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An Eye for an Eye

by William Le Queux · English · Gutenberg #41004 · 442,449 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: An Eye for an Eye

Author: William Le Queux

Illustrator: Maurice Greiffenhagen


        
Release date: October 9, 2012 [eBook #41004]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41004

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN EYE FOR AN EYE ***

An Eye for an Eye, by William Le Queux.

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AN EYE FOR AN EYE, BY WILLIAM LE QUEUX.

CHAPTER ONE.

THE MYSTERY MAN.

"Hush!  Think, if you were overheard!"

"Well, my dear fellow, I only assert what's true," I said.

"I really can't believe it," observed my companion, shaking his head
doubtfully.

"But I'm absolutely satisfied," I answered.  "The two affairs,
mysterious as they are, are more closely connected than we imagine.  I
thought I had convinced you by my arguments.  A revelation will be made
some day, and it will be a startling one--depend upon it."

"You'll never convince me without absolute proof--never.  The idea is
far too hazy to be possible.  Only a madman could dream such a thing."

"Then I suppose I'm a madman?"  I laughed.

"No, old chap.  I don't mean any insult, of course," my friend the
journalist, a youngish, dark-haired man, hastened to assure me.  "But
the whole thing is really too extraordinary to believe."

We were seated together one June morning some years ago, in a train on
the Underground Railway, and had been discussing a very remarkable
occurrence which had been discovered a few days before--a discovery that
was a secret between us.  Scarcely, however, had he uttered his final
denunciation of my theory when the train ran into the sulphurous
ever-murky station of Blackfriars, for the electrification of the line
was not then completed: and promising to continue our argument later, he
bade me good-bye, sprang out, and hastened away in the crowd of
silk-hatted City men on their way to their offices.

He was rather tall, aged about thirty, with a well-cut, clever face, a
complexion unusually dark, a well-trimmed black moustache, and a smart
gait which gave him something of a military bearing.  Yet his cravat was
habitually tied with carelessness, and he usually wore a light overcoat
except through the month of August.  His name was Richard Cleugh, one of
the sharpest men in Fleet Street, being special reporter of London's
most up-to-date evening paper, the _Comet_.

When alone, I sat back in the ill-lit railway carriage and, during my
short journey to Cannon Street, reflected deeply.

The affair was, as he had said, absolutely bewildering.

Indeed, this chain of curious facts, this romance of love and devotion,
of guile, intrigue, and of the cardinal sins which it is my intention to
here record, proved one of the strangest that has ever occurred in our
giant London.  It was an absolute mystery.  Readers of newspapers know
well the many strange stories told in courts of justice, or unearthed by
the untiring "liner" and the reporter who is a specialist in the
discovery of crime.  Yet when we walk the streets of our Metropolis,
where the fevered crowd jostles in the mad race of life, there is more
romance around us, and of a character far more extraordinary than any
that has ever appeared in the public prints.

The secrets of London's ever-throbbing heart, and her hidden and
inexplicable mysteries which never get into the papers, are legion.

This is one of them.

In order to understand the facts aright, it is necessary to here explain
that I, Frank Urwin, am myself a member of that ubiquitous and much
maligned profession, journalism, being engaged at the time of the
opening of this narrative as special reporter of a highly respectable
London daily newspaper--a journal which was so superior that it never
allowed itself to make any sensational statement.  Its conductors as
studiously avoided sensationalism as they did libel, and although we
were very often in possession of "startling facts," and "sensational
statements" which would have sold the paper, and caused it to be quoted
next morning up and down the country, yet we of the staff, forbidden to
write anything so undignified, kept our information to ourselves, or, as
was once rumoured, the office boy, a thrifty youth, went forth and
calmly sold it to one of our more enterprising rivals.  Hence, owing to
the heaviness of its articles, which usually contained "chunks" of
foreign quotations, and the paucity of its news, the paper was dubbed by
its staff "the Magazine."

Before being appointed to this pseudo-newspaper, where, by the way, work
was light and remuneration good, I had been for several years engaged
upon one of those enterprising evening journals who print their
"specials" on tinted paper, and by reason of my constant investigations
I had become well-known to the police, and perhaps something of a
specialist in the revealing of hidden facts and the unravelling of
mysteries.

Dick Cleugh was my most intimate friend, for we shared chambers in
Gray's Inn, a rather dingy and typical bachelor's abode, be it said; but
it had the advantage of being in close proximity to Fleet Street, and
situated as we were, flying all over London day after day, we could not
afford to live out in the peculiarly journalistic suburb of Brixton.
Our little flat contained a very sad and shabby sitting-room--in which
stood a couple of writing-tables whereat we often worked, joining in,
and re-echoing, each other's imprecations--a couple of bedrooms and a
small box-room which, containing a gas-stove over which the diurnal
chops were fried, was termed by the Inn authorities a kitchen.  We,
however, irreverently termed it "the sink."  Old Mrs. Joad, a worthy old
soul who lived across in Fetter Lane, "did for" us, and was known as
"the Hag," on account of her _passe_ and extremely _bizarre_ appearance.
Her duties were not very onerous, consisting of preparing our morning
tea, "doing up" the rooms, cooking the eternal chops or the everlasting
steaks at six, when, our respective "special editions" having gone to
press, we both returned hungry to our dens, and lastly in drinking our
whisky.  She preferred gin, but took whisky in order to put us to no
inconvenience.

Cleugh was one of the queer figures in journalistic London.  Essentially
of the Bohemian type, easy-going and possessed of a quaint, dry humour,
many were the stories told in Fleet Street of his utter disregard for
the _convenances_.  Shrewd, witty, clever, well-educated, he was no
respecter of persons.  If he went forth to make an inquiry for his
journal, he hesitated at nothing.  With the constant companionship of an
extremely foul briar pipe, it was his habit to "interview" people and
obtain "latest details" of the day's sensation without removing it from
his lips, and it was well-known down at the Press Club, that dingy but
interesting institution in Wine Office Court, that on one field-day at
Aldershot he had actually chatted with the Commander-in-Chief, pipe in
mouth, and afterwards put the conversation "on the wire" in the form of
an interview.  When having nothing to do he would clean that pipe for
recreation, and such operation usually caused a rapid exit from the
vicinity.  Known to all in Fleet Street as "the Mystery Man," he was
clever-looking and dignified, and could snuff out an uncommunicative
secretary, or a pompous policeman, with his marvellous control of
expressions, sarcastic without being abusive.  He was undoubtedly "a
smart man"--and to be smart in journalism nowadays requires a good deal
more than ordinary intelligence.  An ex-Jesus man, he had been a True
Blue, been ploughed for the Army, studied medicine, and travelled pretty
widely, until having been a brilliant failure he had drifted into
journalism, like so many other men have drifted, commencing as an
outside contributor, or "liner," and eventually, by dint of the
swiftness and marvellous tact and ability with which he got at the
bottom of the inquiries he made, he joined the regular staff of a
popular evening sheet--which, by reason of having once tried the
experiment of printing on scented paper, was known in press circles as
"The Stinker"--and subsequently became chief of the reporting staff of
the _Comet_--as smart a staff as could be found in London.

In common with many other men in Fleet Street, that never-sleeping world
of tape and flimsy, Dick had one failing--he had a penchant for a
particular brand of whisky sold at the _Cheese_, the ancient house of
steak-pudding fame, but he was always moderate, for his great pride was
that his sub-editors could place the greatest reliance in him, as indeed
they could.  Dick Cleugh was certainly smart, even though his hair was
often unkempt and a bundle of copy-paper usually poked out of the
side-pocket of his well-worn overcoat.  Over and over again had he
proved himself a very brilliant pressman and had startled London by the
"latest details" he had elicited where the police had failed.

I had arrived at our chambers about six, after a heavy day.  I had
visited Barking and Wandsworth, and had made an inquiry at Hammersmith,
three districts far afield from one another, therefore I felt fagged and
hungry.  The Hag was engaged in fizzling the usual daily steak in the
gas fumes, filling the place with a decidedly appetising odour;
nevertheless, between Dick and I there was an arrangement that neither
should eat without the other, unless a telegram arrived announcing a
protracted absence.  Therefore I lit a cigarette, cast myself into the
trifle rickety but very comfortable armchair, and waited by the open
window.  I was just a trifle melancholy that evening, for there had come
back to me recollections of a love-bond long since severed, of a face
which was once very dear to me.  But I was a lonely bachelor now.  All
was of the past.  Soon, however, as I sat thinking, I saw Cleugh
hurrying across the square, his silk hat, a trifle rusty, tilted at the
back of his head, and a few moments later he burst merrily into the
room, saying--

"Sorry to keep you so long, old chap, but we brought out an extra
to-night.  There's a bit of a row down in Parliament."  Then, calling to
Mrs. Joad, who was pottering in the "sink" beyond, he said, "Come along,
mother.  Look sharp with the horseflesh!"

We sat down and commenced our meal, while he, overflowing with spirits,
told me how he had been out on an inquiry near to the _Welsh Harp_,
spending a very pleasant afternoon there, and how he meant to "write it
up" for the "mornings."  The old instinct of the "liner" was still upon
him, and on his littered table he always kept his agate stylus and oiled
tissue, known as "flimsy," his "blacks" and his square of tin whereon to
write.  The sub-editors of the morning papers, the judges of next day's
intelligence, could always rely on Dick Cleugh's "stuff," therefore they
used it, and he profited at the rate of a penny farthing per line.  He
was, in brief, purveyor of sensations to the newspaper-reading public.

"I'm going to take Lil out to-night," my companion said between
mouthfuls of steak, for he was ravenously hungry.  "Smart girl, Lil."

"Yes," I answered.  "She's really awfully nice.  By Jove! old chap, I
envy you."

The Mystery Man smiled contentedly with a piece of meat poised
gracefully on his fork, then he began humming the latest love-song which
the barrel-organs had made popular, beating time with his fork, at the
same time placing his hand upon his heart in true operatic style.

This proceeding was, however, interrupted by the entrance of the Hag
bearing a telegram for me.  On opening it I found it contained only the
one word "Come," signed by the initial "P."

I tossed it across to my companion without comment, and as I did so was
surprised to notice a strange, puzzled look upon his dark face.

He glanced at it, then handing it back to me, exclaimed--"Wonder what's
up at Kensington?"

"Something unusual, or Patterson wouldn't have wired," I said.

"You'll go, of course?"

"Yes.  I'll just see what it looks like, and if there's anything in it
I'll let you know."

"Well, old dawdler," he laughed, "if it's a good thing, leave a bit of
the latest intelligence for me to pick up for my early edition
to-morrow.  To-night I can't disappoint Lily, you know.  She's a good
girl, and never worries."

"I'll tell you all about it when I come back; then you can write up
something in readiness for to-morrow.  If it's a mystery my people won't
touch it, you know."

"Of course," he said.  "Your staff is only paid to look pleasant."

The mysterious telegram had come from the police headquarters at
Kensington, an early intimation that something unusual had occurred.  In
years of reporting in London I had become friendly with many police
inspectors and detectives, and had long ago made arrangements with some
of them whereby they would send me a wire by day, or a line by
boy-messenger at night with information of the latest "sensation."  The
reason why all were signed with initials was because such intimation was
contrary to the order of the Chief Commissioner.

I therefore left Dick sucking his foul briar, and, taking a motor-bus to
Kensington, entered the police-station, which stands back hidden in a
courtyard opposite St. Mary Abbot's Church.  In the charge-room, with
its bare, grey-painted walls, its steel-railed dock for prisoners, its
loud-ticking clock, and its desk, whereon the oblong charge-book lay
open, I found my old friend Inspector Patterson in earnest conversation
with two men of the working class, who spoke with a strong Cockney
accent and addressed him familiarly as "guv'nor."  They were evidently
policemen's noses, or, in criminal parlance, "narks."

"Good evening, Mr. Urwin," the inspector exclaimed, putting forth his
big hand.  He was a tall, fair-moustached, easy-going fellow, an
excellent officer, tender-hearted where the deserving poor was
concerned, but harsh and unbending towards the habitual offender.  From
constable, as I had first known him in the T or Hammersmith Division, he
had been moved to St. Luke's, to Paddington, to Leman Street and to Bow
Street, until, owing to the marks which various magistrates had made
upon his charge sheets, he had now at last risen to the rank of
first-class inspector.

He was discreet in his every action, therefore he did not refer to the
telegram he had sent me lest any of the men should overhear, but when we
had chatted for a few moments he whispered--

"Go over to the bar at High Street Railway Station and wait there for
me.  I want to see you very particularly."

I nodded.  Then, after some further conversation, I left him and
wandered across to the refreshment room he had indicated.

CHAPTER TWO.

THE PENNY IN PAPER.

About twenty minutes elapsed before Patterson rejoined me, but
expressing a fear that we might be overheard there, we went forth
together and strolled along High Street, until, coming to a quiet
turning which, I think, led past the workhouse, we strolled along it,
and there he commenced his explanation.

"The fact is," he said in a nervous, hushed voice, "there's been a most
extraordinary occurrence here to-night.  The mystery is the strangest in
all my experience, and I've made inquiries into one or two in my time,
as you know."

"Tell me all about it," I said, my curiosity whetted.

"I wish I could, my dear fellow," he answered.

"I mean, tell me all the known facts."

"Nothing is known--save the discovery," he replied.  "As soon as it
became known I wired to you.  When the papers get hold of it, it will
make the greatest sensation ever known in London."

"Well, that's saying a good deal," I remarked.  "Who made the
discovery?"

"I did," he answered, adding quickly, "but don't mention me, or the
superintendent may suspect me of giving you information.  He already has
a suspicion that I'm a bit too friendly with you gentlemen of the press.
A contravention of the Commissioner's orders against giving information
to the papers might get me carpeted up at the Yard, you know."

"And the discovery?"  I asked impatiently.  "What's its nature?"

"Most astounding," he replied, with a bewildered look.  "I'm a police
officer, Urwin," he added hoarsely, "and I'm not often unnerved.  But
to-night, by Jove!  I'm upset--altogether upset.  The whole affair is so
devilish uncanny and unnatural."

"Tell me the story," I urged.  "If it is so strange the evening papers
will have a good time to-morrow."

"No, no," he cried in quick alarm.  "You must publish nothing yet--
nothing.  You understand that I give you these facts only on condition
that you promise not to publish any thing until I give you permission.
You alone will know of it.  We must preserve the utmost secrecy.  Not a
word must leak out yet.  You understand in what an awkward position you
would place me were you to publish anything of this affair."

"Of course.  I promise you to keep the matter a strict secret," I
answered.  "There are many cases in which the publication of the details
of a crime might defeat the efforts of the police, and this I supposed
to be one of them."

"Well," he said, "I made the discovery in a most curious manner.  Just
before seven o'clock this evening, just as it was growing dark, I was
returning to the station after visiting the `fixed-point' at the corner
of Earl's Court Road.  You know the spot--just opposite Holland Park."

I nodded.  I knew that particular street-corner where Earl's Court Road
joined Kensington Road quite well.

"I had previously been my usual round through Campden Hill Road and
Holland Walk, and was strolling back along the main Kensington Road,
past that terrace of houses Upper Phillimore Place, when my attention
was suddenly arrested by seeing on the steps leading from the pavement
up to the front garden of one of the houses a small object moving.  It
was inside the gate, and in the dim half-light I bent to examine it.
What do you think it was?"

"Don't know," I replied.  "Don't ask riddles--describe facts."

"Well, it was the very last thing one would dream of finding on a London
doorstep--a small, strangely-marked snake."

"A snake!"  I echoed.  "You didn't arrest it for being found without
visible means of subsistence, I suppose?"

"No," he answered, controlling the smile which played about his lips.
"But the thing's too serious for joking, as you'll recognise when I've
told you all.  Well, the squirming reptile, as soon as it saw me, coiled
itself round, and with head erect and swelled, commenced hissing
viciously.  I saw that there was considerable danger in a thing like
that being at large, and surmising that it had escaped from the house,
having been kept in captivity by somebody fond of such pets, I opened
the gate, passed it, not, however, without it making a dart at me, and
walking up to the door, rang the bell.  The house was in total darkness,
but daylight had only just faded, and in many of the houses in the same
terrace the gas in the hall had not yet been lit.  I rang and rang, but
there was no response.  In a large house of that character it seemed
strange that no servant was about.  Indeed, most of the houses there,
large, roomy and old-fashioned, let furnished apartments, but this one
seemed to be superior to its neighbours, inasmuch as it has a balcony on
the first floor, and the small front garden is well-kept in comparison
to the patches of bald, weedy grass with which the others are content.
As I stood on the doorstep, trying to arouse the inmates, I watched the
reptile squirming about the paved path, apparently enjoying its liberty
immensely.  I placed my ear attentively at the door, trying to detect
some sound of movement, but failed, until suddenly I heard within the
ringing of an electric bell, subdued by reason of the closed door.  It
was certain that, after all, some one was within."

"Was your summons answered?"  I asked eagerly.

"No.  I rang fully a dozen times, but nobody came.  It occurred to me
that within might be an invalid, and that, hearing my ring, he or she
had rung the bell to the kitchen, but the servants were absent.  There
was an area door, so I descended, and tried that.  The handle yielded.
It was unlocked.  Therefore I pushed it open and went in, though I was
certainly not prepared for the discovery I afterwards made.  As I
entered, the electric bell commenced ringing again, but it was
apparently above me, on the ground floor, and not in the kitchen where I
stood.  In the cooking-stove the fire was dying out, and there were
other signs that servants had been about recently.  Finding no one in
the basement I ascended to the first floor, when there greeted my
nostrils a most delicious fragrance, very similar to the incense which
the Roman Catholics burn.  The place smelt like the Brompton Oratory."

"Well, what did you do next?"  I asked, excited at his extraordinary
narrative.

"I searched the two big rooms--a dining-room and a back sitting-room--on
the ground floor, but finding no one, I stood at the bottom of the
stairs and shouted, thinking to discover the whereabouts of the invalid
who had rung the bell.  There was no answer.  The place was dark, so I
struck a match, ascended to the first floor and entered the front room,
which proved to be a good-sized, well-furnished drawing-room, dimly lit
by the street-lamp opposite shining through the windows.  At the further
end, suspended from the ceiling, a curious lamp was burning in red
glass, just like those one sees in Roman Catholic churches, and on
examining it I found it to be a little float in oil, so arranged that it
would burn continuously for many days and nights without attention.  It
looked strange and weird, a red spot in the darkness at the end of the
room; but what was stranger and more amazing was a discovery I made a
moment later when, my eyes having grown used to the semi-obscurity of
the room, I discerned two human forms, one that of a woman lying back in
an armchair as if asleep, and the other a man, who had fallen close by
and was lying outstretched upon the carpet.  Even the faint light of the
match I struck told me that both were dead, and so startled was I by
this unexpected revelation that with scarcely a second glance round the
weird place I hastened downstairs and left by the front door."

"You went on to the station at once, I suppose?"

"Yes," he answered; then after a pause he looked straight into my face,
adding, "but to tell the truth, Urwin, you and I are the only persons
who know of this affair.  I haven't reported it."

"Haven't reported it?"  I echoed.  "Why not?  Delay may prevent the
mystery being unravelled."

"I know it's absurd and foolish," he faltered in an unsteady voice, "but
the fact is, I entertain a deep-rooted superstition about snakes.  My
poor wife was always dreaming of snakes before she died, and strangely
enough, whenever I have seen those reptiles in my dreams some bad luck,
catastrophe or bereavement has always fallen upon me immediately
afterwards."

"It isn't like you to speak thus, Patterson," I said, knowing him to be
a fearless man who more than once had boldly faced a burglar's revolver.

"I really don't know what to do," he said.  "It's nearly two hours ago
since I entered the place.  I was so upset when I came out that I went
to the telegraph office and wired to you, in the hope that you might be
able to suggest some plan of action."

"Report at once and let's thoroughly investigate it," I said promptly.

"No.  I can't report it on account of that snake.  If I did, I feel
assured that some fatality would fall upon me."

"You're unnerved by what you've seen," I said.  "It certainly was not a
nice position to unexpectedly find oneself alone with the dead in a dark
deserted house like that.  In any case, however, the matter is a queer
one and must be sifted."

"Yes," he said, "it appears to be a most remarkable affair."

