beamed at him. "Oh, I know you, Major--you're not the only officer in your regiment with whom I have the pleasure of being acquainted. With one of them I've been on quite intimate terms; ask Miss Forster. It's about him I wish to speak to her."
The major, noting his companion's distress, made a somewhat blundering attempt to come to her rescue.
"If I'm in the way, Miss Forster, pray command me; shall I walk on, or would you prefer that I should stay?"
Miss Forster still seemed to be in doubt; her words were scarcely friendly.
"Major Reith, I've only seen this person once in my life--she was a servant at Avonham on the night of the Easter ball--or she pretended to be. Her conduct on that occasion was of a kind which makes it amazing that she should have the assurance to address me now."
Miss Spurrier showed no signs of being hurt by the speaker's candour; she only laughed.
"It's hardly fair, Major Reith, for Miss Forster to put it like that. You will, of course, recollect the robbery of the ladies' jewels--actually from their bedrooms, when they were fast asleep. You remember how all the jewels were found again, in a leather bag? It was rather a funny story." She turned to the girl. "Miss Forster, shall I tell him all about it? I'm convinced that it would tickle him."
A flush had come over Violet Forster's face, her cheeks were as scarlet as they had just been white. Not only her lips, her whole frame seemed trembling from head to foot.
Miss Spurrier observed her with malicious amusement--she remained all smiles.
"Why, Miss Forster, how red you have all at once become, and only a moment ago I was thinking how pale you were. Doesn't a touch of colour become her, Major Reith?"
The major looked extremely uncomfortable, as if he did not know what to make of the position. Miss Forster relieved him of his perplexity.
"I think," she said to him, "that I will hear what this person has to say. She can come with me in this cab to my rooms; and may I ask you to accompany us? I have reasons for wishing you to do so. Get in."
She ordered Miss Spurrier to enter the cab very much as she might have done if she had still been Jane Simmons. Miss Spurrier laughingly complied.
"What funny ways you have, Miss Forster! If you would let me tell Major Reith that story, he'd think they were funnier still."
Miss Forster, following her into the cab, chose to sit with her back to the driver; the major, entering last, was placed in the seat of honour by Miss Spurrier's side. When the cab reached Cobden Mansions, and the passengers had alighted, Miss Forster said to the major, as she opened the door of a room which was just inside the hall:
"This is meant to be used as a reception room for visitors to tenants of the flats who do not wish to see them in their own apartments. I am going to take this person with me upstairs; will you wait here till she has gone, or till I send for you?"
The major expressed his perfect willingness to await the lady's pleasure; the two women ascended in the lift to Miss Forster's flat on one of the upper floors. So soon as they were in, Miss Forster's manner entirely changed. All signs of confusion or distress vanished; she assumed what was almost an air of truculence. Closing the door, she pointed to a seat.
"Sit down." The visitor obeyed. "Now, Jane Simmons, or whatever you call yourself, you say you've been looking for me; I don't know what truth there may be in that, but I do know that I've been looking for you; and now that I've found you, we're not going to part until we've come to an understanding."
"That's what I want, Miss Forster--an understanding."
"In the first place, before you leave this room, you're going to tell me where Sydney Beaton is now."
The visitor raised her grey-suede-covered hands with what was possibly meant to be a gesture of lady-like amazement.
"How odd! How extremely singular! What a coincidence!"
"What's a coincidence--and odd--and singular?"
Nothing could have been grimmer than the tone in which Miss Forster put her question. She had taken up an attitude before the empty fireplace which was almost masculine, and again there was something which was almost masculine in the curt, unceremonious fashion of her speech; nothing could have been in more striking contrast than the other's airs and graces of a fine lady.
"That you should have said such a thing as that to me about dear old Sydney."
Miss Forster bit her lip.
"Have the goodness not to speak of Mr. Beaton in my presence by his Christian name."
"My dear Miss Forster, why not? When he and I have been such friends; I've always called him Sydney."