"Well," I exclaimed, "if you are determined not to report it just at
present I'm ready to go with you and search the place.  The area door is
still unlocked, you say?"

He hesitated, pale and agitated.  The effect of this discovery upon him
had been really remarkable.

"Yes, the door is still unlocked, of course," he said reflectively, "but
personally I don't care about returning."

"Rubbish, my dear chap," I exclaimed.  "I don't believe in
superstitions.  The finding of the snake was curious, no doubt, but this
isn't the first time snakes have been found in the streets of London.
Lots have been discovered about Covent Garden Market, having come over
in baskets of fruit."

He was silent.  Evidently his discovery had been a very unusual one.  I
know well the row of houses he had indicated, the most old-fashioned,
perhaps, in the district, for they had formed a part of old Kensington
over a century ago, and even now the great iron extinguishers ornamented
some of the doorways, mute remembrancers of the days of sedan chairs and
linkmen.

"Let's go and explore the place, and report afterwards," I urged, my
appetite for adventure whetted by his strong disinclination to return.
"I'll report it as a discovery of my own if you are disinclined to do
so."

"Very well," he answered at last, "let's go.  But before we enter I tell
you that it is a very mysterious house.  Recollect that strange ringing
I heard."

"We'll look into all that later on," I said, surprised at his unusual
agitation.  There, facing one of the busiest thoroughfares of the West
End, little harm surely could come to us.  "Come along," I said, and
thus persuaded, he quickened his footsteps.  We passed along Abingdon
Villas into Earl's Court Road, where, meeting a constable on duty, he
borrowed his lamp; then turning into the Kensington Road we at length
reached the house of mystery, which, as he had said, was a
gloomy-looking place in total darkness.

We peered eagerly inside the gate, but could distinguish no sign of the
reptile which had so strangely attracted my friend's attention in the
first instance.  It had no doubt withdrawn among the plants and shrubs
in the little smoke-dried garden, and was watching us unseen.  Without
hesitation, in order not to attract the curiosity of any passer-by whose
attention might be arrested by Patterson's uniform, we walked straight
to the area door, and gaining the kitchen, at once lit the gas.  As he
had said, there was every sign that the place had been recently
occupied, but with only a cursory examination of the basement we passed
upstairs to the dining-room.  Here we also lit the gas and saw that the
table had been laid for three persons in a manner quite luxurious, with
real silver, cut glass and tiny vases of fresh flowers arranged
artistically.  Beside each plate were blue glass finger-bowls filled
with water which gave out a strong perfume of roses.  The chairs had
been placed, and the _hors d'oeuvres_, olives, anchovies and caviare
were already on the table, showing that all preparations for dinner had
been made.  Yet strangely enough, in the kitchen the greater part of the
meat and vegetables remained uncooked.

From this room we passed into the smaller one adjoining, lighting the
gas as we went, but this seemed to have been used as a smoking-room, and
contained nothing of note.

It was, however, in the drawing-room above where we made the most
astounding discoveries.  The apartment was spacious for the size of the
house, upholstered in pale-blue with furniture of expensive character,
and large growing palms placed on stands.  In the centre was a great
circular settee, and in the corners wide soft divans of pale-blue velvet
with golden fringe.  Comfort and luxury had been studied by whoever had
furnished the place, for as we lit one of the side gas-brackets we saw
that it was really a very artistic room, the floor covered with a real
Turkey carpet of softest hues, while the few paintings on the walls were
choice examples of well-known artists.  At the end opposite the grate
was suspended from the ceiling by three gilt chains the mysterious
little red lamp, burning steadily without a flicker, and beneath it,
fallen back in a large armchair, was a woman, whose face, although waxen
white, was eminently beautiful.  The paleness of death was upon her, yet
her handsome head with its wealth of gold brown hair was pillowed upon
the cushion of yellow silk, and upon the cold, slightly-parted lips
there played a strange, bitter smile.  She was young, twenty or so,
dressed in an artistically-made gown of pale mauve, trimmed with lace.
Her teeth were even and perfect; her cheeks round and well-moulded; her
chin slightly protruding, and a piquant little nose; but that smile in
death seemed revolting in its hideousness.  Her eyes large, of a deep
blue, once luminous as stars no doubt, but now dull and filmy, were wide
open, as though gazing out upon us in an endeavour to speak and tell us
the truth of the strange and tragic occurrence.  I looked upon her
bewildered, dumbfounded.

Not three yards away, stretched at her feet, was a man of about
thirty-five, well-dressed in frock coat and light-coloured trousers,
with collar and cravat of the latest mode, and wearing on his cold,
stiff hand a ring set with a single diamond of unusual lustre.  His face
was towards the carpet, and while I held the lamp, Patterson bent and
turned him over.  We then saw that he was dark and good-looking, a
gentleman evidently, although from the upward curl of his moustache and
his smartness of attire he appeared to be something of a fop.

"It looks a good deal like murder and suicide," Patterson exclaimed,
still bending over him.  "I wonder who he is?"

"There's initials on his sleeve-links," I said, for I had detected an
engraved cipher upon the plain gold buttons at his wrists.

"They're two `K's' intertwined, surmounted by a crest," my companion
said in a strange voice.  "I wonder what's on him?" and he proceeded to
search the breast-pocket of the dead man's coat.  The contents, which we
afterwards examined together, consisted only of two prospectuses of new
companies, an amber cigar-tube mounted in gold, and the envelope of a
letter addressed in a woman's hand to "George Grove, Poste Restante,
Charing Cross," and bearing the Manchester post-mark of three days
before.  The letter had unfortunately been destroyed; only the envelope
remained.  But we both recollected that persons who have letters
addressed to the Poste Restante do not usually give their correct names.

In one of the vest pockets were three ten-pound notes folded carelessly
together, while in the trousers pockets was a quantity of loose silver.
Beyond that there was nothing else upon him.  Contrary to the effect of
death upon his unfortunate companion, his face was slightly distorted,
the tip of the tongue protruding, and both hands clenched, showing that
he had endured a momentary spasm of agony as the last spark of life died
out, while from the fact that a small tripod table with painted
plate-glass top had been overturned and broken it seemed apparent that
he had staggered and clutched wildly at the first object within his
reach.

But on neither could we detect any wound, nor was there anything to show
the cause of death.  I examined the hand of the woman, a tiny, slim,
cold hand, the contact of which thrilled me by its chilliness, and saw
that her rings, set with emeralds, rubies and diamonds, were of the
finest quality.

"She's beautiful," Patterson observed, gazing down upon her.  "Perhaps
she was his wife."

"Perhaps," I said.  "Curious that they should have both died together in
this manner."

"They were evidently sitting here chatting before dinner, when both were
either murdered, or died suddenly before assistance could reach them.
She died before he did."

"What makes you think that?"  I asked quickly, my eyes wandering around
the large, comfortable room, the atmosphere of which was heavy with
fragrant odours.

"Because he placed that cushion beneath her head," answered the shrewd,
observant police-officer.  "He had kissed her, and she was in the act of
smiling at his last act of love when her heart suddenly failed, and soul
and body parted."

"And he died immediately afterwards, you think?"

"Yes, that's what I surmise.  What's your opinion?"

"I can form no theory at present," I answered, bewildered.  In the
course of years spent in the investigation of crime for journalistic
purposes I had had my wits sharpened, and rather prided myself upon the
soundness of the theories I propounded in the articles I wrote.
Patterson knew this, and probably for that reason had invoked my
companionship in this curious affair.

Together we made a searching examination of the whole room, but there
was absolutely nothing to show the motive, or even the mode, of the
tragedy.  The absence of servants was of course extremely suspicious,
but neither of us attached much importance to that.  A close examination
of the scene was our present object, experience having taught that upon
the scene of most crimes there remains some trace of the assassin.  The
old saying that "Murder will out" is truer than the majority of people
believe, for even that night we had had a striking illustration in
Patterson's attention being attracted by the snake in the gateway.

Beside the dead woman's chair was lying a handkerchief, a tiny square of
lawn and lace, which I picked up.  It emitted an odour very sweet and
subtle, such as I had never before smelt.

Patterson sniffed it, but placed it down.

"Some new scent," he said.  "Women are always going in for the latest
inventions in perfumes."

"But this is an extraordinary one," I said, again smelling it.
"Terribly strong, too," I added, for the odour had a strange,
half-intoxicating effect upon me.  The small red light steadily burning,
the fragrance of the incense, the two dead forms lying there, still and
cold, and the single gas-burner, hissing as it flared, combined to
present a weird, lurid picture, each detail of which has ever since been
indelibly photographed upon my memory.

The smile of death upon that woman's lips was horrible.  That look of
hers has ever since haunted me, for now that I know the truth and have
realised all that had taken place in that room prior to the tragedy,
that laugh of derision has a significance which renders its recollection
bitter, gruesome, hideous.

I know not what prompted me at that moment, but bending again beside the
prostrate man I placed my hand inside his vest, recollecting that
sometimes tailors, adopting the French mode, made pockets there, and
that therein many men carried articles of value in secrecy and safety.

As I did so, I felt that there was a pocket in the lining, that it was
buttoned, and that there was something within.  Quickly I unbuttoned it
and drew forth a small packet wrapped in glazed writing-paper, dirty and
worn through being carried for a long time.  With care I opened it, and
inside found an object which caused us both to give vent to an
ejaculation of wonder.

It was simply a penny.

"His mascot, I suppose," remarked the inspector.  "A lucky coin."

"But it has no hole through it," I observed.

"The hole is of no importance.  The coin may have been given him for
luck," replied my companion.  "Lots of people believe in such things,
especially betting men."

"He was evidently very careful of it," I said, at the same time
searching and finding another pocket on the other side of the vest, and
from this I took a neat little cloth-covered case, not much larger than
those containing cigarette tubes, and found on opening it that it
contained a small hypodermic syringe, complete with its needles and
accessories.

"This shows that he was addicted to the morphia habit," I remarked.  "An
overdose, perhaps."

My friend, who had now recovered something of his coolness and
self-possession, took the tiny instrument and examined it carefully
beneath the gas-light.

"There's been no morphia in this lately," he said.  "It's quite dry, and
certainly hasn't been used to-day."

"Let's search the whole house," I suggested.  "We may find something
which will give us a clue as to who and what these people were.  Funny
that the servants don't come back, isn't it?"

"I don't expect they will," answered Patterson.

"Depend upon it that there's more mystery in this affair than we at
present suspect."

"Why?"

"Look at these," he said, passing over to me the three banknotes found
upon the dead man.  "They are spurious!"

No second glance was needed to convince me that he spoke the truth.
They were clever imitations of ten-pound notes, but the paper, the
despair of the forger, was thick and entirely different to that of the
genuine bank-note.

Again I glanced at that beautiful woman's face with its smile of mingled
ecstatic pleasure and bitterness.  Her sightless eyes seemed fixed upon
me, following me as I moved.

I drew back horrified, shuddering.  Her gaze was ghastly.

"It certainly is a most mysterious affair," I ejaculated again, glancing
around the place.  "You ought at once to report it."

"No," cried my companion quickly.  "The discovery must be yours.  You
must report it, Mr. Urwin."

"Why?"

"Because, as I've already told you, I fear to do so on account of the
snake."

I smiled at his curious objection, but an instant later grew serious
because of the sharp and sudden ringing of an electric bell somewhere on
the ground floor.  It was the bell my companion had heard when first
knocking at the door.

We both listened for a few moments while the ringing continued, until
with sudden resolve I dashed downstairs to ascertain where the bell was.
Without difficulty I found it, for there in the hall, revealed by the
gas-lamp we had lit, was a telephone instrument with its bell agitated
violently.

Without a second's delay I placed the receiver to my ear and gave the
usual signal--

"Hulloa!  Hulloa?"

The whirr and clicking stopped, and a voice, squeaky as that of an
elderly person, said petulantly--

"I've been ringing up for an hour or more.  What's wrong that you
haven't replied?  You're at fifty-eight, aren't you?"

"Yes," I answered, recollecting that fifty-eight was the number of that
house.  "Nothing is wrong.  Why?  Can't you be patient?"

"I felt uneasy," answered the mysterious voice apologetically.  "I
thought there might possibly have been some hitch as you haven't rung
up."

"No," I responded.  "None."

"Then of course it's all over?" inquired the voice.  I started at this
strange query.  This unknown inquirer was evidently in possession of the
truth, and believed himself to be talking to an accomplice.  He knew of
the commission of the crime, therefore it occurred to me that by the
exercise of due caution I might be able to discover his identity.

"Yes," I answered, breathless in excitement.

"Both?" asked the voice.

"Both," I responded.

"Good.  Then I shall see you at the place we arranged--eh?"

"Of course," I answered.  "But when?  I've forgotten."

"Forgotten!" echoed the squeaky voice in a tone of undisguised disgust.
"Take care, or you'll blunder yet.  You're a confounded idiot.  Why,
to-morrow at midday."

"I know I'm a fool," I replied.  "But in the excitement it's quite
slipped my memory where you said I was to meet you."

Then, holding the receiver tremblingly to my ear, I listened with quick
heart-beating for the response of that mysterious, far distant voice
which squeaked so strangely, sounding thin and high-pitched, more like
that of a woman than of a man.

"You're a confounded fool to waste time like this if you're still at
fifty-eight," said the voice.

"You've said so before," I responded.  "But where shall I meet you?"

CHAPTER THREE.

AN APPOINTMENT.

The voice answered at last--

"I'll meet you beside the lake in St. James's Park, Buckingham Palace
end, at twelve to-morrow.  Remember that."

"Very well," I responded eagerly.  "Anything more?"

"No," was the reply.  "Be careful how you get out, and where you go.  So
long!"

Then, next instant, I knew by the sound that the connexion had been
switched off.

"What's the matter?" asked Patterson, now beside me.

"Wait, and I'll tell you afterwards," I said, at the same time ringing
up again.

In response I was answered by a feminine voice at the Exchange, who
inquired what number I desired.

"Tell me, miss, who has just been speaking to me.  Kindly oblige me, as
it's most important."

There was silence for a few moments, then the female voice
inquired--"Are you there?" to which I responded.

"You were on a moment ago with 14,982, the public call-office at
Putney."

"How long was I on?"

"About ten minutes."

"Have I been on to the same place before this evening?"  I asked.

"No.  Several numbers have been ringing you up, but you haven't
replied."

"Who were they?"

"Oh, I really can't tell you now.  It's quite impossible.  I remember
that the call-office at Piccadilly Circus was one, and I think the one
in the Minories."

"They were all call-offices--no private persons?"

"I'm unable to say.  I've been on duty for the past four hours, and have
connected up thousands of numbers."

"Then you can't tell me anything else?"  I asked disappointedly.

"No.  I'm sorry I can't," replied the girl.

I was about to place the receiver on its hook when a sudden thought
occurred to me, and again I addressed her.

"This matter is a most urgent one," I said.  "Can't you ask at the
call-office for a description of the man who has just been speaking?"

"There's no one there.  It is merely an instrument placed in a passage
leading to some offices," was the reply.

I hung up the receiver, and turning to Patterson repeated the
conversation.

"Extraordinary," he ejaculated, when I had concluded.  "We must keep
that appointment.  The inquiry is plain proof that murder has been
committed, and further, that more than one person is in the secret."

"But is it not strange that this person, whoever he is, should dare to
telephone in that manner?"

"It certainly is a bold move," my companion answered, "but from his
conversation it is evident that the assassin promised to telephone to
him, and was either disturbed in his work and compelled to escape
hurriedly, or else forgot it altogether.  Again, it's plain that to
avoid detection the unknown man went from one call-office to another,
always ringing up to this house, and never obtaining a response until
you answered."

"His inquiry was certainly a guarded one."

"And your answers were smart, too," he laughed.  "You were careful not
to commit yourself."

"Do you think he'll keep the appointment?"  I asked eagerly.

"That remains to be seen," answered my friend, glancing at the
bull's-eye to see if it were burning well.  "If he's not a blunderer he
won't."

"Well, let's hope he does," I said.  "You would arrest him, of course?"

"I don't know," he answered doubtfully.  "We might learn more by keeping
observation upon him for a day or two."

"Well," I said, "we haven't yet searched the place thoroughly.  Let's
see what is above."

My companion followed me upstairs rather reluctantly, I thought, passing
the room where the mysterious tragedy had occurred and ascending to the
floor above.  There were four bedrooms, each well-furnished, but finding
that they contained nothing of a suspicious character we continued to
the top floor, where there were several smaller low-ceilinged rooms
opening from a narrow passage.  Two of them were evidently the sleeping
apartments of the servants, the third was filled with lumber, but the
fourth, which overlooked the back premises, long and narrow, was fitted
as a kind of workshop or laboratory.  A curious smell greeted our
nostrils as we opened the door--a smell very much like the perfume on
the dead woman's handkerchief.

We found a gas-jet and lit it, afterwards gazing round the place with
some surprise.  Upon shelves around the walls were various bottles
containing liquids; on the table stood two curious-looking globes of
bright steel, riveted like those of a steam-boiler, and connected by a
long tubular coil rolled into three consecutive spirals which ended with
a kind of nozzle.  From the fact that an electric battery and a lathe
also stood in the room we at once came to the conclusion that the master
of that house had been engaged in some scientific investigations.

From place to place we went, searching every corner for any written
document or letter, until at last I found, crumpled and cast into the
empty grate, an old envelope on which I read the address: "Professor
Douglas Dawson."

"At any rate we've got the name of the occupant of this place," I said,
handing my find to the police-officer.

"Dawson?" he repeated, "Dawson?  I fancy I've heard that name in
connexion with scientific discovery."

"I don't know," I said.  "If he's a well-known man we shall soon find
out all about him at the Royal Institution."

I was standing near the fireplace with the envelope still in my hand
when, of a sudden, I was startled by a strange scuttling noise near my
feet.

"Good heavens!" gasped Patterson, his eyes riveted on the spot.  "Look
there!  Look at that glass case!  There are snakes in it!"

I sprang away, and looking in the direction he indicated saw that a
glass case, standing on the ground, contained two great snakes with
beautiful markings of yellow and black.  Even as I looked they were
coiled, with their flat heads erect and their bead-like eyes shining
like tiny stars in the shadow, their bodies half-hidden in a blanket.

"Nice kind of pets, to keep in a house," observed Patterson.  "That's
one of them that's escaped into the garden, I expect."

"I quite agree," I said, "this place is decidedly the reverse of
cheerful.  Hadn't we better report at once?  There's been a mysterious
tragedy here, and immediate efforts should be made to trace the
assassin."

"But, my dear fellow, how do you know they've been murdered?" he argued.
"There's no marks of violence whatever."

"Not as far as we've been able to discover.  A doctor can tell us more
after the post-mortem," I responded.

There were many very strange features connected with this remarkable
discovery.  My friend's reluctance to commence an investigation, his
firm resolve not to report the discovery, the mysterious voice at the
telephone, the fact that some experimental scientist had his laboratory
in that house, and the revelation of the unaccountable tragedy itself,
were all so extraordinary that I stood utterly bewildered.

Absolutely nothing remained to show who were the pair lying dead, and no
explanation seemed possible of that strange red light burning there so
steadily, and unflickering.  By the appearance of the glass, and the
dust in the oil, the tiny lamp must have burned on incessantly for a
very long time.

Strange it was that there, within a few yards of one of London's great
arteries of traffic, that charming woman and her companion should have
been cut off swiftly and suddenly, without a hand being stretched forth
to save them.

In company we went downstairs, leaving the light in the laboratory still
burning, and re-entered the drawing-room to take a final glance around.
As I approached the prostrate body of the man I felt something beneath
my foot, and glancing down saw that some coppers had evidently fallen
from his pocket and were lying strewn about the carpet.  Then, having
remained a few minutes longer, we both went out by the door we had
entered, locking it and taking the key.

"We must report it, Patterson," I said.  "It certainly has some queer
and very extraordinary features."

"Yes," he responded; adding slowly, "did you notice anything strange up
in that top room where the chemicals and things were?"

"Yes, a good deal," I answered.  "It isn't every one who keeps snakes as
pets."

"I don't mean that," he answered.  "But did you notice on the table a
glassful of liquid, like water?"

"Yes."

"Well, that stuff was bubbling and boiling without any heat beneath."

"Perhaps the man who experiments there is a conjurer," I suggested,
smiling at his surprise at seeing liquid boil when exposed to air.
Police-officers know little of any other science save that of
self-defence.

"Now," he said seriously, as we strode forward together in the direction
of Kensington Church, "you must go to the station and report the
discovery as if made by you--you understand.  Remember, the snake
attracted your attention, you entered, found the man and woman lying
dead, lit the gas, searched the house, then left to get assistance, and
met me."

"That's all very well," I answered.  "But you forget that you borrowed
that lamp from one of your own men, and that I called on you first."

"Ah!" he gasped; turning slightly pale.  "I never thought of that!"

"Why don't you report it yourself?"  I urged.

"For superstitious reasons," he laughed nervously.

"Hang superstition!"  I cried.  Adding: "Of course, I'll report it if
you like, but it would be far better for you to do so and risk this
mysterious bad luck that you fear."

He was silent for a moment, thinking deeply, then answered in a strange,
hard voice,--

"Perhaps you're right, Urwin.  I--I'm a confounded fool to be afraid,"
and with an effort quite apparent he braced himself up and we entered
the police-station.  Ascending the stairs we were soon closeted with
Octavius Boyd, inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department
attached to that Division, a middle-aged, dark-bearded, pleasant-faced
man in plain-clothes, who, as soon as he heard our story, was
immediately ready to accompany us, while five minutes later the clicking
of the telegraph told that news of our discovery was being transmitted
to headquarters at New Scotland Yard.

Patterson took down the _London Directory_, and turning it up at Upper
Phillimore Place, found that the occupier of the house in question was
Andrew Callender.  He made inquiries in the section-house of the men off
duty as to what was known of that house, but only one constable made a
statement, and it was to the effect that he had, when on duty in
Kensington Road, seen a youngish lady with fair hair, whose description
tallied with that of the dead woman, come out and go across to the shops
on the opposite side of the road.

"Do you know anything of the servants?" inquired Patterson.

"Well, sir," the man answered, "one was a man, and the other a woman."

"How do you know?"

"Because the servant of the house next door told me so.  The woman was
the cook, and the man did the housework.  She said that the house was a
most mysterious one."

"Is she there now?" my friend asked.

"No, sir.  She was discharged a fortnight ago.  Dishonest, I think."

"And you don't know where she is?"

Boyd had by this time called one of his plain-clothes men, who had
obtained lamps, turning the dark slides over the flame, the
station-sergeant had carefully ruled a line and written something in
that remarkable register kept in every London police-station, wherein is
recorded every event which transpires in the district, from a tragedy to
the return of the sub-divisional inspector from his rounds, or the
grooming of the horses.  Then, after a short conversation with one of
the second-class inspectors, we all four, accompanied by a sergeant,
started for Upper Phillimore Place.

In order not to attract attention we separated.  Patterson walking with
me to the opposite side of the road, while the detectives walked
together, and the sergeant alone.  Little did the passers-by suspect
when they saw Patterson and me strolling leisurely along that we were on
our way to investigate what afterwards proved to be one of the strangest
and most remarkable mysteries that had ever puzzled the Metropolitan
Police.

CHAPTER FOUR.

THE THREE CARDS.

On reaching the house, Boyd, an expert officer who had spent years in
the investigation of crime, ascended with his subordinate to the
drawing-room, while we remained on the ground floor to complete our
search, the sergeant being stationed inside the hall.

Our further investigations were not very fruitful.  The fact that dinner
was laid for three indicated that a third person had been present, or
was expected.  The room did not differ from any other, except that it
was perhaps better furnished than one would have expected in such a
house, for although in a first-class and rather expensive neighbourhood
the row of houses had declined in popularity of late years, and was now
inhabited mostly by the lodging-house fraternity.

In moving about the room, however, my coat caught the plate laid for the
person who was to occupy the head of the table, and it was nearly swept
off.  I saved it, however, but beneath was revealed a plain white card
which, until that moment, had been concealed.  Patterson caught sight of
it at the same moment, and taking it in my hand I examined it, finding
that it was a plain visiting card of lady's size, one side being blank,
and other bearing a roughly-drawn circle in ink.

There was nothing else.

"That's certainly curious," my companion remarked, looking over my
shoulder.

"Yes," I said, lifting a second plate to see what was there concealed,
and finding another card, in all appearances similar, plain, but bearing
across its reverse a single straight line drawn with a pen.

"By Jove!" observed Patterson, lifting the other plate, and finding a
third card, "this is certainly very strange."

He turned the card over, but it was blank on both sides.

"I wonder what game is this, or whether these have any connexion with
the crime?"  I exclaimed, holding all three of the cards in my hand,
turning them over and examining them carefully beneath the light.  "By
the ink they have the appearance of having been prepared long ago.
See!"  I added, holding one of them towards him, "the corners of this
one are slightly turned up and soiled.  It has been carried in some
one's pocket, and is not a fresh card."

Again Patterson took it and examined it.  It was the one with the line
drawn across it.  The others were quite clean, as if just taken fresh
from a packet.

"There's some mystery about these," he said reflectively, as though
speaking to himself.  "If we could but solve it we should likewise solve
the problem of the crime, depend upon it."

"No doubt," I assented.  "Each of them have some meaning, occult but
extraordinary.  They were turned face downwards so that the accidental
removal of the plate would not reveal the device upon them."

"The devices are simple enough, but undoubtedly they have some hidden
meaning," my friend said.

"They were evidently concealed there, and the three persons,
unsuspecting, were to discover them when the first plates were removed,"
I suggested.

He placed them together on the table, saying--

"Better let Boyd see them when he comes down.  The affair grows more
queer and complicated as we proceed."

"Don't you recollect," I said suddenly, "in the dead man's pocket was a
card exactly similar, but quite blank.  You threw it into the
fireplace."

"Ah! of course," he answered quickly.  "That fact shows that he had
something to do with these mysterious symbols.  I wonder what is their
real meaning."

"I wonder," I said.  "As you say, the mystery grows each moment more and
more inexplicable.  Curious, too, that the snake in the garden path
should have directed your attention to it."

"No," he said quickly, his face in an instant pale and serious, "don't
mention that, there's a good fellow.  I'm trying not to think of it; for
when I recollect all that it means to me I'm unnerved."

"Bah!"  I laughed.  "Surely there's nothing to fear.  It only shows that
however careful the assassin is to cover his crime it must be unearthed
sooner or later.  The finger of Fate always points to the crime of
murder, however well it may be concealed."

"True," he sighed, his brows knit in serious thought.  "But the finger
of Fate has in this case shown me an omen of evil."

"You're a fool, Patterson," I said bluntly.  "You have here every chance
to distinguish yourself as a shrewd officer, yet you calmly stand by
talking of omens and all that rot."

"Yes," he answered.  "I know I'm an idiot, Mr. Urwin, but I can't help
it.  That's the worst of it."

"Well," I suggested, "while Boyd is upstairs, why not make inquiries of
the next-door neighbours regarding those who occupied this place?"

He at once acted on my suggestion, and together we went out and rang the
bell of the house adjoining on the right.  My friend's curious apathy in
this matter surprised me, for usually he was a quick, active fellow, who
prosecuted his inquiries methodically, and worked up evidence in a
manner that had more than once called forth the commendation of the
judge at the Old Bailey.  That night, however, he was plainly upset--
nervous, trembling and agitated, in a manner quite unusual to him.

Boyd, the keen-eyed, quick-witted detective inspector, had noticed this
when at the police-station, but Patterson had only replied--

"I'm a bit unwell, that's all."

Our summons at the house next door was answered by the occupier's wife,
a rather stout, white-haired, gaily-capped old lady named Luff.

The appearance of Patterson in uniform surprised her, but when she had
asked us in, and we were seated, he said--

"There is no occasion to be alarmed, madam.  I have merely called to
make an inquiry of you.  It is in your power to render us assistance in
a rather confidential matter regarding the occupiers of the house next
door--your neighbours on the left.  What do you know of them?"

"Nothing," she answered.  "They came about six months ago, a young lady
and a very old gentleman, with a single maid-servant.  They speak to no
one, and, as far as I have observed, have very few friends.  I have
often remarked to my son, who is a civil engineer, and now away making
the railway in China, that they are a mysterious couple.  What is wrong
with them?"

"Oh, it's simply a private matter," my companion answered carelessly,
not wishing to alarm the neighbourhood by news of our discovery.

"What is the old gentleman like?  Can you describe him?"  I inquired.
No doubt she took me for a detective, but at that moment this thought
did not occur to me.

"He is sixty, I should think, old and decrepit, with white hair, and
always walks with a stick."

"And the lady was his daughter?" suggested the inspector.

"I suppose her to be his daughter," she answered.  "The old man's name
is Dawson, I believe--at least one day a messenger-boy brought a note
here by mistake, addressed to Professor Dawson.  The daughter is a very
good pianist, and plays every morning regularly."

"They are well off, as far as you can judge?"  Patterson inquired with
his assumed careless air.

"No, I don't think they are, because my maid heard at Boucher's--the
grocer's across the way--that they owed a large bill which they couldn't
settle.  Again, people who have a house of that sort do not have coal by
the hundredweight taken down into the kitchen as they do."

Patterson nodded.  No more sure sign of a light purse is there than the
purchase of coal by the half-sack.  Yet the interior of that house, with
its well-laid dinner-table, certainly did not betray any sign of
poverty.  Indeed, I had noticed in the cellar a dusty stock of choice
wines, hocks, ports, and champagnes of expensive brands.

"You don't know the young lady's name, then?" asked my friend, after a
slight pause.

"If she's really his daughter it would, I suppose, be Dawson," she
replied with a smile.  "But I'm not certain, remember, as to either of
their names."

"Perhaps your servants may know something about them.  Servants
generally gossip and pick up information about one's neighbours, you
know."

"You are right," answered the affable old lady, "they gossip far too
much.  Unfortunately, however, both my servants are out at this moment."

We chatted on, but it was evident from her conversation that her
servants knew little beyond what she did.  One statement she made was
somewhat curious.  She alleged that a few nights before she was awakened
about two o'clock in the morning by hearing the loud shrill screams of a
woman who seemed to be in the room next hers in the adjoining house.
She could hear a man's voice talking low and gruffly, and three or four
times were the screams repeated, as if the woman were in excruciating
pain.

"What visitors came to the house?"  Patterson asked at length.

"Very few.  A youngish gentleman came sometimes.  He called the other
morning just as I was going out."

"Who admitted him?"

"The young lady herself."

Many more questions Patterson put to the old lady, but elicited no
noteworthy fact, except that two large, heavy trunks had been sent away
by Parcels Delivery a couple of days before.  Therefore, thanking Mrs.
Luff, who, of course, was extremely curious to know why the police were
taking such an active interest in her neighbour, we left and made
inquiries of the people in the adjoining house on the opposite hand.

It was a lodging-house and the owner, a rather surly old widow, was not
at all communicative.  What she told us amounted practically to what we
had already learnt.  She, too, had long ago set the old man and his
daughter down as mysterious persons, and her two servants had never been
able to find out anything regarding them.

So after nearly half an hour's absence we returned to the house of
mystery, watched, of course, by the persons in the houses on either
side.  None suspected a tragedy, but all remained at their windows
expecting to see somebody arrested.

In the dining-room we found Doctor Knowles, the police divisional
surgeon, who had been sent for by the police.  He had already examined
the bodies and was on the point of returning home.

"Well, doctor, what's your opinion?" asked Patterson.

"I can form none until after the post-mortem," answered the prim,
youngish, dark-moustached man in silk hat and frock coat, a typical
Kensington practitioner, who was known to be a great favourite with his
lady patients.

"Are there no marks of violence?"

"None," he responded.  "Although there seems no doubt that there has
been foul play, yet the means used to encompass their death remains an
entire mystery.  That laboratory, too, is a very remarkable feature."

"Why?"  I asked.

"Because the occupant of that place has made a discovery for which
scientists have for years striven in vain," the doctor replied.

"What is it?"

"You noticed those strange globes with the coil of tubing," he said.
"Well, from what I've found, it seems that the experimenter has invented
a means for the liquefaction of hydrogen in large quantities."

"Is that anything very remarkable?"  I asked, in my ignorance of recent
science.

"Remarkable!" he echoed.  "I should rather say it was.  The discovery
will create the greatest interest in the scientific world.  Other gases
have all been handled as true liquids in measurable quantities, while
until now hydrogen has only been seen in clouds or droplets, and never
collected into a liquid mass.  Upstairs, however, there is actually a
glass bowl of liquid hydrogen.  The experimenter, whoever he is, has
determined at last the exact temperature at which it will liquefy, and
thus a field for quite new researches, as also for new generalisations,
has been thrown wide open."

"But why is the discovery so very important?"  I asked, still puzzled at
the doctor's unusual enthusiasm.

"Briefly, because by it physicists and chemists can henceforward obtain
temperatures lying within thirty-five degrees from the so-called
absolute zero of temperature--minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit.  A
possibility is thus given to study physical bodies in the vicinity of
that point, which represents, so to say, the death of matter--that is,
absence of the molecular vibrations which we describe as heat."

This explanation, technical though it was, interested me.  I knew Doctor
Lees Knowles to be a rising man, and when reporting lectures at the
Royal Institution had often noticed him among the audiences.  There was
no doubt that he was highly excited over the discovery, for, like
myself, he had seen the liquid hydrogen boiling without any visible
heat.  In the papers there had been lots about Professor Dewar's
experiments in the liquefaction of oxygen, fluorine and the
newly-discovered helium, and I remembered how all his efforts to bring
hydrogen to a liquid state had failed.  Now, however, the mysterious
occupier of that house had succeeded, and every known gas could now be
liquefied.

"But the murder," observed Patterson, his thoughts reverting to the
crime, for to him the most wonderful scientific discovery was as naught.
"Can you form absolutely no opinion as to how it was accomplished?"

The doctor shook his head.

"There is nothing whatever to account for their sudden death, as far as
I can observe," he answered.  "To the woman, however, death must have
come instantly, while the man must have fallen and expired a few seconds
later.  There seem many mysterious features in the affair."

"The discoverer of this latest scientific fact is undoubtedly the old
man who is absent, the father of the dead girl.  From him we may learn
something to lead us to form conclusions," I suggested.

"An old man!" echoed Dr. Knowles.  "Tell me about him."

Briefly Patterson related all that had been told us by the neighbours,
and when he had finished the doctor exclaimed--

"Then I can tell you one thing which is proved undoubtedly.  The old man
seen to go in and out was in reality a young one, for while looking over
the laboratory I came across a white wig and a make-up box, such as is
used by actors.  Go upstairs and you'll find a complete disguise there--
broadcloth coat, pepper-and-salt trousers baggy at the knees,
old-fashioned white vest, and collars of antique pattern."

"Surely that can't be true!"  Patterson exclaimed in amazement.

"It certainly is," the doctor asserted.  "Depend upon it that the man
lying upstairs dead was the man who has been making these successful
experiments, and who for some unknown reason desired to conceal his
identity.  Recollect that they had few friends, if any, and that their
man-servant was a most discreet foreigner, who never gossiped."

"Then you think that to the world they assumed the position of father
and daughter, while in reality they were husband and wife?"  I said.

"Most likely," responded the doctor.  "A man to make experiments on an
elaborate scale as he has must necessarily have been absorbed in them.
Indeed, that apparatus must have taken a year to prepare, and no doubt
he has been making constant trials for months.  He probably intended to
give forth his discovery to the world as a great surprise, but has been
prevented from doing so by some extraordinary combination of
circumstances which has resulted in his death."

At that instant we heard a voice in the hall--a quick, sharp voice
extremely familiar to me, but nevertheless it caused me to start.  Next
instant, however, there entered the room the well-known figure of Dick
Cleugh.

"Hulloa, old fellow!" he exclaimed, greeting me and taking me aside.  "I
thought I'd run down and see what's in this.  Funny affair it seems,
doesn't it?"

"Yes," I answered.  "A most remarkable mystery.  But why have you come
out here?"

"Soon after you left I went to find Lily, but she's gone into the
country.  So having nothing else to do I came down to see what had
occurred.  I knew, of course, from Patterson's telegram, that it was
something unusual."

"Have you been upstairs?"

"Yes, I've been worrying around this last half-hour, while you and
Patterson have been making inquiries next door.  I've been having a look
about with the Doctor.  It seems that there's some wonderful apparatus
in the laboratory--a discovery for liquefying hydrogen.  Has he told you
about it?"

"Yes," I responded.  "What's your theory?"

"By Jove! old fellow," he said smiling, "the whole affair is so devilish
uncanny, with those snakes upstairs, water boiling without any heat
beneath it, and one thing and another, that I'm utterly at a loss how to
account for it all."

"You think they've been murdered?"

"Of course," answered the astute Cleugh.  "But the doctor can't discover
how.  There is not a scratch upon them.  The discovery of those flash
notes on the man looks as though he were a bit of a swell swindler,
doesn't it?"

"Yes," I said.  Then taking him across to the dining-table I explained
how we had discovered the three cards concealed beneath the plates.

He took the cards in his hand, turning them over, and examining them
carefully.

"Strange," he ejaculated.  "This adds still another phase to the affair.
It is really a most sensational discovery, and will work up well for
to-morrow."

"No, Mr. Cleugh," put in Patterson quickly, overhearing his remark, "I
beg of you to publish nothing whatever about it until I give you
permission.  In this we are bound to preserve secrecy for the present in
order that our inquiries may not be thwarted.  Even the neighbours will
remain in ignorance of the real nature of things, so carefully do I
intend to guard against any public sensation.  Whatever information I
can give you I will do so willingly, in order that you can prepare your
account of it, but remember that not a word must be published until I
give you permission."

"Quite right," observed the doctor.  "In such a matter as this any
sensation in the Press might frustrate all your efforts to arrive at the
truth."

"Very well," answered Dick, a trifle disappointedly.  "Of course you'll
give nothing to anybody else.  I want to be first in the field with it."

"Of that I give you my word.  Not a soul will know of this discovery
outside the persons in this house at the present moment.  Come, let's go
upstairs and speak to Boyd," and while the doctor wished us good evening
and left, my two friends accompanied me upstairs, where in the
drawing-room the detectives were continuing their searching
investigation.

"The woman is decidedly good-looking, isn't she?" observed Cleugh as we
entered.

Instinctively I turned towards the chair in which the body was still
reclining, but next instant, with a loud cry of dismay, which at the
same moment was echoed by Patterson, I stood aghast, rigid, immovable.

The sight which met our eyes was utterly bewildering.

The woman we had discovered there, so lovely in form and feature, had a
wealth of auburn hair, and eyes of a deep intense blue, while, amazing
though it was, this woman before us was quite ten years older,
dark-complexioned, with hair which in that light seemed blue-black, and
half-closed eyes as dark as jet.

"Good Heavens!"  I gasped.  "Look!  Why, that is not the woman we found
when we first entered this place--but another.  Where is the fair girl?"

"There's no fair girl," answered the detective Boyd, as all started back
in surprise at my astounding assertion.  "This is the woman we found,
you must be mistaken."

"No," Patterson declared in the low, hoarse voice of one filled with
fear.  "There is no mistake.  When we first entered there was another
woman here, younger, prettier, with light hair and blue eyes.  This is
the most unaccountable, most amazing and most inexplicable of all our
discoveries."

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE SECOND WOMAN.

The statement that the woman found by Patterson on his first entry
there, and seen by me afterwards, had disappeared, was at first
discredited by our companions.  It seemed too astounding to be the
truth, nevertheless there was now reclining in the same armchair a woman
who certainly bore no resemblance whatever to the beautiful, fair-haired
girl with eyes of such deep, pure blue--those eyes that had stared at me
so horribly in the ghastly rigidity of death.  I recollected that smile
upon her lips, half of sarcasm, half of pleasure; that strange
expression which had held me entranced yet horrified.

She had disappeared, and here in her place was a dark-complexioned
woman, older, nevertheless handsome--a woman in whose refined face was
an air of romance and tragedy, and upon whose hand was the marriage
bond.  She, too, was dead.  The doctor had examined her and pronounced
life extinct.

"How could this have occurred?"  I exclaimed, turning to Patterson as
soon as I had recovered from the shock of the astounding discovery.

"It's simply amazing!" he declared.  "I'm utterly at a loss to account
for it.  The woman we found here was most distinctly another person."