"Whether that is or is not a lie I am not in a position to say; you'll speak of him as Mr. Beaton to me. Where is Mr. Beaton?"
"That's what I said was so odd, so singular, such a coincidence. That you should put such a question to me, when one of the chief reasons why I was so anxious to have a talk was because I wished to put exactly the same question to you--where is Mr. Beaton?"
"Do you mean to say that you don't know?"
"I've no more idea than the dead."
"You did know."
"Up to a certain point of course I knew."
"Where was he living when--I saw you last?"
The visitor looked at her before she answered, with a smile which grew more and more pronounced; there was a singular quality in the woman's smile. In repose her face was good to look at; her smile invested it with a charm, a tenderness, a something daintily malicious, which made it almost irresistible. Miss Forster admitted to herself that she would be easy for any man to fall in love with, and, when she chose, there was a winning something in her voice; she had one of those flexible voices which are capable of expressing so many, and such fine, shades of meaning.
"Where was he living when you saw me last? Well, that's rather a question. I needn't tell you that a good many people would like to know. But as I have every reason to believe that you really are his friend, and have no sympathy with those objectionable creatures, the police, I don't mind telling you. He had rooms at Notting Hill--78 Caversham Street. Mine were close to Brompton Road, and when he wasn't in my rooms I was in his."
Miss Forster was making a note on a sheet of paper.
"78 Caversham Street, Notting Hill. You say that was his address at the time of the Easter ball at Avonham?"
"Exactly, and after what occurred at Avonham I expected that he would return to that address; and I don't mind telling you that when I left I went straight there, to find that he hadn't returned. I was a little surprised, but, of course--in the profession in which he was then engaged, accidents do happen--there's no shutting our eyes to that, is there? There might have been all sorts of reasons why his return had been delayed; but when day after day went by, and still nothing was seen or heard of him, I did begin to wonder."
The lady, pausing, looking down, began to draw figures on the carpet with the end of her parasol, smiling to herself as if in enjoyment of some private joke.
"Most regular in his habits, was Mr. Beaton--you see, I adopt the Mr. in deference to you; I'm always so anxious not to wound people's feelings, especially yours. Everything in his rooms was in perfect order, the rent had been paid up, and the landlady, who was a most innocent creature, and quite attached to her lodger, whom she believed to be something in the commercial way, was not in the least concerned--but I was. You see, I knew. As time went on, and there were still no signs of him, I became positively anxious; I was almost as attached to him as his landlady."
Again--it is necessary to dwell upon the fact, to such an extent was it her most outstanding characteristic--her face was irradiated by her wonderful smile. She continued, with her eyes still cast down.
"I was really concerned; then it occurred to me that probably my distress was wasted, the explanation might be quite simple; seeing you that night had brought his thoughts back to the old channels, and--you knew where he was instead of me. I began to take it for granted that he had exchanged 78 Caversham Street for an address which would be more convenient for you, and less for me--isn't that the case?"
Miss Forster's manner, as she replied, was still ungenial.
"In dealing with persons such as you, one is confronted with the difficulty that one can never tell when you are telling the truth and when you are lying; I am quite sure that you can lie like truth. What I do gather is that you wish me to believe that you have seen and heard nothing of Mr. Beaton since that night; but though your tale sounds plausible, there is no reason why it should be true."
"It doesn't matter to me one pin's head whether you do or don't believe. Will you please answer me one question? Have you seen or heard anything of him?"
"I have not."
"I do believe you, and I'm very sorry to hear it." Nothing could have been sweeter than the smile with which Miss Spurrier said it, or nicer than her bearing. "I'm afraid, Miss Forster, that there's something wrong. If you do or don't believe it, I have heard nothing of Mr. Beaton, and if you haven't, then I don't like the look of things at all. Do you see"--the lady hesitated; looking down, she still described figures with the end of her parasol--"there's that business of Captain Draycott. It is, unfortunately, possible that Mr. Beaton may have had his reasons for not wishing to let me know his whereabouts, or you either. In matters of that kind it may be better--for the person who did it to keep himself to himself; it's safer for him, and for all concerned, because, of course, if one doesn't know, one can't tell."