"Then there has been a triple tragedy," observed Boyd.  "The body of the
first woman must have been conveyed away during the time you were absent
at the police-station."

"But why?"  I asked.  "What on earth could be the motive?"

"Impossible to tell," Patterson answered.  "Perhaps the body is hidden
somewhere in the house."

"No," Boyd replied.  "We've made a complete search everywhere.  It has
undoubtedly been taken away.  This fact, in itself, shows first, that
there is more than one person implicated in the crime, and secondly,
that they were absolutely fearless; while further, the incident of the
telephone is in itself sufficient proof that they had taken the utmost
precautions against detection."

"Are you quite certain that every cupboard and wardrobe has been looked
into?"  I asked doubtfully.

"Quite.  From garret to cellar we've thoroughly overhauled the place.
There are a couple of large trunks in one of the bedrooms, but we
examined the contents of both.  They contain books."

"But loose boards, or places of that sort?"  I suggested.

"When we search a place," responded the Scotland Yard inspector with a
smile, "we're always on the look-out for places of concealment.  I've
superintended the investigation myself, and I vouch that nothing is
concealed within this house."

"Do you think that the assassin was actually in the house when we first
entered?"

"That's more than likely," he answered with a pensive air.  "Evidently
the instant you'd gone the body of the fair-haired girl was somehow
spirited away."

"Where?"

"Ah, that's what we must find out.  Perhaps a taxi-driver will be able
to throw a light upon the matter."

"This is certainly a first-class mystery," observed Dick, with
journalistic instinct and a keen eye to those "special interviews" and
"latest revelations" in which readers of his journal always revelled.
"It will make no end of a stir.  What a godsend, now that the gooseberry
season is coming on."

A good murder mystery is always welcome to a certain class of London
daily journals, but more especially in the season when Parliament is
"up," the Courts are closed for the Vacation, and the well of sensations
runs low.  This season is termed, in journalistic parlance, "the
gooseberry season," on account of the annual appearance of the big
gooseberry, that mythical monster of our youth, the sea-serpent, and the
starting of the usual silly correspondence upon "Why should we live?" or
some equally interesting controversial subject.

We were all held in blank astonishment at this latest development of the
extraordinary affair.  It had so many remarkable phases that, even to
Boyd, one of the shrewdest officers of the Criminal Investigation
Department, it was bewildering.

To me, however, the disappearance of that dead woman with the fair, pure
face was the strangest of all that tangle of astounding facts.  That
face had impressed me.  Its every feature had been riveted indelibly
upon my memory, for it was a face which, in life, I should have fallen
down and worshipped as an idol, for there was about it a purity and
charm which must have been highly attractive, a vivacity in those eyes
which, even in death, had held me spell-bound.

"I don't see that we can do any more just now," Boyd remarked in a
business-like tone to his subordinate.

"You've seen the three cards which were beneath the plates on the
dining-table?"  I asked.

"Yes," he responded.  "There's some hidden meaning connected with them,
but what it's impossible at present to guess.  In order to prosecute our
inquiries we must preserve secrecy.  Nothing must be published yet.
Indeed, Patterson, you'll apply to the Coroner at once to take steps to
withhold the real state of affairs from the public.  If the assassins
find that no hue and cry is aroused we may have a far better chance of
tracing them, for they may betray themselves."

"It's a pity," observed Dick, deeply disappointed.  "A first-class
sensation of this sort don't occur every day.  Why, it's worth four
columns if a line."

"Be patient," Patterson urged.  "You shall have an opportunity of
publishing it before long, and I'll see that you are a long way ahead of
your contemporaries."

"Don't let the news agencies have a word.  They always try and get in
front of us," said Cleugh, whose particular antagonists were the Central
News and the Press Association, which possess facilities for the
collection of news and its transmission by wire to the various
newspapers that form one of the most marvellous organisations in unknown
London.

"Leave it to me," said the inspector.  "As soon as it's wise to let the
public know anything I'll give you permission to publish.  The _Comet_
shall be first in the field with it."

"Very well," answered Dick, satisfied with Patterson's answer.  That
officer had been prominent a few years before in the investigations
relative to those mysterious assassinations of women in Whitechapel, and
was very friendly with "the _Comet_ man," as Cleugh was termed in the
journal which he represented.

Many were the suggestions we put forth as to how the bodies of the
victims could have thus been changed, but no theory we could advance
seemed likely to have any foundation in fact.

The mystery was certainly one of the strangest that had ever puzzled the
crime investigators of London.  The cause of its discovery was a most
remarkable incident, and at every turn as the investigation proceeded
mystery seemed to follow upon mystery, until the whole affair presented
so many curious features that a solution of the problem seemed utterly
impossible.

I bent beside the body of the woman who, reclining in the armchair with
one arm fallen by her side, presented the appearance of one asleep.  Her
presence there was a profound enigma.  A thought, however, occurred to
me at that moment.  The dining-table below had been laid for three.
Perhaps she was the third person.

For the greater part of an hour we remained in that house of grim
shadows discussing the various phases of the astounding affair, until at
last, about eleven, we all left, two constables in uniform being
stationed within.  So secretly had this search been carried out that the
neighbours, though, perhaps, puzzled by Patterson's inquiries,
entertained no suspicion of any tragic occurrence.  In Kensington Road
all the shops facing Upper Phillimore Place were closed save the
tobacconist's and the frequent public-houses, the foot passengers were
few, and at that hour the stream of taxis with homeward-bound
theatre-goers had not yet commenced.  Market garden carts from Hounslow
or Feltham, piled high with vegetables, rumbled slowly past on their
journey to Covent Garden, and a few empty motor-buses rattled along
towards Hyde Park, but beyond all was quiet, for that great artery of
Western London goes early to rest.

At the police-station we took leave of Patterson and Boyd, and entering
a motor-bus at Kensington Church, arrived at our chambers shortly before
midnight.

"There's something infernally uncanny in the whole business," said the
Mystery-monger as we sat smoking, prior to turning in.  It was our habit
to smoke and gossip for half an hour before going to bed, no matter what
the time.  Our talk was generally of "shop" events in our world of
journalism, the chatter of Fleet Street intermingled with reminiscences
of the day's doings.  Dick was sitting in the armchair reflectively
sucking his eternal briar, while I sat at my table pondering over a
letter I had found there on my return.  It was from Mary Blain, for whom
I had once long ago entertained a very strong affection, but who had
since gone out of my life, leaving only a shadowy recollection of a
midsummer madness, of clandestine meetings, of idle, careless days spent
in company with a smart, eminently pretty, girl in blue serge skirt,
cotton blouse and sailor hat.  All was of the past.  She had played me
false.  I was poor, and she had thrown me over for a man richer than
myself.  For nearly three years I had heard little of her; indeed, I
confess that she had almost passed from my memory until that evening
when I had sat awaiting Dick, and now on my return I opened that letter
to discover it in her well-known, bold hand--the hand of an educated
woman.

The letter, which had had some wanderings, as its envelope showed, and
was dated from her father's house up the river, merely expressed a hope
that I was in good health, and satisfaction at hearing news of me
through a mutual friend.  Such a letter struck me as rather strange.  I
could only account for it by the fact that she desired to resume our
acquaintanceship, and that this was a woman's diplomatic way of opening
negotiations.  All women are born diplomatists, and woman's wit and
powers of perception are far more acute than man's.

The letter brought back to me vividly the memory of that sweet, merry
face beneath the sailor hat, the wealth of dark hair, the laughing eyes
so dark and brilliant, the small white hands, and their wrists confined
by their golden bangles.  Yes, Mary Blain was uncommonly good-looking.
Her face was one in ten thousand.  But she was utterly heartless.  I
recollected how, when with her mother she had spent a summer at
Eastbourne, what a sensation her remarkable beauty caused at Sunday
parade on the Esplanade.  She was lovely without consciousness of it,
utterly ingenuous, and as ignorant of the world's wickedness as a child.
The daughter of a wealthy City man who combined company-promoting with
wine-importing, she had from childhood been nursed in the lap of luxury,
and being the only child, was the idol of her parents.  Their country
house at Harwell, near Didcot, was in my father's parish, and from the
time when her nurse used to bring her to the Rectory until that
well-remembered evening when in the leafy by-lane I had for the last
time turned my back upon her with a hasty word of denunciation, we had
been closest friends.  She had played me false.  My hopes had been
wrecked on Life's strange and trackless sea, and now whenever I thought
of her it was only in bitterness.  I have more than a suspicion that old
Mr. Blain did not approve of our close acquaintanceship, knowing that I
was a mere journalist with an almost untaxable income; nevertheless, she
had continued to meet me, and many were the happy hours we spent
together wandering through that charming country that skirts the upper
reaches of the Thames.

In order to see her I used frequently to run down from London to my home
on Saturdays and remain till Mondays.  With her mother she sat in her
seat in front of the Rectory pew, and as she walked down the aisle her
face would be illumined by a glad light of welcome.  How restful were
those Sundays after the wear and tear of London life!  How peaceful the
days in that sleepy little village hidden away in a leafy hollow three
miles from the Great Western line!  After we had parted, however, I did
not go home for six months.  Then, on inquiry, I found that the Blains
had sold their place, presumably because they were in want of money, for
it was said that they had taken a smaller house facing the Thames, near
Laleham, that village a little beyond Shepperton, where in the
churchyard lies Matthew Arnold.  From all accounts old Blain had lost
heavily in speculation and had been compelled to sell his carriages and
horses, dispose of many of his pictures, and even part with some of the
Louis Seize furniture at Shenley Court, where they had lived.  This was,
of course, indicative of a very severe reverse of fortune.

Since those hours of Mary's love and her subsequent falseness, my life
had been a queer series of ups and downs, as it must ever be in
journalistic London.  Many dreary days of changeful care had come and
gone since then.

I sat silent, thinking, with her letter still open in my hand.

"Why are you so confoundedly glum, old man?"  Dick asked.  "What's your
screed about?  Duns in the offing?"

"No.  It's nothing," I answered evasively, smiling.

"Then don't look so down in the mouth," he urged.  "Have a peg, and pull
yourself together."  He had been in India, and consequently termed a
whisky-and-soda a "peg."  The origin of that expression is a little
abstruse, but is supposed to refer pointedly to the pegs in one's
coffin.

I thrust the letter into my pocket, helped myself to a drink, and lit a
cigarette.

"It's a really first-class sensation," Dick said, again referring to the
curious affair.  "Pity I can't publish something of it to-morrow.  It's
a good thing chucked away."

"Yes," I replied.  "But Patterson has some object in imposing secrecy on
us."

"Of course," he answered thoughtfully.

There was a pause.  We both smoked on.  Not a sound penetrated there
save the solemn ticking of the clock and the distant strains of a piano
in some man's rooms across the square.

"Do you know, Frank," my companion said after some reflection, and
looking at me with a rather curious expression--"do you know that I have
some strange misgivings?"

"Misgivings!"  I echoed.  "Of what?"

"Well," he said, "did anything strike you as strange in Patterson's
manner?"

"To tell the truth," I answered, "something did.  His attitude was
unusual--quite unusual, to-night."

"He's a funny Johnnie.  That story of the snake on the pavement--isn't
it rather too strange to be believed?"

"At first sight it appears extraordinary, but remember that in the
laboratory upstairs we found other snakes.  The occupier of the house
evidently went in for the reptiles as pets."

"I quite agree with you there," he said.  "But there are certain
circumstances in the case which have aroused my suspicion, old chap.  Of
all the curious cases I've ever investigated while I've been on the
_Comet_, this is the most astounding from every point of view, and I,
for one, shan't rest until we've fully solved the problem."

"In that you'll have my heartiest assistance," I said.  "All the time I
can spare away from the office I'll devote to helping you."

"Good," Dick exclaimed heartily, refilling his pipe.  "Between us we
ought to find out something, for you and I can get at the bottom of
things as soon as most people."

"The two strangest features of this case," I pointed out, "are first the
telephonic message, and secondly, the disappearance of the first woman
we found."

"And those cards!"

"And that penny wrapped so carefully in paper!"  I added.  "Yes, there
are fully a dozen extraordinary features connected with the affair.  The
whole business is an absolute puzzle."

"Tell me, old chap," Dick said, after a pause, "what causes you to
suspect Patterson?"

"I don't suspect him," I answered quickly.  "No.  I merely think that he
has not told the exact truth of the first discovery of the crime, that's
all."

"Exactly my own opinion," responded Dick.  "He's concealing some very
important fact from us--for what purpose we can't yet tell.  There's
more in this than we surmise.  Of that I feel absolutely confident."

"The snake story is a little too good," I said, rather surprised that
his suspicions should have been aroused, for I had not related to him my
conversation with Patterson and his very lame excuse for not making a
report of the discovery at the police-station.  What had aroused Dick's
suspicions I was extremely puzzled to know.  But he was a shrewd, clever
fellow, whose greatest delight was the investigation of crime and the
obtaining of those "revelations" which middle-class London so eagerly
devours.

"A very happy invention of an ingenious mind, my dear fellow," exclaimed
the Mystery-monger.  "Depend upon it, Patterson, being already aware
that there were snakes in that house, invented the story, knowing that
when the place was searched it would appear quite circumstantial."

"Then you think that he's not in absolute ignorance of who lived there?"
I exclaimed, surprised at my friend's startling theory.

Dick nodded.

"I shouldn't be surprised if it be proved that he knew all along who the
dead man is."

"Why?"

"Well, I noticed that he never once looked at that man's face.  It was
he who covered it with a handkerchief, as though the sight of the white
countenance appalled him."

"Come come," I said, "proceed.  You'll say that he's the guilty one
next."

"Ah! no, my dear fellow," he hastened to reassure me.  "You quite
misunderstand my meaning.  I hold the theory that in life these people
were friends of Patterson's, that's all."

"What makes you suspect such a thing?"

"Well, I watched our friend very closely this evening, and that's the
conclusion I've arrived at."

"You really think that he is concealing facts which might throw light on
the affair?"  I exclaimed, much surprised.

"Yes," he answered, "I feel certain of it--absolutely certain."

CHAPTER SIX.

WHAT I SAW IN THE PARK.

For a long time, sitting by the open window and looking out upon the
starry night, we discussed the grim affair in all its details.  The
piano had stopped its tinkling, a dead silence had fallen upon the
old-world square, one of the relics of bygone London, and the clock upon
the hall had struck one o'clock with that solemnity which does not fail
to impress even the most dissipated resident of Gray's.  As a bachelor
abode Gray's Inn is as comfortable and convenient a spot as there is in
London, for there is always a quiet, restful air within; the grey,
smoke-stained houses open on airy squares, and until a couple of years
ago, quite a large colony of rooks made their home in the great old
trees.  It is an oasis of peace and repose in the very centre of that
gigantic fevered city, where the whirl of daily life is unceasing, where
in the east and south toiling millions struggle fiercely for their
bread, while in the west is greater wealth and extravagance than in all
the world besides.

"I think," said Dick at last, after he had put forth one or two
theories, "that if we manage to get to the bottom of this affair we
shall discover some very startling facts."

"That's absolutely certain," I answered.  "The disappearance of the fair
girl, and the substitution of the other, is in itself a fact absolutely
unique in the annals of crime.  Whoever effected that change must have
been indeed a bold person."

"Didn't the people next door see any taxi drive up, or notice anything
being brought up to the house?"

"No.  That's the strangest part of it," I responded.  "Nothing was seen
of any cab or conveyance, although, of course, there must have been
one."

"And that inquiry by telephone was a remarkable incident," Dick went on.
"You say that the inquirer was popping about to various call-rooms
ringing up his confederates.  That shows that there were two or three in
the secret.  It hardly seems feasible that the man who rang up from the
Minories was the same as the one with whom you spoke at Putney."

"No; but the arrangement to meet in St. James's Park to-morrow is
extraordinary, to say the least."

"Ah, my dear fellow," observed my friend, with a smile, "I very much
fear that that appointment won't be kept.  Men such as they evidently
are will hardly risk a meeting.  On reflection, the individual, whoever
he is, will see that he has given himself away, and his natural caution
will prevent him from going near St. James's Park."

"Well, I only hope he does meet me," I observed.

"So do I.  But to my mind such a circumstance is entirely out of the
question.  You see he went to call-boxes in order to avoid detection."

"The curious thing is, that if it were the same man who rang up each
time he must have travelled from one place to another in an amazingly
rapid manner."

"There might be two persons," he suggested.

"Of course there might," I answered.  "But I think not.  The girl at the
exchange evidently recognised the voice of the persistent inquirer."

"I'm glad I came down--very glad," he said.  "I went over to see Lily,
but she's gone to Ipswich with her aunt, an old lady who feared to
travel alone.  It appears she wrote to me this morning, but the letter
has missed the post, I suppose.  It will come to-morrow morning."

"You had your journey to Peckham for nothing, then?"

"Yes," he answered.  "She ought to have sent me a wire.  Just like a
woman."

I knew Lily Lowry, the pretty friend of Dick Cleugh, very well indeed.
I did not know that he actually loved her.  There was undoubtedly a
mutual friendship between them, but nevertheless he often would go for a
month and see nothing of her.  The daughter of a struggling shopkeeper
near the _Elephant and Castle_, she had been compelled to seek her own
living, and was at present assistant at a large cheap draper's in Rye
Lane, Peckham.  Setting the _convenances_ at naught, as became a London
girl of the present decade, she had many times visited our dingy abode.
I had always suspected that the love was on her side, for she was always
giving him various little things--embroidered pouches, handkerchiefs and
those semi-useful articles with which girls delight the men they love.

But Dick did not seem in the least concerned at not having seen her.  He
was annoyed that he had had a journey on the Chatham and Dover for
nothing, and thought a great deed more of the mystery of Phillimore
Place than of Lily's well-being.  He was a pessimist in every sense of
the word.  Once he had told me the story of his first love, a strange
tragedy of his life that had occurred in his days at Jesus.  It was
this, I always suspected, that had evoked from him the real ardent
affection which a man should have for a woman who is to be his companion
through life.  Man loves but once, it is true, but the love of youth is
in the generality of cases a mere heart-beating caused by a fantasy
begotten of inexperience.  The woman we love at sixteen--too often some
kind-hearted housewife, whose soft speech we mistake for affection--we
flout when we are twenty.  The woman who was angelic in our eyes when in
our teens, is old, fat and ugly when, four years later, the glamour has
fallen from our eyes and we begin to find a foothold in the world.
Wisdom comes with the moustache.

So it was with Dick.  He had lost the woman he had loved in his college
days, yet, as far as I could judge, none other had ever taken her place
in his heart.

Two o'clock had struck ere we turned in, and both of us were up at
seven, our usual hour, for evening papers, issued as they are at noon,
are prepared early in the morning.  We were always at our respective
offices at half-past seven.

My first thought was of the meeting I had arranged in St. James's Park,
and of my friend's misgivings regarding it.  Full of anxiety, I worked
on till eleven o'clock, when Boyd was shown into my room, greeting me
merrily.  His appearance was in no way that of a police-officer, for he
wore a shabby suit of tweed, a soiled collar, and an old silk hat much
frayed at the brim, presenting the appearance of the typical beery Fleet
Street lounger.

"I've come to see you, Mr. Urwin, regarding this meeting in the park,"
he said.  "Do you intend going?"

"Of course," I answered, surprised that he should ask such a question.
"Why?"

"Well, because I think it would be best to leave it entirely to us.  You
might be indiscreet and queer the whole thing."

"I don't think you'll find me guilty of any indiscretion," I said,
somewhat piqued.

"I don't apprehend that," he said.  "But on seeing you at the spot
appointed, the mysterious person who made the inquiry last night will at
once get away, for he will know that the secret is out.  We must, as you
know, act with greatest caution in this affair, so as not to arouse the
slightest suspicion that the keeping of this appointment is in the hands
of the police."

"Then what, in your opinion, is the best course to pursue?"  I inquired.

"First, your friend Mr. Cleugh must not go near the park.  I've already
written him a note to that effect.  Secondly, you must act exactly as I
direct.  A single slip will mean that the individual will escape, and in
this we must not court failure by any indiscreet move."

"And how do you intend that I should act?"  I asked, sitting back in my
writing-chair and looking at the shrewd detective who was known
throughout London as one of the cleverest unravellers of crime, and who
had been successful in so many cases wherein human life had been
involved.

"Well," he said, hesitating, "truth to tell, I would rather that you
didn't go to the park at all."

"Why?"

"Because you could not wait about in the vicinity of the spot indicated
without betraying a sign that you were in expectation of some one," he
answered.  "Remember, you are not a detective."

"No," I answered, "I'm not a detective, but I've had a few years'
training in investigations.  I think I could disguise my anxiety
sufficiently."

I was extremely anxious to keep the appointment, and his suggestion that
I should not go caused me disappointment and annoyance.

"But if you were seen waiting about, the man we want would certainly not
make his appearance.  He'd scent danger at once.  We've evidently got to
deal with a very cunning scoundrel."

"I could conceal myself," I declared.  "I promise you I will act with
greatest discretion."

"Well," he said at length, after some further demur, "I suppose, then,
you must have your own way.  Personally, I don't think the man will be
such a fool as to run his neck into a noose.  There's been some clever
work in connexion with this matter, and men capable of such ingenuity
must be veritable artists in crime and not given to the committal of any
indiscretion.  The voice in the telephone was a squeaky one, I think you
said?"

"Yes, weak and thin, like an old man's."

Boyd glanced at his watch--a gold hunter with an inscription.  It had
been given him by public subscription in Hampstead in recognition of his
bravery in capturing two armed burglars in Fitzjohn's Avenue.

"It's time we went," he exclaimed; but as we rose Dick entered in hot
haste.  He had just received Boyd's note and had run round to my office.

"I've been out making an inquiry," he said, having greeted us and
expressed disappointment at Boyd's decision.  "I thought, in order to
satisfy myself, and so that I could use the information later on, I
would go round to Professor Braithwaite at the Royal Institution and ask
his opinion of the scientific apparatus found in the laboratory.  I went
down to Patterson, got permission to remove it from the house, and took
the whole affair in a cab to the Royal Institution."

"Well, what's the result?"  I inquired breathlessly.

"The result?" he answered.  "Why, the old Johnnie, when he saw the
paraphernalia, stood dumbfounded, and when he put it together and
commenced experimenting seemed speechless in amazement.  The discovery,
he declared, was among the greatest and most important of those made
within the last twenty years.  He sent messengers for a dozen other
scientific men, who, when they saw the arrangement, examined it with
great care and were equally amazed with old Braithwaite.  All were
extremely anxious as to the identity of the discoverer of this mode of
liquefying almost the last of the refractory gases, but I, of course,
held my tongue for a most excellent reason--I did not myself know.  I
merely explained that the apparatus had fallen into my hands
accidentally and I wished to ascertain its use."

"Then quite a flutter has been caused among these dry-as-dust old
fossils," I observed, laughing.

"A flutter!"  Dick echoed.  "Why, the whole of the scientific world will
be in a state of highest excitement to-morrow when the truth becomes
known.  Old Braithwaite declared that the discoverer deserves an
immediate knighthood."

"Let's be off," Boyd said.  He took no interest in the discovery.  Like
myself, his only object was to solve the mystery.

"Then I'm not to go?"  Dick said inquiringly.

"No," the detective replied.  "I'm sorry, but a crowd of us will queer
the thing.  You shall have all the details later.  Patterson has
promised that you shall publish first news of the affair."

Dick was sorely disappointed, I saw it in his face; nevertheless, with a
light laugh he wished us goodbye when we emerged into Fleet Street, and
hurried away back to the offices of the _Comet_, while Boyd and myself
jumped into a hansom outside St. Dunstan's Church, and drove along Pall
Mall as far as St. James's Palace, where we alighted and entered the
park.  The detective explained his tactics during the drive.  They were
that we should separate immediately on entering the park, and that he
should go alone to the spot indicated by the mysterious voice, while I
idled in the vicinity.  I was to act just as I pleased, but we were not
to recognise one another either by look or sign.

I own, therefore, that it was with considerable trepidation that I left
the detective on entering the Mall and wandered slowly along beneath the
trees, while he crossed and entered the park himself.  In that
thoroughfare, which forms a short and pleasant cut for taxis going
eastward from Victoria station, there was considerable traffic at that
hour.  The sky was blue, and the June sun shone warmly through the
trees, giving the Londoner a foretaste of summer, and causing him to
think of straw hats, flannels and holiday diversions.  A bright day in a
London park at once arouses thoughts of the country or the sea.  With my
face set towards the long, regular facade of Buckingham Palace--a grey
picture with little artistic touches of red, the scarlet coats of the
Guards--I wondered what would be the outcome of this attempt to obtain a
clue.  That thin squeaky voice sounded in my ear as distinctly at that
moment as it had done on the previous night, a weird summons from one
unknown.

At last, just as Big Ben, showing high across the trees, chimed and
boomed forth the hour of noon, I entered one of the small gates of the
park and strolled along the gravelled walk down to the edge of the
ornamental water, where, for some minutes, I stood watching a group of
children feeding the water-fowl.

Though trying to look unconcerned, my eyes were ever on the alert.  I
had expected to see Boyd, but there was no sign of him, therefore I
strolled along, passing the end of the water, the exact spot indicated.
There was no one there beyond half a dozen school children feeding the
birds with portions of dinners brought with them from distant homes.

Undecided whether to halt there, I kept my attention fixed upon the
children, then, fearing to annoy Boyd by remaining at that point, I
strolled slowly along the shore in the direction of Birdcage Walk.  The
detective had certainly concealed himself successfully, for although I
kept my eyes on the watch I could discover no sign of him.

The hour of the appointment had passed, but, not daring to turn back to
look, I kept straight on, until, at some distance beyond, I came to a
seat beside the path and there I rested, drawing a newspaper from my
pocket and pretending to read.  Unfortunately, from where I sat, at a
point opposite the Wellington Barracks, I could obtain no view of the
meeting-place, and although Big Ben struck the quarter I was compelled
to remain there inactive, watching furtively the few passers-by.

With a diligence perhaps unworthy of a journalist I read and re-read my
newspaper for nearly half an hour, and in the course of that time the
people who went along did not number a dozen.  Of none of these did I
entertain any suspicion.  They included a couple of soldiers, two or
three old women, a lady with a small child, a couple of nurses with
children, a park-keeper, and a bank clerk with his wallet chained to his
belt.

Secreted somewhere in the vicinity, Boyd was watching, but where I knew
not.  His surmise had unfortunately proved correct, I reflected, as the
half-hour chimed.  The man, whoever he was, was no fool.

For five minutes longer I remained, when a sudden impatience seized me,
and I folded my paper and rose.

As I did so there came round the bend of the path, from the direction of
the spot the mysterious voice had indicated, a slim figure in deep
mourning, evidently a lady.  She walked with an even swinging gait, not
as one who was idling there, but as though with some fixed purpose.  On
her approach I saw that she was attired entirely in black, wearing a
dress of the latest mode, the wide skirt of which rustled as she walked;
a large hat with swaying feathers which at that moment struck me as
somewhat funereal, and a thick spotted veil.  Her black silk sunshade
she carried on her arm, and as she came nearer I could not help being
struck by her neatness of figure, her small waist, wide hips and
well-moulded bust.

I lingered at the seat to brush the dust from my coat, so that she might
pass and allow me a glance of her face.

She went by with a loud frou-frou of silken underskirt, and at that same
instant I turned my gaze upon her and looked into her face.

Next second I drew back, startled and aghast.

Her hair was fair, her eyes large and blue, her features familiar.  Even
that thick veil could not conceal her marvellous beauty.

I looked again, believing it to be some chimera of my disordered
imagination.

No.  There was no mistake.  It was an astounding, inexplicable truth.

She was the woman I had discovered cold and dead in that house in
Kensington on the previous night--the woman whose body had so strangely
disappeared.

For a few moments I stood rooted to the spot.  The discovery held me
petrified.

Then, with sudden resolve, I moved forward and followed her.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

EVA GLASLYN.

I glanced behind me, but saw no sign of Boyd.  Of a sudden it crossed my
mind that he had not been present at our first discovery; therefore,
expecting a man to keep the appointment, he had allowed her to pass the
spot unnoticed.

The appearance of that neat figure before me, the figure of the woman
over whose beauty I had mourned as dead, was in itself a most startling
fact, adding still another feature to the already dark and inscrutable
mystery.  I wanted to have a word with Boyd and ask his advice, for I
knew not how to act in such unexpected circumstances.  One of the
victims was actually keeping an appointment with an accomplice of the
assassin, for there seemed no doubt that murder had been committed by
some secret means.

When she passed me I noticed the queer, half-suspicious glance she cast
at me with those large blue eyes of hers, a glance in which anxiety was
mingled with terror and despair.  Evidently she had sought some one whom
she had not been able to find, and was disappointed in consequence.
With the silhouette of her figure before me like some phantom which I
was endeavouring to chase in vain, I strolled on at a respectable
distance, endeavouring to look unconcerned.  I saw what a strikingly
smart figure hers was; how slim the waist, how wide and well-rounded the
hips, and how through the bodice of her dress was shown the outline of
those narrow French corsets, mere bands for the waist which only women
with superb figures ever dare to wear.  Her skirt of fine black cloth
hung in folds unusually graceful, for London skirts are always more or
less "bunchy," dragging behind and rising in front, unless made by the
first-class houses in Regent Street or Bond Street.  London dressmakers
cannot cut a skirt well.  But her gown was a model of simplicity and
good fit, evidently the "creation" of some expensive ladies' tailor.

Her hair, in the full light of day, was not golden brown as I had
believed it to be, but really auburn, and her black hat suited her
admirably.  From moment to moment I feared lest she should glance back
and discover me following her, but fortunately she kept straight on at
the same even pace, passing out of the park by Storey's Gate, and
continuing along Great George Street until she entered the bustle of
Parliament Street.  Here, fearing she might escape me, I was compelled
to approach nearer, at risk of being discovered, and even then was still
utterly undecided how to act.  My first impulse was, to walk up to her,
introduce myself and tell her of the circumstances in which I had
discovered her in that house, apparently lifeless.  On reflection,
however, I judged that by her presence in the park she was acquainted
with the assassin or his associate, and that by keeping close watch upon
her I might discover more than by at once exposing my hand.  There
seemed in her very appearance, in that deep mourning, something grim,
weird, mysterious.

At the corner of Parliament Street, outside the steamy tea-rooms, she
stood for a few moments gazing anxiously up and down, as if in search of
an omnibus.  A man approached her, crying the second edition of the
_Comet_, a copy of which she purchased eagerly, folding it small and
placing it within the folds of her sunshade.

Why had she done that?  I wondered.  Did she expect to find in that
paper an exposure of the secret tragedy of the previous night?

I stood reading some excursion time-tables outside the railway
booking-office on the opposite corner, watching her furtively.  From her
manner I could plainly see how nervous and excited she was.

After some hesitation she turned and walked along to King Street, where
she entered the telegraph office and dispatched a telegram.  She
evidently knew that part of London, or she would not have known the
whereabouts of that office hidden down the short side street.  I waited
in Parliament Street until her return, and unnoticed strode back behind
her to the corner of Bridge Street, where she at length entered a taxi
and drove off.

From the telegram I might, I thought, obtain some clue, but, alas!
telegrams are secret, and I should be unable to get a glance at it.  To
apply at the office would be useless.  The police might perhaps obtain
permission to read it, but so many dispatches are daily handed in there
that to trace any particular one is always a difficult matter.

I was divided in my impulses.  Should I go back to King Street and make
instant application regarding the telegram, so that it might be marked
and easily traced afterwards, or should I follow the taxi which at that
moment was crossing Westminster Bridge?

I decided upon the latter course, and jumping into another motor,
pointed out the taxi I desired to follow.

Our drive was not a long one--only to Waterloo Station, the busy
platform of the loop line.  Here I could easily conceal myself in the
crowd of persons every moment arriving and departing, and as I stood
near the booking-office, I heard her ask for a first-class ticket to
Fulwell, a rather pleasant and comparatively new suburban district
between Twickenham and Hampton.

The Shepperton train was already in the station, therefore she at once
took her seat, while I entered another compartment in the front of the
train.  I did this in order to be able to alight quickly, leave the
station before her, and thus avoid recognition.  The journey occupied
about three-quarters of a hour, but at length we drew into the little
rural station situated in a deep cutting, and ere the train stopped I
sprang out, passed the barrier and leaped up the steps, escaping ere the
gate was closed by the ticket inspector.  By this quick movement I
gained several minutes upon her, for the barrier was closed, and
alighting passengers were not allowed to leave before the train had
again moved off.

The high road from London opened right and left, one way leading back to
Strawberry Hill, the other out to New Hampton.  I felt certain that she
would walk in the direction of the latter place, therefore I started off
briskly until I came to a small wayside inn, which I entered, and going
to the window of the bar-parlour called for refreshment, at the same
time keeping a keen look-out for her passing.

Several persons who had come by train hurried by, and at first I
believed she had taken the opposite direction.  But at last she came,
holding her skirts daintily and picking her way, for it had been raining
and the path was muddy.  She, however, was not alone.

By her side walked a young rather handsome man about twenty-five, who
wore tennis flannels, and who had apparently met her at the station.
She was laughing merrily as she passed, while he strode on with a light,
airy footstep indicative of happiness.

"There's a lady just gone past," I exclaimed quickly, turning to the
innkeeper's wife, who had just brought in my glass of beer.  "I often
see her about.  Do you know who she is?"

With woman's curiosity she went to the door and looked out after her.

"Oh, that's Lady Glaslyn's daughter," she said.

"Lady Glaslyn's daughter!"  I echoed in surprise.

"Yes, it's Miss Eva, and the young gent with her is Fred Langdale, the
son of the great sugar-refiner up in London.  They both live here, close
by.  Lady Glaslyn, a widow, is not at all well off, and lives along at
The Hollies, the big white house with a garden in front on this side of
the way, while the Langdales have a house further on the road to
Hampton, overlooking Bushey Park."

"Oh, that's who they are!"  I said quite unconcernedly, but secretly
delighted with this information.  "And who is this Lady Glaslyn?  Has
she lived here long?"

"Nearly a year now," the good woman answered.  Then, confidentially, she
added, "They are come-down swells, I fancy.  That they've got no money
is very evident, for the tradespeople can't get their bills paid at all.
Why, only last week, Jim Horton, the gas company's man, was in here,
and I heard him tell his labourers that he'd got orders to cut the gas
off at The Hollies because the bill wasn't paid."

"Then they must be pretty hard up," I observed.  "Many aristocratic
families come down in the world."

The name of Glaslyn puzzled me.  It sounded familiar.

"Who was her ladyship's husband?  Do you know?"

"No, sir.  I've heard several stories.  One was how that he was a
baronet who led an exploring party somewhere in South America, and died
of fever, and another that he was a shady individual who was connected
with companies in the City.  But nobody here knows the truth, I think."

A glance at Debrett or Burke when I returned to my office would quickly
settle that point, I reflected; therefore, having obtained all the
information I could from her I wished her good-day, and left.

Along the Hampton Road I strolled in the direction the pair had taken,
and in the distance saw the mysterious Eva take leave of her companion
and enter a house, while he lifted his hat and walked on.  I proceeded
slowly, passing The Hollies on the opposite side of the way.  It was a
rather large place, decidedly old-fashioned, standing back in its own
grounds and approached by a carriage drive, a three-storied redbrick
house with those plain windows surrounded by white wooden beams of the
early Georgian era.  In the old-world garden, hidden by a high wall,
grew a profusion of roses and wallflowers which diffused a sweet scent
as I passed, and half the house seemed hidden by ivy and creepers.  The
small lawn in front, with its laurels and monkey-trees, were well kept,
and the place seemed spick and span, and altogether comfortable.

As I passed I fancied I saw a black-robed figure standing at one of the
ground-floor windows.  What if she recognised me?  I dared not to look
around again, but kept on my way, walking through New Hampton, past the
long wall of Bushey Park, until I came to Old Hampton town, whence, half
an hour later, I took train back to Waterloo.

I had, at any rate, made one discovery, which was in itself absolutely
bewildering.  At first I had doubted that this sweet-faced, clear-eyed
woman was actually identical with the dead form that lay back in her
chair on the previous night.  I believe that she only bore some striking
resemblance, heightened, perhaps, by the agitated state of my mind.  But
all doubts on this point had been set at rest by one fact.  The woman
whose cold hand I had grasped had worn in her bodice a brooch of unusual
pattern--a tiny enamelled playing-card, a five of diamonds quaintly set
in gold--and this same ornament, striking on account of its originality
of design, was at the throat of Eva Glaslyn, showing plainly against the
dead black of her dress.

The mystery was certainly most remarkable.  In wonder how Boyd had
fared, or whether Patterson had been prosecuting inquiries in other
directions, I went straight to Kensington from Waterloo, and found the
inspector in his room over the police-station.  It was a small apartment
with drab-painted walls, plainly furnished as police-stations are.  The
table whereat he sat was littered with papers, mostly pale straw-colour,
and on the mantelshelf stood an interesting collection of photographs of
people "wanted," each bearing a number in red ink corresponding to the
index book, wherein a short account of their crime was recorded.

"Why," he cried, as I entered, "wherever have you been?  I've been
hunting high and low for you."

"I've been down to Hampton," I laughed.

"To Hampton!" he echoed.  "What on earth have you been doing down
there?"

"Making inquiries," I answered, affecting an air of unconcern.  "I've
made a rather queer discovery."

"What is it?" he asked, as I took a seat before him.

"I've found the woman whom Patterson and I discovered dead last night,
and the strangest part about it is that she's alive and quite well."

"My dear fellow, are you mad?" he asked, looking at me strangely.
"People aren't in the habit of coming to life again, you know."

"I'm well aware of that," I responded.  "Nevertheless, the fact remains
that the woman seen by Patterson and by myself is actually alive.  I met
her in the park, and followed her home to New Hampton."

"Met her in the park!" he cried.  "There was one woman I noticed,
fair-haired, and dressed in black."

"The same," I answered.  "Fortunately I recognised her and kept her
under observation."

Then, in response to his demand, I related to him the whole circumstance
in detail.

"And her name?" he inquired, when I had concluded.

"Eva Glaslyn, daughter of Lady Glaslyn."

"Glaslyn!" he ejaculated.  "Good heavens!  Surely it can't be the same!"

"Why the same?"  I inquired.

"Oh, nothing!" he answered evasively, quickly seeking to allay my
suspicions.  "There was some mystery, or scandal, or something connected
with that family once, if I recollect aright.  I may, however, be
mistaken in the name.  At any rate, Mr. Urwin, you've acted with tact
and discretion, and discovered a most important fact."

"What have you been doing?"  I asked.

"Well," he answered in hesitation, "the fact is, I've had a somewhat
exciting experience."

"Did you, then, discover the man?"  I inquired anxiously.

"I met a man, but whether he was the one who made the appointment by
telephone I don't yet know," he said.  "I waited until a quarter to one,
concealed behind some bushes, and presently saw a grey-haired old
gentleman, well-dressed in frock coat, and silk hat, strolling in my
direction.  He was quite a dandy with well-pressed trousers, varnished
boots, gold-headed cane and single eyeglass.  His air was that of a
lawyer or doctor.  As if in search of some one he lingered in the
vicinity, subsequently sitting upon a seat at the very end of the lake,
the exact spot which had been indicated."

"And what did you do?"

"I waited and watched.  There was no one near, yet from his sharp
glances in all directions I saw that he was in fear lest some one might
approach whom he didn't wish to see.  He appeared violently agitated,
and at last, when he was entirely alone, he placed his hand into his
inner pocket, took out something, and rising from the seat with a swift
movement cast the object far away into the water."

"Something he wanted to get rid of.  Suspicious, wasn't it?"

"Of course," said the detective.  "After that you may rest assured that
I didn't lose sight of him.  When the object he had thrown away had
fallen into the lake he turned, and after glancing up and down in fear
that his action might have been observed, he returned to his seat, and
waited until Big Ben struck again.  Then he rose and left the park,
strolling airily along the Buckingham Palace Road, peering a good deal
under the bonnets of the pretty women who were looking in the windows of
the shops.  He entered the bar of Victoria Station, drank a
whisky-and-soda, and then continuing along to Ebury Street passed twice
or three times up and down in front of a house on the left-hand side.
There were a number of people in that street at the time, but the
instant he thought himself unobserved, he dived down the area of the
house he kept passing and repassing.  In a moment I noted that the
number was twenty-two, and having done so placed a watch upon the house,
well satisfied that I had taken the first step towards unravelling the
mystery."