The lady glanced at a gold watch set in a jewelled bangle.
"How the time does go--I must be off; I'm keeping Major Reith waiting. One moment--excuse me, Miss Forster, if I am interrupting you when you were about to speak--but please don't let us talk about that business of Captain Draycott; it's so much better not to."
"I don't agree with you; what do you know about it?"
"Suppose I know everything--what good will it do you, or him? You're not fool enough to suppose that I did it. Captain Draycott was an utter stranger to me; I had no grudge against him; you know how it was--with Mr. Beaton. You don't want to put the noose about his neck, do you? And you can't want me to do so. I've had one friend hung, and I certainly don't want to have another--it's a nasty business, I can assure you."
"I can't believe that, for what happened to Captain Draycott, Mr. Beaton was in any way to blame."
"Miss Forster, you really must forgive me if I say that now I don't believe you. I tell you again that I don't wish to talk about it, and it's better on all accounts that we shouldn't; but do you suppose that I can't see that your heart's as heavy as lead, and that you've worn yourself nearly to a shadow, because you've been worrying about what you pretend you don't believe? If you were to go down on your bended knees, and swear that you were quite certain that he had nothing to do with it, still I shouldn't believe you; your face, everything about you gives you away; I know better. Let me tell you something, and this is the last word you'll get on the subject from me. I don't know"--the lady suddenly lowered her voice--"who killed him, and I don't want, and I don't mean to know, but I have my doubts--so now you've got it."
Miss Forster was silent. That her visitor's words had affected her disagreeably her behaviour showed. Showing Miss Spurrier her back, facing the mantelshelf, she pretended to be interested by the trifles which were on it, but to an observant eye few things can be more eloquent than a person's back; the twitching of her shoulders was in itself more than sufficiently eloquent. Even her speech betrayed her; it faltered.
"Do you think--that he's left England?"
"It's on the cards. It all depends on whether he's had the chance. If he has, let's hope he'll be able to cover his tracks. I suppose nobody does know anything."
"How can I tell?"
"Exactly, how can you? It's queer that nothing has been found--of the body." The girl said nothing, but again Miss Spurrier noticed the twitching shoulders. "There's one thing, nothing can be done till it is found; and as it looks as if it is in a sure place, he ought to have something like a start before trouble begins."
The girl still continued silent. The visitor, holding out her gorgeous parasol, began to fasten the elastic band.
"Miss Forster, I am going away. I don't mean only from this room, but out of the country; I'm leaving England."
"Are you?" The girl's tone could scarcely have been more void of interest, but the other still kept her eyes upon her back.
"I'm going to be married."
"Indeed."
"I am going to be married to an old friend with whom I have been associated in some rather successful--matters; so, as we've got quite a nice little capital together, we've decided to turn over a new leaf. We're going to America, to a town in one of the middle States, where we have, both of us, reason to believe that there's an opening for an enterprising couple. We are going to start in the dry goods--a store. It's a trade in which we may both of us be able to show even the Americans a thing or two. We hope, by strict attention to business, to do well."
The visitor paused, but the girl said nothing; she still kept her face turned away.
"Of course, my prospects and intentions don't interest you, but now that I'm going to put the old things behind me and begin a new life, and leave England for ever--for we both of us intend at the earliest possible moment to become American citizens; you do get such a pull on the other side if you are a citizen--since you and I are alone together for probably the last time in our lives, there are one or two things which I should like to tell you about Mr. Beaton. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to see you. Wouldn't you like to hear them?"
"It depends on what they are. I should advise you to be careful what you say of him."
"Oh, I'll be careful. To begin with, Mr. Beaton is a gentleman, as I dare say you know."
"What do you suppose?"