"Remarkable," I said, "I wonder what it was he threw away?"

"That's impossible to tell without dragging the lake, and to do that at
present would excite suspicion.  He evidently went there in order to
meet the assassin, but as the latter did not keep the appointment, this
unknown object, which might prove convicting if found upon him, he
resolved to get rid of, and no better place could there be than at the
bottom of the lake.  There's lots of pieces of evidence there, you bet."

"Then there must be some mysterious connexion between the appearance of
Eva Glaslyn at that spot and this man who got rid of some evidence of
the crime," I observed.

"Most certainly," the detective said.  "It almost seems as though she
came there for the purpose of meeting him, but he being late she grew
impatient and left before his arrival.  At every step we take the enigma
becomes more complicated, more extraordinary, more bewildering."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

SOME REMARKABLE EVIDENCE.

Three days went by, days full of wonder and anxiety.

Many were the discussions between Patterson, Dick and myself regarding
the extraordinary development of the mystery which had now resolved
itself into as complete a puzzle as ever occupied the attention of
Scotland Yard.  In Ebury Street and at Hampton most careful observation
was being carried on night and day, but according to Boyd absolutely
nothing suspicious could be discovered.  Lady Glaslyn was, according to
Debrett, widow of a Sir Henry Glaslyn, a Scotch baronet who had died
several years before, leaving no heir to continue the title, and only
one daughter, Eva.

In the meantime the bodies of the man and the woman had been removed to
the mortuary secretly in the early hours of the morning in order not to
arouse the suspicion of the neighbours, and a post-mortem had been held
by two local doctors, with the result that it was found possible to hold
the inquest on the afternoon of the third day.  The Coroner held his
inquiry in a small back room in the Kensington Town Hall, not far from
the scene of the tragedy, and, in opening, made a short address to the
jury, pointing out the necessity for preserving the utmost secrecy in
the matter, and expressing a hope that no one present would defeat the
ends of justice by giving any facts to the newspapers.

"Pardon me, sir," exclaimed the tradesman who had been elected foreman,
"but I see two gentlemen of the Press present."

"Both have assisted us in our inquiries," Patterson briefly explained to
the Coroner.

"Of course," the Coroner answered, "this is a public court, and
therefore we cannot exclude any one.  Yet I am confident the reporters
will respect my wishes."

This we both promised to do, Cleugh, well-known to the Coroner, speaking
first.

The Coroner, when the jury had returned from viewing the bodies, made a
few further observations, pointing out to the jury that although the
affair was one of the most mysterious and inexplicable that had ever come
beneath his notice in the course of his twenty years' experience as a
London coroner, yet they were there to try and decide the cause of death
alone.  They had no concern with any other facts except the cause of
death, and he trusted they would give the matter their undivided
attention.

Patterson was the first witness.  In terse language he gave an account
of his discovery and of his second visit to the house in my company.
Then, when he had concluded, I was called and bore out his statement,
relating how we had entered the laboratory and found the marvellous
scientific apparatus, and how in the pocket of the dead man I had found
a penny wrapped in paper.  The cards with the strange devices which had
been beneath the plates on the dining-table were handed round to the
jury for their inspection, and then a statement which I made startled
even the Coroner.  It was how the body of the woman at present in the
mortuary was not the same as the one we had at first discovered.

"Impossible!" exclaimed the Coroner, while the twelve jurymen stood
aghast at my statement.

"That is quite true, sir," exclaimed Patterson, rising from his seat.
"The lady we first discovered was younger, with fair hair."

"Then there must have been a triple tragedy," observed the Coroner,
astounded.  "This is most extraordinary."

I was about to explain how I had recognised in the girl I met in St.
James's Park the identical woman whom we had discovered lifeless, but a
sharp look from the inspector silenced me.

"We are making diligent inquiries," the officer went on, "and we have
reason to believe that we shall be able to make a further statement
later--at the adjourned inquiry."

The Coroner nodded, and turning to the jury, said--

"Of course, gentlemen, it would not be wise at this stage for the police
to disclose any of the information in their possession.  Their success
in such matters as this mainly depends upon secrecy.  I think we may
now, perhaps, hear the medical evidence."

The jury stirred uneasily and settled themselves to listen intently as
Dr. Lees Knowles, the police divisional surgeon, stepped forward and was
sworn.

"I was called by the police to the house," he said, "and found there two
deceased persons, a man and a woman, in the drawing-room on the first
floor.  The attire of the man was rather disarranged, as the police had
already searched him, but there were no signs whatever of a struggle."

"You made a cursory examination, of course," suggested the Coroner.

"Yes.  Life had been extinct sometime, and _rigor mortis_ had commenced.
There was, however, no external sign of foul play."

"And the post-rnortem?"

The Court was silent in anxious anticipation of the doctor's response.

"Assisted by Doctor Lynes I made a post-mortem, but found absolutely
nothing to account for death.  There was no mark of violence on either
of the bodies, and no physical defect or slightest trace of disease.
Nevertheless, the position of the bodies when found makes it evident
that both persons died with great suddenness, and without being able to
obtain assistance."

"Was there nothing whatever to give any clue to the cause of death?"
asked the Coroner, himself a medical man.

"Nothing," responded the surgeon.  "One thing, however, struck us as
peculiar.  On the inside of the right forearm of both the man and the
woman were identical tattoo marks.  The device, nearly an inch in
diameter, represented a serpent with its tail in its mouth, the ancient
emblem of eternity.  The mark on the man had evidently been traced
several years ago, but that on the woman is comparatively fresh, and
could not have completely healed over more than a month ago.  It is as
though the mark on the man has been copied upon the woman."

"And what do you think is the signification of this mark?" inquired the
Coroner, looking up from the blue foolscap whereon he had been writing
down the depositions.

"I'm utterly at a loss to know," the doctor answered.  "Yet it is very
curious that upon one of these cards we found beneath the plates there
is a circle drawn, while it also seemed that snakes were kept in the
house as pets.  To my mind all three circumstances have some connecting
significance."

The jury bent together and conversed in whispers.  This theory of the
doctor's seemed to possess a good deal of truth, even though the mystery
was increased rather than diminished.

Many more questions were put to the doctor, after which his colleague,
Dr. Lynes, was called, and corroborated the police surgeon's evidence.
He, too, was utterly unable to ascribe any fatal cause.  The tattoo
marks had puzzled him, but he suggested that the man and woman might be
husband and wife, and that in a freak of caprice, to which women of some
temperaments are subject, she had caused the device on her husband's arm
to be copied upon her own.  Opinions were, however, divided as to
whether the pair were husband and wife.  For my own part I did not
regard his theory as a sound one.

"You did not overlook the contents of the stomach, of course?" the
Coroner exclaimed.

"No, we sent them in sealed bottles to Dr. Marston, the analyst of the
Home Office."

"And have we his report?" inquired the Coroner.

"Dr. Marston is here himself, sir.  He has come to give evidence,"
Patterson answered from the back of the room, while at the same time an
old grey-haired gentleman in gold-rimmed spectacles rose, and walking
forward took the oath.

"You received from the previous witnesses two bottles?" suggested the
Coroner.  "Will you please tell us the result of your analysis?"

"I tested carefully with group reagents for every known poison, and also
for ptomaine," he said, "but all the solvents--alcohol, benzol, naphtha,
ammonia and so forth--failed.  I tested for the alkaloids, such as
strychnine, digitalin, and cantharidin, and used hydrochloric acid to
find either silver, mercury or lead, and also ammonia in an endeavour to
trace tin, cadmium or arsenic.  To none of the known groups does the
poison--if poison there be--belong.  Therefore I have been utterly
unable to arrive at any definite conclusion."

"Is there no direct trace of any poison?"

"None," was the answer.  "Yet from the result of certain group reagents
it would appear that death was due to the virulence of some azotic
substance."

"You cannot, we take it, decide what that substance was?"

"Unfortunately, no," the renowned analyst answered, apparently annoyed
at having to thus publicly acknowledge his failure.  "The state of the
stomach of either person was not such as might cause death.  Indeed,
there was only a secondary and most faint trace of the unknown substance
to which I have referred."

"Then, to put it quite plainly," said the Coroner, "it is your opinion
that they were poisoned?"

"I can scarcely go so far as that," the witness responded.  "All I can
say in evidence is that I found a slight trace of some deleterious
substance which all tests refused to clearly reveal.  Whether it were an
actual poison which resulted in death I hesitate to say, as the result
of my analysis is not sufficiently clear to warrant any direct
allegation."

"Do you suggest that this substance, whatever it was, must have been
baneful and injurious to the human system?"

"I think so.  Even that, however, is not absolutely certain.  As you
know, certain poisons in infinitesimal quantities are exceedingly
beneficial."

"Then we must take it that, presuming these two persons actually died of
poison, it must have been by a poison unknown in toxicology?" observed
the Coroner.

"Exactly," the analyst responded, standing with his hands behind his
back and peering through his spectacles at the expectant jury.

The Coroner invited the jury to ask any questions of the analyst, but
the twelve Kensington tradesmen feared to put any query to the man who
had the science of poisoning thus at his fingers' ends, and whose
analyses were always thorough and absolutely beyond dispute.  He was the
greatest authority on poisons, and they could think of nothing further
to ask him.  Therefore the Coroner politely invited him to sign his
depositions.

After he had withdrawn, the Coroner, placing down his pen, sighed,
leaned back in his chair with a puzzled expression, and once more
addressed the twelve men who had been "summoned and warned" before him.
They had heard the evidence, he said, and it was now for them to decide
whether the two persons had died from natural causes, or whether they
had met with foul play.  In the circumstances he acknowledged that a
decision was extremely difficult on account of the many mysterious side
issues connected with the affair, yet he pointed out that if they were
in real doubt whether to return a verdict of natural death or of wilful
murder, there was still a third course, namely, to return an open
verdict of "Found dead," and thus leave the matter in the hands of the
police.  He was ready, of course, to adjourn the inquiry, but from what
he knew of the matter, together with the evidence which had just been
given, it was his honest opinion that no object could be obtained in an
adjournment, and further by closing the inquest at once they would
prevent any inexpedient facts leaking out to the newspapers.

The jury retired to consult in an adjoining room, and in ten minutes
returned, giving an open verdict of "Found dead."  Thus ended the
inquiry, and while the law had been complied with, public curiosity
remained unaroused, and the police were enabled to work on in secret.

With Cleugh I lingered behind, chatting with Patterson and Boyd.

"We're keeping observation at Upper Phillimore Place," Boyd explained,
in response to my inquiry.  "Funny thing that nobody else calls there,
and that the servants have never come back."

"Have you found the snake that was in the garden?"  Cleugh asked of
Patterson, with a significant glance at me.

"No," he responded, rather confused.  "You see any search there might
arouse suspicion.  Therefore we are compelled to be content with
watching for the return of any one to the house."

"But you haven't yet succeeded in establishing the identity of the
pair," Dick observed.

"No.  That's the queerest part of it," Boyd exclaimed.  "The owner of
the house, a builder who has an office in Church Street, close by, says
that the place was taken furnished by a Mrs. Blain, who gave her address
at Harwell, near Didcot.  She paid six months' rent in advance."

"Harwell!" echoed Cleugh, turning to me.  "Isn't that your home, Urwin?"

"Yes," I gasped.  The name of Blain caused me to stand immovable.

"Why," Dick exclaimed, noticing my agitation, "what's the matter, old
fellow?  Do you know the Blains?"

"Yes," I managed to reply.  "They must be the Blains of Shenley Court.
If so, they are friends of my family."

I had never told my companion of my bygone love affair, because it had
been a thing of the past before we had gone into diggings together.

"Who are they?" inquired Boyd quickly.  "Tell me all you know concerning
them, as we are about to prosecute inquiries in their direction."

"First, tell me the statement of the house owner," I said.

"Well, he describes Mrs. Blain as a middle-aged, rather pleasant lady,
who came to his office about a year ago in response to an advertisement
in the _Morning Post_.  She appeared most anxious to have the house, and
one fact which appears to strike the old fellow as peculiar is that she
took it and paid a ten-pound note as deposit without ever seeing the
interior of the premises.  She told him that it was for some friends of
hers from abroad, and that they not having arrived she would sign the
agreement and accept all responsibility."

"Anything else?"

"Yes," the detective replied.  "She was accompanied by a young lady,
whom old Tritton, the landlord, took to be her daughter.  Now, tell me
what you know."

I paused, looking at him fixedly.  The disclosure that Mrs. Blain was
the actual holder of that house of mystery was certainly startling.  It
was remarkable, too, that on the very night of the crime I should
receive a letter from Mary, the woman who had so long lingered in my
memory.  Was that, I wondered, anything more than a mere coincidence?

"I don't know that I can tell you very much about the family," I
answered, determined to put him off the scent and make inquiries myself.
"They were much respected when at Shenley, where they kept up a fine
country house, and entertained a great deal.  They were parishioners of
my father, therefore I went there very often."

"Do you know Mrs. Blain well?"

"Quite well."

"And her daughter?" suggested Dick, much interested.  "What's she like?
Pretty?"

"Passable," I answered, with affected indifference.

"Then they are not a shady family at all?" suggested the detective.

"Not in the least.  That is why the fact of Mrs. Blain having taken the
house is so surprising."

"It may have been sub-let," Cleugh observed.  "Her friends from abroad
may not have arrived after all, and she might have re-let it, a
circumstance which seems most likely, as no one appears to have seen her
enter the place."

"At any rate it's most extraordinary," I said.  Then, turning to Boyd, I
asked, "Why not leave the inquiry in that quarter to me?  Knowing her, I
can obtain information far more easily than you can."

"Yes," Cleugh urged.  "It would be a better course--much better."

"Very well," answered the detective, not, however, without some
hesitation.  "But be careful not to disclose too much.  Try and find out
one fact only--the reason she took the house.  Leave all the rest to
us."

I promised, and after drinking together over in the refreshment bar at
High Street Station we parted, and Cleugh and I took a bus back to our
chambers.

He stopped in Holborn to buy some last editions of the papers, while I
hurried on, for, being terribly hungry, I wished to give old Mrs. Joad
early intimation of our readiness for the diurnal steak.

With my latch-key I entered our chambers.  The succulent scent of
grilled meat greeted my nostrils, and I strode eagerly forward shouting
for the Hag.

As I entered the sitting-room I started and drew back.  A quick word of
apology died from my lips, for out of our single armchair there arose a
tall female dark, well-fitting dress, bowing with a grace that was
charming.

I saw before me, half concealed beneath a thin black veil, a smiling
face eminently pretty, a tiny mouth parted to show an even row of pearly
teeth, a countenance that was handsome in every feature.

That pair of eyes peering forth at me held me motionless, dumb.  I stood
before my visitor, confused and speechless.

CHAPTER NINE.

THE LOVE OF LONG AGO.

There are hours in our lives which are apparently without importance,
but which, nevertheless, exercise an influence on our destiny.

Little wonder was it that at this instant I stood before my visitor
voiceless in amazement, for in her erect, neat figure I recognised the
broken idol of those long-past summer days--Mary Blain.

Of all persons she was the one I most desired at that moment to meet.
Her letter to me, and her presence in my chambers that evening, were two
facts that appeared pre-arranged with some ulterior motive rather than
mere coincidence.  Not an hour before Boyd had made a most puzzling
statement regarding her mother, and here she was, confronting me with
that smile I knew so well, as if anxious to make explanation.

"I believe I've startled you, Frank," she exclaimed, laughing, as she
held out her gloved hand in greeting.  "Is it so long since we met?
Perhaps it is indiscreet of me to come here to your chambers, but I
wanted to see you.  Mother would be furious if she knew.  Why didn't you
answer my letter?"

"Forgive me," I said in excuse.  "I've been busy.  The life of a daily
journalist leaves so very little time for correspondence," and I invited
her to be re-seated in our only armchair.

She shrugged her shoulders, smiling dubiously.

"You men are always adepts at the art of excuse," she remarked.

She was pretty--yes, decidedly pretty.  As I sat looking at her, there
came back to me vivid recollections of a day that was dead, a day when
we had exchanged vows of undying affection and had wandered in secret
arm-in-arm along those quiet leafy lanes.  She was a girl then, and I
not much more than a stripling youth.  But we had both grown older now,
and other ideas had sprung up in our minds, other jealousies and other
loves.  Almost four whole years had passed since I had last seen her.
She had grown a little more plump and matronly, and in her dark,
luminous eyes was a look more serious than in her old hoydenish days at
Harwell.  How time flies!  It did not seem four years since that autumn
evening when we parted in the golden sunset.  Yet how great had the
change been in the fortunes of her purse-proud family, and even in my
own life.

There was no love between us now.  None.  The days were long-past since
a woman's touch and words would make me colour like a girl.  Even this
meeting when she pressed my hand and her eyelids fluttered, did not
re-stir within me the chord of love so long untouched.  I had heard of
her only as a flirt and fortune-hunter, and had read in the newspapers a
paragraph announcing her engagement to the elder son of a millionaire
ironfounder of Wigan.  Nevertheless, a month ago the papers contained a
further paragraph stating that the marriage arranged "would not take
place."  Since we had parted she had evidently been through many love
adventures.  Still, she was nevertheless uncommonly good-looking, with a
grace of manner that was perfect.

"I've often wondered, Frank, what had become of you," she said, leaning
her elbow on the table, raising her veil and looking straight into my
eyes.  "We were such real good friends long ago that I've never failed
to entertain pleasant recollections of our friendship.  Once or twice
I've heard of you through your people, and have now and then read your
articles in the magazines.  Somehow I've felt a keen desire for a long
time past to see you and have a chat."

"I feel honoured," I answered, perhaps a trifle sarcastically, for mine
was but a bitter recollection.  "It is certainly pleasant to think that
one is remembered after these years."  Then, in order to add irony to my
words, I added: "I've heard you are engaged."

"I was," she responded, glancing at me sharply.  "But it is broken off."

"You found some one you liked better, I presume?  It is always so."

"No, not at all," she hastened to assure me.  "The fact is there was
very little love on either side, and we parted quite amicably."

"As amicably as we did ourselves--eh?"

"No, Frank," she said with a sudden seriousness, dropping her eyes to
the table.  "Do not refer to that.  With years has come wisdom.  We were
both foolish, were we not?"

"Perhaps I was when I believed your vow to be a true one," I responded a
trifle bitterly, for I had thought the summer of my life over and at an
end.

"Ah, no!" she cried.  "I did not come here to reopen an incident that
has been so long closed.  You love another woman, no doubt."

"No," I answered.  "I loved you once, until you forsook me.  I have not
loved since."

"But I was a mere girl then," she urged.  "Ours was but a midsummer
madness--that you'll surely admit."

I was silent.  I had believed myself proof against all sentiment in this
respect, for of late I had thought little, if at all, of my lost love.
Yet alone with her at that moment all the bitter past flooded upon me,
my wild passion and my shattered hopes, with a vividness that stirred up
a great bitterness within me.  Not that I loved her now.  No.  On the
contrary, I hated her.  She had played others false and treated them
just as she had treated me.

"After madness there is always a reaction," I answered, recollecting how
fondly I had once loved her, and how, since the day we parted, my life,
even Bohemian as it must ever be in journalistic London, was
nevertheless loveless and misanthropic, the life of one whose hopes were
shattered and whose joy in living had been sapped.  Shenley was but the
tomb of those summer recollections.  I never now visited the place.

"But all this is very foolish, Frank," she exclaimed with a calm
philosophical air and a smile probably meant to be coquettish.  "Why
recollect the past?"

"When one has loved as I once did, it is difficult to rid oneself of the
memory of its sweetness or its bitterness," I said.  "Your visit here
has brought it all back to me--all that I have striven so long and so
strenuously to forget."

She sighed.  For a single instant her dark eyes met mine, and then she
avoided my gaze.

"I ventured here," she explained in a low, apologetic tone, "because I
believed that our youthful passion had mutually died, and that I might
renew your acquaintance not as lover but as friend.  If, by coming here,
I have pained you, or caused you any particularly unhappy recollections,
forgive me, Frank--forgive me," and she stretched forth her hand and
placed it upon my arm with a gesture of deep earnestness and regret.

"Certainly, I forgive you," I answered, annoyed with myself for having
thus worn my heart on my sleeve.  It was foolish, I knew.  That idyllic
love of ours was a mere dream of youth, like the other castles in the
air we build when in our teens.  It was unwise to have spoken as I had,
for after all, truth to tell, I was at that moment secretly glad of my
freedom.  And why?  Because the mysterious woman, whose beauty was
perfect, yet whose very existence was an enigma, had awakened within my
soul a new-born love.

Since that bright morning when she had first passed me in St. James's
Park my thoughts had been constantly of her.  Although I had not
exchanged a single word with her I loved her, and all thought of this
dark-eyed woman who had once played me false had passed from me.

Thus, angry with myself at having spoken as I had, I strove to remedy
whatever impression my words had made by treating my visitor with a
studied courtesy, at the same time seeking to discover the real motive
of her call.  I recollected the mystery, together with the fact that had
been elicited regarding the tenancy of the house, and felt convinced
that her visit was not without some strong incentive.  She either came
to me in order to learn something, or else with the object of satisfying
herself upon some point remaining in doubt.

This thought flashing through my troubled brain placed me on the alert,
and as we with mutual eagerness changed the topic of conversation, I sat
gazing into her mobile countenance, filled with ecstatic wonder.

"As you know," she chattered on, quite frankly, in her rather
high-pitched key, "before we left Shenley father had some very heavy
losses in the City.  At first we found a smaller house simply horrible,
but now we are quite used to it, and personally I'm happier there,
because we are right on the river and can have such jolly boating."

"But Riverdene is not such a very small place, surely?"  I said.  Dick,
who knew the river well, had once told me that it was a fine house
situated in one of the most picturesque reaches.

"No," she laughed, "not really so very small, I suppose.  But why not
come down and see for yourself?  Mother often speaks of you, and you
know you're always welcome."

Now, in ordinary circumstances I should have refused that invitation
point-blank, but when I reflected that I was bound to make certain
inquiries of Mrs. Blain, I, with apparent reluctance, accepted.

"Mother will be most delighted to see you.  We have tennis very often,
and boating always.  It's awfully jolly.  Come down the day after
to-morrow--in the afternoon.  I shall tell mother that I met you in the
street and asked you down.  She must, of course, never know that I came
here to see you," and she laughed at her little breach of the
_convenances_.

"Of course not.  I won't give you away," I said.  Then suddenly
recollecting, I added: "May I get you a cup of tea?"

"Oh, no, thanks, really," she answered.  "I've been in Regent Street to
do some shopping, and I had tea there.  I was on my way home, but
thought that, being alone, I'd venture to try and find you."

"I'm very glad we have met," I said enthusiastically, for, truth to
tell, I saw in her opportune invitation a means by which I might get at
the truth I sought.  There was something extremely puzzling in this
allegation that the calm-mannered, affable Mrs. Blain, whom I had known
so well, was the actual tenant of the mysterious house in Phillimore
Place.  Then, looking at her steadily, I added: "In future our relations
shall be, as you suggest, those of friendship, and not of affection--if
you really wish."

"Of course," she replied.  "It is the only sensible solution of the
situation.  We are both perfectly free, and there is no reason whatever
why we should not remain friends--is there?"

"None at all," I said.  "Tell your mother that I shall be most delighted
to pay you a visit.  You have a boat, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes.  And a punt, too.  This season I've learned to punt quite
well."

I smiled.

"Because that pastime shows off the feminine figure to greatest
advantage," I observed.  "Girls who punt generally wear pretty brown
shoes, and their dresses just a trifle short, so that as they skip from
end to end of the punt they are enabled to display a discreet _soupcon
of lingerie_ and open-work stocking--eh?"

"Ah, no," she protested, laughing.  "You're too sarcastic.  Punting is
really very good fun."

"For ladies, no doubt," I said.  "But men prefer sculling.  They've no
waists to show, nor pretty flannel frocks to exhibit to the river
crowd."

"Ah, Frank, you always were a little harsh in your conclusions," she
sighed.  "I suppose it is because you sometimes write criticisms.
Critics, I have always imagined, should be old and quarrelsome persons--
you are not."

"No," I responded.  "But old critics too often view things through their
own philosophical spectacles.  The younger school take a much broader
view of life.  I'm not, however, a critic," I added, "I'm only a
journalist."

I could hear old Mrs. Joad growling to herself because the steak was
ready and she could not lay the cloth because of my visitor.  Meanwhile,
the room had become filled to suffocation with the fumes of frizzling
meat, until a blue haze seemed to hang over everything.  So used was I
to this choking state of things that until that moment I never noticed
it.  Then I quickly rose and opened the window with a word of apology
that the place "smelt stuffy."

She glanced around the shabby, smoke-mellowed room, and declared that it
pleased her.  Of course bachelors had to shift for themselves a good
deal, she said, yet this place was not at all uncomfortable.  I told her
of my companion who shared the chambers with me, of his genius as a
journalist, and how merrily we kept house together, at which she was
much interested.  All girls are more or less interested in bachelors'
arrangements.

Our gossip drifted mostly into the bygones--of events at Harwell, and
the movements of various mutual friends, when suddenly Dick Cleugh burst
into the room crying--

"I say, old chap, there's another first-class horror!  Oh!  I beg your
pardon," he said in apology, drawing back on noticing Mary.  "I didn't
know you had a visitor; forgive me."

"Let me introduce you," I said, laughing at his sudden confusion.  "Mr.
Cleugh--Miss Blain."

The pair exchanged greetings, when Cleugh, with that merry good humour
that never deserted him, said--

"Ladies never come to our den, you know, Miss Blain; therefore please
forgive me for blaring like a bull.  Our old woman who cleans out the
kennels is as deaf as a post, therefore we have contracted a habit of
shouting."

"What is the horror of which you spoke?" she asked, with a forced laugh,
I was looking at her at that instant and noticed how unusually pale and
agitated her face had suddenly become.

"Oh, only a startling discovery in to-night's special," he answered.

"A discovery!" she gasped, "Where?"

He glanced at the paper still in his hand, while she bent forward in her
chair with an eagerness impossible of concealment.  Her cheeks were
pallid, her eyes dark, wild-looking and brilliant.

"The affair," he said, "seems to have taken place in Loampit Vale,
Lewisham."

"Ah!" she ejaculated, quite involuntarily giving vent to a sigh of
relief which Cleugh, quick and observant, did not fail to notice.

My friend threw the paper aside, sniffed at the odour of burnt meat, and
suggested that the Hag was endeavouring to asphyxiate us.

"The Hag!" exclaimed Mary, surprised.  "Who's the Hag!"

"Old Mrs. Joad," responded Dick.  "We call her that, first, because
she's so ugly; and secondly, because when she's cooking for us she
croons to herself like the Witch of Endor."

"She certainly is decidedly ugly with that cross-eye of hers.  It struck
me, too, that she had an ancient and witch-like aspect when she admitted
me," she laughed.

Thus we chatted on until the bell on the Hall struck seven and she rose
to go, first, however, inviting Dick to accompany me to Riverdene, an
invitation which he gladly accepted.  Then she bade him adieu and I
accompanied her out into Holborn, where I placed her in a taxi for
Waterloo.

On re-entering the room, Dick's first exclamation was--

"Did you notice how her face changed when I mentioned the horror?"

"Yes," I said.

"Her name's Blain, and I presume she's the daughter of Mrs. Blain who is
tenant of that house in Kensington?"

I nodded.

"An old flame of yours.  I remember now that you once spoke of her."

"Quite true."

"Well, old fellow," he said, "it was quite apparent when I mentioned the
tragedy that she feared the discovery had been made in Kensington.
Depend upon it she can, if she likes, tell us a good deal."

"Yes," I answered thoughtfully, "I agree with you entirely, Dick.  I
believe she can."

CHAPTER TEN.

ON THE SILENT HIGHWAY.

Whatever might have been Mary's object in thus renewing my acquaintance
at the very moment when I was about to seek her, one thing alone was
apparent--she feared the revelation of the tragic affair at Kensington.
There are times when men and women, whatever mastery they may possess
over their countenances, must involuntarily betray joy or fear in a
manner unmistakable.  Those sudden and entirely unintentional words of
Dick's had, for the moment, frozen her heart.  And yet it was incredible
that she could have any connexion with this affair, so inexplicable that
Superintendent Shaw, the chief of the Criminal Investigation Department
at Scotland Yard, had himself visited the house, and, according to what
Boyd had told me, had expressed himself utterly bewildered.

Next day passed uneventfully, but on the following afternoon we took
train to Shepperton, where at the station we found Simpson, the
chauffeur who had been at Shenley, awaiting us with a smart motor-car,
in which we drove along the white winding road to Riverdene.

Dick's description of the place was certainly not in the least
exaggerated when he had said that it was one of the most charming old
places on the Thames.  Approached from the highway by a long drive
through a thick belt of elms and beeches, it stood, a long,
old-fashioned house, covered with honeysuckle and roses, facing the
river, with a broad, well-kept lawn sloping down to the water's edge.
The gardens on either side were filled with bright flowers, the high
leafy trees overshadowed the house and kept it delightfully cool, and
the tent on the lawn and the several hammocks slung in the shadow
testified to the ease and repose of those who lived there.  Many
riparian residences had I seen during my frequent picnics and Sunday
excursions up and down the various reaches, but for picturesqueness,
perfect quiet and rural beauty, none could compare with this.  I had
expected to find a mere cottage, or at most a villa, the humble retreat
of a half-ruined man; yet on the contrary it was a fine house, furnished
with an elegance that was surprising, with men-servants and every
evidence of wealth.  City men, I reflected, made money fast, and without
doubt old Henry Blain had regained long ago all that he had lost.

How beautiful, how tranquil was that spot, how sweet-smelling that
wealth of trailing roses which entirely hid one-half the house after the
dust and stuffiness of Fleet Street, the incessant rattle of traffic,
and the hoarse shouting of "the winners."  Beyond the lawn, which we now
crossed to greet our hostess and her daughter, the river ran cool and
deep, with its surface unruffled, so that the high poplars on the
opposite bank were reflected into it with all their detail and colour as
in a mirror.  It was a warm afternoon, and during our drive the sun had
beat down upon us mercilessly, but here in the shadow all was
delightfully cool and refreshing.  The porch of the house facing the
river was one mass of yellow roses, which spread their fragrance
everywhere.

Mrs. Blain was seated in a wicker chair with some needlework, while Mary
was lying in a _chaise-longue_ reading the latest novel from Mudie's,
and our footsteps falling noiselessly upon the turf, neither noticed our
approach until we stood before them.

"I'm so very pleased you've come, Frank," exclaimed the elder lady,
starting forward enthusiastically as she put down her work, "and I'm
delighted to meet your friend.  I have heard of you both several times
through your father.  I wonder he doesn't exchange his living with some
one.  He seems so very unwell of late.  I've always thought that Harwell
doesn't suit him."

"He has tried on several occasions, but the offers he has had are in
towns in the North of England, so he prefers Berkshire," I answered.

"Well," she said, inviting us both to be seated in comfortable wicker
chairs standing near, "it is really very pleasant to see you again.
Mary has spoken of you, and wondered how you were so many, many times."

"I'm sure," I said, "the pleasure is mutual."

Dick, after I had introduced him to Mrs. Blain, had seated himself at
Mary's side and was chatting to her, while I, leaning back in my chair,
looked at this woman before me and remembered the object of my visit.
There was certainly nothing in her face to arouse suspicion.  She was
perhaps fifty, with just a sign of grey hairs, dark-eyed, with a nose of
that type one associates with employers of labour.  A trifle inclined to
_embonpoint_, she was a typical, well-preserved Englishwoman of motherly
disposition, even though by birth she was of one of the first Shropshire
families, and in the days of Shenley she had been quite a prominent
figure in the May flutter of London.  I had liked her exceedingly, for
she had shown me many kindnesses.  Indeed, she had distinctly favoured
the match between Mary and myself, although her husband, a bustling,
busy man, had scouted the idea.  This Mary herself had told me long ago
in those dreamy days of sweet confidences.  The thought that she was in
any way implicated in the mysterious affair under investigation seemed
absolutely absurd, and I laughed within myself.

She was dressed, as she always had dressed after luncheon, in black
satin duchesse, a quiet elegance which I think rather created an
illusion that she was stout, and as she arranged her needlework aside in
order to chat to me, she sighed as matronly ladies are wont to sigh
during the drowsy after-luncheon hours.

From time to time I turned and laughed with Mary as she gaily sought my
opinion on this and on that.  She was dressed in dark blue serge trimmed
with narrow white braid, her sailor hat cast aside lying on the grass, a
smart river costume of a _chic_ familiar to me in the fashion-plates of
the ladies' papers.  As she lay back, her head pillowed on the cushion,
there was in her eyes that coquettish smile, and she laughed that
ringing musical laugh as of old.

A boatful of merrymakers went by, looking across, and no doubt envying
us our ease, for sculling out there in the blazing sun could scarcely be
a pleasure.  Judging from their appearance they were shop-assistants
making the best of the Thursday early-closing movement--a movement which
happily gives the slaves of suburban counters opportunity for healthful
recreation.  The boat was laden to overflowing, and prominent in the
bows was the inevitable basket of provisions and the tin kettle for
making tea.

"It's too hot, as yet, to go out," Mary said, watching them.  "We'll go
later."

"Very well," Dick answered.  "I shall be delighted.  I love the river,
but since my Cambridge days I've unfortunately had but little
opportunity for sculling."

"You newspaper men," observed Mrs. Blain, addressing me, "must have very
little leisure, I think.  The newspapers are always full.  Isn't it very
difficult to fill the pages?"

"No," I answered.  "That's a common error.  To every newspaper in the
kingdom there comes daily sufficient news of one sort or another to fill
three sheets the same size.  The duty of the journalist, if, of course,
he is not a reporter or leader-writer, is to make a judicious selection
as to what he shall publish and what he shall omit.  It is this that
wears out one's brains."

"But the reporters," she continued--"I mean those men who go and hunt up
details of horrors, crimes and such things--are they well paid?"

That struck me as a strange question, and I think I must have glanced at
her rather inquiringly.

"They are paid as well as most professions are paid nowadays," I
answered.  "Better, perhaps, than some."

"And their duty is to make inquiries and scrape up all kinds of details,
just like detectives, I've heard it said.  Is that so?"

"Exactly," I replied.  "One of the cleverest men in that branch of
journalism is our friend here, Mr. Cleugh."

She looked at the man I indicated, and I thought her face went slightly
paler.  It may, however, only have been in my imagination.

"Is he really one of those?" she inquired in a low undertone.

"Yes," I responded.  "In all Fleet Street, he's the shrewdest man in
hunting out the truth.  He is the _Comet_ man, and may claim to have
originated the reporter-investigation branch of journalism."

She was silent for a few moments.  Lines appeared between her eyes.
Then she took up her needlework, as if to divert her thoughts.

"And Mr. Blain?"  I asked at last, in want of some better topic.  "How
is he?"

"Oh, busy as usual.  He's in Paris.  He went a fortnight ago upon
business connected with some company he is bringing out, and has not
been able to get back yet.  We shall join him for a week or two, only I
so much dislike the Channel crossing.  Besides, it is really very
pleasant here just now."

"Delightful," I answered, looking round upon the peaceful scene.  At the
steps, opposite where we sat, was moored a motor-boat, together with
Mary's punt, a light wood one with crimson cushions, while behind us was
a well-kept tennis-court.

Tea was brought after we had gossiped nearly an hour, and while we were
taking it a boat suddenly drew up at the landing-stage, being hailed by
Mary, who jumped up enthusiastically to welcome its occupants.  These
were two young men of rather dandified air and a young girl of twenty,
smartly dressed, but not at all good-looking, whom I afterwards learnt
was sister to the elder of her companions.  When the boat was at last
moored, and the trio landed amid much shouting and merriment, I was
introduced to them.  The name of sister and brother was Moberly, a
family who lived somewhere up beyond Bell Weir, and their companion was
a guest at their house.

"We thought we'd just catch you at tea, Mrs. Blain," cried Doris Moberly
as she sprang ashore.  "And we are so frightfully thirsty."

"Come along, then," said the elder lady.  "Sit down, my dear.  We have
it all ready."

And so the three joined us, and the circle quickly became a very merry
one.

"They kept us so long in the lock that I feared tea would be all over
before we arrived," young Moberly said, with a rather affected drawl.
He appeared to be one of those young sprigs of the city who travel
first-class, read the _Times_, and ape the aristocrat.

"Yes," Doris went on, "there was a slight collision between a barge and
a launch, resulting in lots of strong language, and that delayed us,
otherwise we should have been here half an hour ago."

"Did you call on the Binsteads?"  Mary asked.  "You know their
house-boat, the _Flame_?  It's moored just at the bend, half-way between
the Lock and Staines Bridge."

"We passed it, but the blinds were down.  They were evidently taking a
nap.  So we didn't hail them," Doris responded.

Then the conversation drifted upon river topics, as it always drifts
with those who spend the summer days idling about the upper reaches of
the Thames--of punts, motor-launches, and sailing; of the prospects of
regattas and the dresses at Sunbury Lock on the previous Sunday.  They
were all river enthusiasts, and river enthusiasm is a malady extremely
contagious with those doomed to spend the dog-days gasping in a dusty
office in stifled London.

After tea followed tennis as a natural sequence, and while Moberly and
his sister played with Dick and the youth who had accompanied the
Moberlys, Mary and I wandered away into the wood which skirted the
grounds of Riverdene.  She was bright and merry, quite her old self of
Shenley days, save perhaps for a graver look which now and then came to
her eyes.  She showed me the extent of their grounds and led me down a
narrow path in the dark shadow to the bank to show me a nest of
kingfishers.  The spot was so peaceful and rural that one could scarcely
believe one's self but twenty miles from London.  The kingfisher,
startled by our presence, flashed by us like a living emerald in the
sunlight; black-headed buntings flitted alongside among the reeds, and
the shy sedge warbler poured out his chattering imitations, while here
and there we caught sight of moor-hens down in the sedge.

She had, I found, developed a love for fishing, for she took me further
down where the willows trailed into the stream, and pointed out the
swirl over the gravel where trout were known to lie, showed me a
bush-shaped depth where she had caught many a big perch, and a long swim
where, she said, were excellent roach.

"And you are happier here than you were at Shenley?"  I inquired, as we
were strolling back together, both bareheaded, she with her hat swinging
in her hand.

"Happy?  Oh, yes," and she sighed, with her eyes cast upon the ground.

"That sigh of yours does not denote happiness," I remarked, glancing at
her.  "What troubles you?"

"Nothing," she declared, looking up at me with a forced smile.

"It is puzzling to me, Mary," I said seriously, "that in all this time
you've not married.  You were engaged, yet it was broken off.  Why?"

At my demand she answered, with a firmness that surprised me, "I will
never marry a man I don't love--never."

"Then it was at your father's suggestion--that proposed marriage of
yours?"

"Of course, I hated him."

"Surely it was unwise to allow the announcement to get into the papers,
wasn't it?"

"It was my father's doing, not mine," she responded.  "When it was
broken off I hastened to publish the contradiction."

"On reading the first announcement," I said, "I imagined that you had at
length found a man whom you loved, and that you would marry and be
happy.  I am sure I regret that it is not so."

"Why?" she asked, regarding me with some surprise.  "Do you wish to see
me married, then?"

"Not to a man you cannot love," I hastened to assure her.  I was trying
to learn from her the reason of her sudden renewed friendship and
confidence, yet she was careful not to refer to it.  Her extreme care in
this particular was, in itself, suspicious.

Her effort at coquetry when at my chambers two days before made it
apparent that she was prepared to accept my love, if I so desired.  Yet
the remembrance of Eva Glaslyn was ever in my mind.  This woman at my
side had once played me false, and had caused a rent in my heart which
was difficult to heal.  She was pretty and charming, without doubt, yet
she had never been frank, even in those long-past days at Shenley.  Once
again I told myself that the only woman I had looked upon with thoughts
of real genuine affection was the mysterious Eva, whom once, with my own
eyes, I had seen cold and dead.  When I reflected upon the latter fact I
became puzzled almost to the verge of madness.

Yet upon me, situated as I was, devolved the duty of solving the enigma.