"Now, my experience of what is called a gentleman in England is, that so long as he has got plenty of money to spend, and everything's made smooth for him, he may be quite a decent sort; but he's the most helpless creature on God's earth when his pockets are empty and he has to trust to himself to fill them. So long as he has friends to give him a lift he may manage somehow, but when his only friend is himself he's scrambling for crusts in the gutter almost before he himself knows it. To one who has had to earn his bread all his life by the sweat of his brow it's nothing less than amazing how soon he gets there. Mr. Sydney Beaton was in the gutter, and worse than the gutter, when I first met him."
At last Miss Forster did turn, and looked the speaker in the face.
"Where did you first meet him?"
Miss Spurrier was settling her beautiful hat upon her well-groomed head.
"It's not a pretty story--not very much to his credit or mine. You don't know how little of a hero a man can be when his stomach's empty and he has nothing to put into it, especially when he's a gentleman."
Apparently the visitor got her hat all right. She rested both hands on the handle of her parasol and she smiled.
"I want to slur over the disagreeable places in my story, Miss Forster--I always do like to avoid as much as possible what is unpleasant--and I don't want to keep you any longer than I can help. I want to get to what I'm after by the shortest possible way. You know what my profession is?"
"I can form a shrewd guess."
"I shouldn't be surprised; circumstances have helped you. But the world in general, Miss Forster, treats me as in every respect your equal. I was on my beam ends when I adopted it. I dare say you don't know what it is to be on your beam ends."
"I am thankful to say that is a condition of which I have no personal knowledge."
"You have cause to be thankful. Well, I have, and so has Sydney Beaton. If it hadn't been for me he'd have been dead long ago, with cold, misery and hunger."
"Is that true?"
"If you doubt it, you can. Say you don't believe me. Well--don't. I taught him one way of keeping himself alive and of putting money in his pocket, and he managed to do both. But it was a way he never liked; there were times when, I believe, that after all he would have rather starved."
"So I should imagine."
"Oh, you can imagine a great deal, I shouldn't wonder, but do you think you've imagination enough to enable you to put yourself in the place of the woman who was peddling matches at the corner of the street as we came along, with odd boots on--such boots!--and no stockings, and probably little more on than a skirt which it would make you uncomfortable to think of touching even with your finger-tips? You say you never could be in the position of such a woman--but he was."
One could see that, in spite of herself, Miss Forster shivered.
"Is that absolutely a fact?"
"The second time I met him he was carrying a sandwich-board in the Strand--now it's out--in that cold weather we had last January; and he hadn't three-penn'orth of clothing on him--three-pennyworth! Why, a rag-man would have wanted to be paid for carrying away what he had on. He was perished with the cold; he was nothing but skin and bone; misery and hunger had made him half-witted. In that weather he had slept out of doors every night--in the streets. He hadn't had six-pennyworth of food in a week. You stand there, well-fed, well-housed, well-clothed, and you think yourself a paragon of all the virtues, entitled to look down on such as I am, on what he became. You've not yourself to thank for being what you are. If you were to be stripped naked, and put into the woman's rags who was peddling matches, and had to live her life, for only a month, what kind of a fine lady, with pretty sentiments, do you think you'd be by then?"
Miss Spurrier had become suddenly so much in earnest that there was no doubt about her having succeeded in interesting Violet Forster at last. A light seemed to have come into her face, and a glow into her eyes.
"Do you really mean--that he was a sandwichman--in the Strand, one of those men who carry boards upon their backs?"
The visitor laughed as if she regretted the warmth to which she had given way; but there was something in her laughter which did not ring altogether true.
"Oh, I didn't mean to give myself away--or him either. I don't suppose he's very proud of his little experiences, so if you ever meet him again don't let him know that I told you; I shouldn't like him to think that I'd given him away on a thing like that--especially to you, because I happen to know that there's nothing in the world for which he cares except your good opinion, and that makes it so funny."
"How do you know he cares for my good opinion?"
"As if I didn't know! Why, he bought a portrait of yours in a picture paper; he cut it out, he made a little case for it--a sort of little silk bag stiffened with cardboard--he bought the silk himself, shaped it, put every stitch in it with his own needle and thread; he carried it about with him inside his shirt; I believe he said his prayers to it."
The girl had all at once grown scarlet; what was almost like a flame seemed blazing in her eyes.
"If--if he so wanted my portrait, how did you come to be possessed of that locket with my likeness in it?"
"That's one of the things of which I am ashamed; and, as I'm going to turn over a new leaf and become a respectable married woman, it's one which I want to make a clean breast of--to you. That locket was stolen from him when he was trying to get some sleep on one of the steps of the tunnel under Hungerford Bridge by two men who knew he had got it on him. One of them sold it to--an acquaintance of mine; he showed it to me, I recognised you from the picture he had cut out of the paper, and I bought it."
"Why didn't you give it back to Mr. Beaton? You knew that it was his."
"Well, that's one of the peculiarities of human nature. I didn't. I couldn't tell you why; at least, it would take me a very long time to do it; human nature is such a mass of complications and contradictions. I gave it to you instead."
"As if that were the same thing!"
"As if I didn't know that it wasn't. Haven't I admitted that that is something for which you are entitled to throw bricks at my head, or articles of furniture, or anything that comes handy?"
As the girl showed no inclination to throw anything, but stood there with that light still flaming in her eyes and her cheeks all glowing, Miss Spurrier went on, with something in her bearing more than a trifle malicious.
"Well, now that I've told you everything that I came to tell you, and all you want to know, I'm going."
She made a movement towards the door. The girl found her tongue.
"But you haven't told me anything; at least, I don't understand what it is you have told me."
"I've told you the one thing you want to know: that the one thing he values in the world is your good opinion; that still, although he's been very near to the gate of hell, he loves you. Good day."
"You swear that you don't know where he is?"
"I've no more idea of where he is, or where he has been, since that night at Avonham than you; and, as things are turning out, I would much rather continue in complete ignorance of his whereabouts until that business of Captain Draycott has blown over, which is a consummation devoutly to be hoped for. Is there any other question you would like to ask me?"
She stood by the door, presenting a sufficiently appetising picture of a pretty woman, fitly and gaily apparelled to take her walks abroad on a sunny day. Something which she perhaps saw in her face moved the girl to what, coming from her, was an unexpected confession.
"I'm not sure that I haven't been doing you an injustice."
The woman laughed.
"I shouldn't wonder. I've been doing the same to you. We are all of us continually doing each other an injustice; that sort of thing depends a good deal on the mood you're in and on whether the world is going well with us. I hope that, for both of us, in the future it will go very well indeed. Good-bye."
The woman was gone and the door was closed, and almost before she knew it the girl was left alone. Some few minutes later there came a tapping at the door; it was opened, and Major Reith came in. He found Violet Forster sitting on the floor beside the couch, her face pillowed on a cushion. When she raised it he saw that she was crying. The sight moved him to sympathy and anger.
"Miss Forster!" he exclaimed. "What has that abominable woman been saying--or doing?"
Her answer filled him with amazement.
"I'm not sure," she said, "that she is an abominable woman, and--I'm not sure that I'm not the happiest girl in the world."
It seemed such an astounding thing for her to say that he appeared to be in doubt as to whether he ought to credit the evidence of his own ears. But there was such a light upon her face, which was no longer white, and such a smile was shining from behind the tears that, almost incredible though he deemed it, he was forced to the conclusion that he must have heard aright, especially when, rising to her feet, she came close to him and laughed in his face.
"Yes," she told him, "you may stare; but at least I am not sure that I am not much happier than I deserve. And now I'll wash my face and dry my eyes, and I'll put my hat on straight; I know it's all lop-sided--you've no idea how easy it is for a woman's hat to get lop-sided--and then you can take me for that stroll in the park."