Life, looked at philosophically, is a long succession of chances.  It is
a game of hazard played by the individual against the multiform forces
to which we give the name of "circumstance," with cards whose real
strength is always either more or less than their face value, and which
are "packed" and "forced" with an astuteness which would baffle the
wiliest sharper.  There are times in the game when the cards held by the
mortal player have no value at all, when what seem to us kings, queens,
and aces change to mere blanks; there are other moments when ignoble
twos and threes flush into trumps and enable us to triumphantly sweep
the board.  Briefly, life is a game of roulette wherein we always play
_en plein_.

As, walking at her side, I looked into her handsome face there came upon
me a feeling of mournful disappointment.

Had we met like this a week before and she had spoken so softly to me I
should, I verily believe, have repeated my declaration of love.  But the
time had passed, and all had changed.  My gaze had been lost in the
immensity of a pair of wondrous azure eyes.  I, who tired before my
time, world-weary, despondent and cynical, was angry and contemptuous at
the success of my companions, had actually awakened to a new desire for
life.

So I allowed this woman I had once loved to chatter on, listening to her
light gossip, and now and then putting a question to her with a view to
learning something of her connexion with that house of mystery.  Still
she told me nothing--absolutely nothing.  Without apparent intention she
evaded any direct question I put to her, and seemed brimming over with
good spirits and merriment.

"It has been quite like old times to have a stroll and a chat with you,
Frank," she declared, as we emerged at last upon the lawn, where tennis
was still in progress.  The sun was now declining, the shadows
lengthening, and a refreshing wind was already beginning to stir the
tops of the elms.

"Yes," I laughed.  "Of our long walks around Harwell I have many
pleasant recollections.  Do you remember how secretly we used to meet,
fearing the anger of your people; how sometimes I used to wait hours for
you, and how we used to imagine that our love would last always?"

"Oh, yes," she answered.  "I recollect, too, how I used to send you
notes down by one of the stable lads, and pay him with sweets."

I laughed again.

"All that has gone by," I said.  "In those days of our experience we
believed that our mutual liking was actual love.  Even if we now smile
at our recollections, they were, nevertheless, the happiest hours of all
our lives.  Love is never so fervent and devoted as in early youth."

"Ah!" she answered in a serious tone.  "You are quite right.  I have
never since those days known what it is to really love."

I glanced at her sharply.  Her eyes were cast upon the ground in sudden
melancholy.

Was that speech of hers a veiled declaration that she loved me still!  I
held my breath for an instant, then looking straight before me, saw,
standing a few yards away, in conversation with Mrs. Blain, a female
figure in a boating costume of cream flannel braided with coral pink.

"Look?"  I exclaimed, glad to avoid responding.  "You have another
visitor, I think."

She glanced in the direction I indicated, then hastened forward to greet
the new-comer.

The slim-waisted figure turned, and next second I recognised the
strikingly handsome profile of Eva Glaslyn, the mysterious woman I
secretly loved with such passionate ardour and affection.

"Come, Frank, let me introduce you," Mary cried, after enthusiastically
kissing her friend.

I stepped forward, and as I did so, she turned and fixed on me her
large, blue laughing eyes.  Not a look, not an expression of her pure
countenance was altered.

As I gazed into those eyes I saw that they were as dear as the purest
crystal, and that I could look through them straight into her very soul.
I bowed and grasped the tiny, refined hand she held forth to me--that
soft hand which I had once before touched--when it was cold and
lifeless.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

BEAUTY AT THE HELM.

Together we stood on the lawn near the river-bank gossiping, and as I
looked into Eva's flawless face, whereon the expression had now become
softened, I longed to tell her the most sacred secret of my heart.  Had
she, I wondered, recognised in me the man she encountered in St. James's
Park when on that mysterious errand of hers?  What could have been the
nature of that errand?  Whom did she go there to meet?

One fact was at that moment to me more curious than all others, namely,
her friendship with Mrs. Blain, the woman who, according to the
landlord, rented that house of mystery.  By the exercise of care and
discretion, I might, I told myself, learn something which would perhaps
lead, if not to the solution of the enigma, then to some clue upon which
the police might work.  But to accomplish this I should be compelled to
exercise the most extreme caution, for both mother and daughter were
evidently acute to detect any attempt to gain their secret, while it
seemed more than probable that Eva herself--if actually aware of the
affair, which was, of course, not quite certain--had some motive in
keeping all knowledge of it concealed.

Who, a hundred times I wondered, was the man who, after lingering
opposite Buckingham Palace, had entered the house in Ebury Street?
Without doubt Eva had gone to the park to meet him, but it seemed that,
growing impatient, or fearful of recognition by others, she had left
before his arrival.

True, the police had watched the house wherein the man disappeared, but
up to the present he had not been seen again.  Boyd had told me, when I
had seen him that very morning, that he had left by some exit at the
rear, and that his entry there was only to throw any watcher off the
scent.

It was evident that the man, whoever he was, had very ingeniously got
clear away.

Dick, who was playing tennis, at last came forward to be introduced to
my divinity, and presently whispered to me his great admiration for her.
I was about to tell him who she really was, but on reflection felt that
I could act with greater discretion if the truth remained mine alone,
together with the secret of my love for her.  Therefore I held my peace,
and he, in ignorance that she was the missing victim of that amazing
tragedy, walked at her side along the water's edge, laughing merrily,
and greatly enjoying her companionship.

Mrs. Blain invited us all to dine, but the Moberlys were compelled to
decline, they having a party of friends at home.  Therefore, we saw them
off amid many shouts, hand-wavings and peals of laughter, and when they
had gone we sat again on the lawn, now brilliant in the golden blaze of
sundown.

It still wanted an hour to dinner, therefore Mary suggested that we all
four should go out on the water, a proposal accepted with mutual
enthusiasm.  As I was not an expert in punting, Mary and Dick pushed off
in the punt, the former handling the long pole with a deftness acquired
by constant practice, while, with Eva Glaslyn in the stern of a gig, I
rolled up my sleeves and bent to the oars.

The sunset was one of those gorgeous combinations of crimson and gold
which those who frequent the Thames know so well.  Upstream the flood of
crimson of the dying day caused the elms and willows to stand out black
against the cloudless sky, while every ripple caused by the boat caught
the sun-glow until the water seemed red as blood.

A great peace was there.  Not a single boat was in sight, not a sound
save the quiet lapping of the water against the bows and the slight
dripping of the oars as I feathered them.  We were rowing upstream, so
that the return would be easier, while Dick and his companion had punted
down towards Chertsey.  For the first time I was now alone with her.
She was lovely.

She had settled herself lazily among the cushions, lying back at her
ease and enjoying to the full the calm of the sunset hour, remarking now
and then upon the beauty of the scene and the charm of summer days
upstream.  Her countenance was animated and perfect in feature,
distinctly more beautiful than it had been on that well-remembered night
when I had found her lying back cold and lifeless.  How strange it all
was, I thought, that I should actually be rowing her there, when only a
few days before I had beheld her stiff and dead.  Alone, with no one to
overhear, I would have put a direct inquiry to her regarding the past,
but I feared that such question, if put prematurely, might prevent the
elucidation of the secret.  To get at the truth I must act
diplomatically, and exercise the greatest caution.

I sat facing her, bending with the oars, while she chatted on in a voice
that sounded as music to my ears.

"I love the river," she said.  "Last year we had a house-boat up beyond
Boulter's, and it was delightful.  There is really great fun in being
boxed up in so small a space, and one can also make one's place
exceedingly artistic and comfortable at very small expense.  We had a
ripping time."

"It is curious," I remarked, "that most owners of house-boats go in for
the same style of external decoration--rows of geraniums along the roof,
and strings of Chinese lanterns--look at that one over there."

"Yes," she laughed, glancing in the direction I indicated.  "I fear we
were also sinners in that respect.  It's so difficult to devise anything
new."  And she added, "Are you up the river much?"

"No," I responded, "not much, unfortunately.  My profession keeps me in
London, and I generally like to spend my three weeks' vacation on the
Continent.  I'm fond of getting a glance at other cities, and one
travels so quickly that the thing is quite easy."

"There are always more girls than men up the river," she said.  "I
suppose it is because men are at business and girls have to kill time.
We live down at Hampton, not far from the river.  It's a quiet,
dead-alive sort of place, and if it were not for boating and punting it
would be horribly dull."

"And in winter?"

"Oh, in winter we are always on the Riviera.  We go to Cannes each
December and stay till the end of April.  Mother declares she could not
live through an English winter."

This statement did not coincide with what the innkeeper's wife had told
me, namely, that the Glaslyns were much pressed for money.

"I spent one season in Nice a few years ago," I said.  "It is certainly
charming, and I hope to go there again."

"But is not our own Thames, with all its natural picturesqueness, quite
as beautiful in its way?" she asked, looking around.  "I love it.
People who have been up the Rhine and the Rhone, the Moselle and the
Loire, say that for picturesque scenery none of those great European
rivers compare with ours."

"I believe that to be quite true," I answered.  "Like yourself, I am
extremely fond of boating and picnicking."

"We often have picnics," she said.  "I'll get mother to invite you to
the next--if you'll come."

"Certainly," I answered, much gratified.  "I shall be only too
delighted."

We were at that moment passing two fine house-boats moored near one
another, one of which my companion explained belonged to a well-known
City stockbroker, and the other to a barrister of repute at the Chancery
Bar.  Both were gay with the usual geraniums and creepers, having
inviting-looking deck-chairs on the roof and canaries in gilded cages
hanging at the windows.

"Shall we go up the backwater?" she suddenly suggested.  "It is more
beautiful there than the main stream.  We might get some lilies."

"Of course," I answered, and with a pull to the left turned the boat
into the narrower stream branching out at the left, a stream that wound
among fertile meadows yellow with buttercups, and where long lines of
willows trailed in the water.

I was hot after a pretty stiff pull; therefore, when we had gone some
distance, I leaned on the oars, allowing the boat to drift on under the
bank where the long rushes waved in the stream and the pure white of the
water-lilies showed against the dark green of floating leaves.  Heedless
of the rudder-lines, Eva leaned over and gathered some, trailing her
hand in the water.

"How quiet and pleasant it is here," she remarked, her calm, sweet,
beautiful face showing what a great peace had come to her at that
moment.  It may not have been quite in keeping with the _convenances_
that she should have gone out like this alone with me, a comparative
stranger, yet girls of to-day think little of such things, and she was
nothing if not modern in dress, speech and frankness of manner.

We were far from the haunts of men in that calm hour of the dying day.
Indeed, already the crimson of the sun was fading into the rose of the
afterglow, and the stillness precursory of nightfall was complete save
for the rustle of some water-rat or otter among the sedge, or the swift
flight of a night-bird across the bosom of the stream.  The shadows were
changing and the glow on the water was turning from one colour to
another.  The cattle had come down to the brink, and wading to their
knees, whisked the flies away with their tails as they slowly chewed the
cud.

"Yes," I agreed.  "There is rest, perfect and complete, here.  How
different to London!"

"Ah, yes," she answered.  "I hate London, and very seldom go there,
except when necessity compels us to do shopping."

"Why do you hate it?"  I asked, at once pricking up my ears.  "Have you
any especial reason for disliking it?"

"Well, no," she laughed.  "I suppose it's the noise and bustle and hurry
that I don't like.  I'm essentially a lover of the country.  Even
theatres, concerts and such-like amusements have but little attraction
for me.  I know it sounds rather absurd that a girl should make such a
declaration, but I assure you I speak the truth."

I did not doubt her.  Any one with an open face like hers could not be
guilty of lying.  That statement was, in itself, an index to her
character.  She possessed a higher mind than most women, and was
something of a philosopher.  Truth to tell, this fact surprised me, for
I had until then regarded her as of the usual type of the educated woman
of to-day, a woman with a penchant for smartness in dress, freedom of
language, and the entertainment of the modern music-hall in preference
to opera.

I was gratified by my discovery.  She was a woman with a soul beyond
these things, with a sweet, lovable disposition--a woman far above all
others.  She was my idol.  In those moments my love increased to a mad
passion, and I longed to imprint a kiss upon those smiling lips, and to
take her in my arms to tell her the secret that I dared not allow to
pass my lips.

She leaned backwards on the cushions; her hands were tightly clasped
behind her head; her sleeves fell back, showing her well-moulded arms;
her sweet, childlike face was turned upward, with her blue eyes watching
me through half-closed lids; her small mouth was but half shut; she
smiled a little.

It entranced me to look upon her.  For the first time the loveliness of
a woman had made me blind and stupid.

I wanted to know more of the cause of her dislike of London, for I had
scented suspicion in her words.  Nevertheless, through all, she
preserved a slight rigidity of manner, and I feared to put any further
question at that moment.

Thus we rested in silence, dreaming in the darkening hour.

I sat facing her, glancing furtively at her countenance and wondering
how she had become a victim in that inexplicable tragedy.  By what means
had she been spirited from that mysterious house and another victim
placed there in her stead?  All was an enigma, insoluble, inscrutable.

To be there with her, to exchange confidences as we had done, and to
chat lightly upon river topics all gave me the greatest gratification.
To have met her thus was an unexpected stroke of good fortune, and I was
overjoyed by her spontaneous promise to invite me to one of their own
river-parties.

Joy is the sunshine of the soul.  At that restful hour I drank in the
sweetness of her eyes, for I was in glamour-land, and my companion was
truly enchanting.

We must have remained there fully half an hour, for when I suddenly
looked at my watch and realised that we must in any case be late for
dinner, the light in the wild red heavens had died away, the soft pale
rose-pink had faded, and in the stillness of twilight there seemed a
wide, profound mystery.

"We must be getting back," I said quickly, pulling the boat out into
mid-stream with a long stroke.

"Yes.  The Blains will wonder wherever we've been," she laughed.  "Mary
will accuse you of flirting with me."

"Would that be such a very grave accusation?"  I asked, smiling.

"Ah, that I really don't know," she answered gaily.  "You would be the
accused."

"But neither of us are guilty, therefore we can return with absolutely
clear consciences, can't we?"

"Certainly," she laughed.  Then, after a brief pause, she asked, "Why
did you not bring Mary out in preference to me?"

"Why do you ask?"  I inquired in surprise.

"Well--it would be only natural, as you are engaged to her."

"Engaged to her?"  I echoed.  "I'm certainly not engaged to Mary Blain."

"Aren't you?" she exclaimed.  "I always understood you were."

"Oh, no," I said.  "We are old friends.  We were boy and girl together,
but that is all."

Her great blue eyes opened with a rather bewildered air, and she
exclaimed--

"How strange that people should make such a mistake!  I had long ago
heard of you as Mary's future husband."

Then again we were silent, both pondering deeply.  Had this remark of
hers been mere guess-work?  Was this carefully-concealed question but a
masterstroke of woman's ingenuity to ascertain whether I loved Mary
Blain?  It seemed very likely to be so.  But she was so frank in all
that I could not believe it of her.  No doubt she had heard some story
of our long-past love, and it had been exaggerated into an engagement,
as such stories are so often apt to be.

Soon we emerged from the backwater into the main stream, and with our
bow set in the direction of Laleham I rowed down with the current
without loss of time.  The twilight had fast deepened into dusk; the
high poplars and drooping willows along the bank had grown dark, though
the broad surface of the stream, eddying here and there where a fish
rose, was still of a blue steely hue, and far away upstream only a long
streak of grey showed upon the horizon.  The stars shone down in the
first faint darkness of the early night.  Presently I glanced behind me,
and in the distance saw a yellow ray, which my companion, well versed in
river geography, told me was a light in one of the windows of Riverdene.

It had grown quite chilly, and the meadows were wreathed in faint white
mist, therefore I spurted forward, and soon brought the boat up to the
steps.

I knew that the world now held nothing for me but Eva.

When we entered the dining-room, a fine apartment with the table laid
with shining plate, decorated with flowers, and illuminated with
red-shaded candles, we were greeted, as we expected, by a loud and
rather boisterous welcome by Dick and Mary.  We were, of course, full of
apologies, being nearly half an hour late.  But up-river dinner is a
somewhat movable feast, so Mrs. Blain quickly forgave us, and while I
sat by Mary on her one hand, Dick seated himself at Eva's side.

Gaily we gossiped through a merry meal, washed down with a real
Berncastel, and followed by old port, coffee, and curacoa.  Yet my mind
was full of strange apprehensions.  What possible connexion could these
three women have with that crime which the police were withholding from
the public?  That they were all three aware that a tragedy had taken
place seemed quite clear.  Yet all remained silent.

I had detected in Mrs. Blain's manner an anxiety and nervousness which I
had never before noticed, yet I refrained from putting any further
question to her, lest I might, by doing so, show my hand.  She could not
keep from her tone when she spoke to me a note of insincerity, which my
ear did not fail to detect.

Our conversation over dessert turned upon dogs, the performances of
Mary's pug having started the discussion, and quite inadvertently Dick,
whose mind seemed always centred upon his work, for he was nothing if
not an enthusiast, suddenly said--

"Dogs are now being used by the police to trace criminals.  There is no
better method when it can be accomplished, for a bloodhound will follow
a trail anywhere with unfailing accuracy, even after some hours."

"Do they actually use them now?" asked Mrs. Blain in a strained,
faltering voice, her wine-glass poised in her hand.

"Yes," he responded.  "They've been utilised with entire success in two
or three cases this week, not only in London, but in the provinces also.
They are unfailing, and will track the guilty one with an accuracy
that's absolutely astounding."

Eva and Mary exchanged quick glances across the table, while Mrs. Blain
sipped her wine and stirred uneasily in her chair.

I noticed that the colour had died out from the faces of all three, and
that in their blanched countenances was a look of mingled fear and
suspicion.

My friend had led that conversation with remarkable tact to quite an
unlooked-for result.

He lifted his eyes to mine for an instant and read my thoughts.  My mind
became filled with a presentiment of future ill.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE DEFORMED MAN'S STATEMENT.

Youth is as short as joy, and happiness vanishes like all else.  In the
mad hurry of life, however, we heed not such things.  We live only for
to-day.

On our way back to Waterloo that night Dick earnestly discussed the
situation.

"And what's your opinion now?"  I inquired, as he sat opposite me in the
corner of the railway carriage.

Dick smiled slightly.  "Both mother and daughter are connected with the
affair, and are in deadly fear," he replied decisively.  "While in the
punt with Mary Blain I had a long chat with her, and the conclusion I've
formed is that she knows all about it.  Besides, she was very anxious to
know your recent movements--what you had been doing during the past week
or so."

"I wonder whether she suspects?"

"No, I don't think so," he answered.  "Neither mother nor daughter dream
that we are in possession of the secret.  You see no one has returned to
the place since the fatal night, and, as nothing has appeared in the
papers, they naturally conclude that the affair has not yet been
discovered."

"They evidently devour almost every morning and evening paper as it
arrives down there.  Did you notice the heap of papers in the
morning-room?"  I asked.

"Of course.  I kept my eyes well open while there," he replied.  "Did it
strike you that the plate used at dinner was of exactly the same pattern
as that on the table at Phillimore Place, and further, that among a pile
of novels in the drawing-room was a book which one would not expect to
find in such a place--a work known mainly to toxicologists, for it deals
wholly with the potency of poisons?"

"No," I said in surprise, "I didn't notice either of those things."

"But I did," he went on reflectively.  "All these facts go to convince
me."

"Of what?"

"That we are working in the right direction to obtain a key to the
mystery," he responded.  Then suddenly he added: "By the way, that girl
Glaslyn is certainly very beautiful.  I envied you, old fellow, when you
took her for a row."

I smiled.  I had determined not to reveal to him her identity as the
woman whom I had first discovered lifeless, but his natural shrewdness
was far greater than mine.  He was a born investigator of crime, and had
not Fate placed him in a newspaper office, he would, I believe, have
become a renowned detective.

"Glaslyn?  Eva Glaslyn?" he repeated, as if to himself.  "Why, surely
that's the name of the girl you met in St. James's Park and followed to
Hampton--the woman whom you found dead on your first visit to the house
with Patterson?  Is that really so?" he cried, in sudden amazement.

I nodded, without replying.

"Then, Frank, old chap," he answered in the low, hoarse voice of one
utterly staggered, "this affair has assumed such a devilishly
complicated phase that I fear we shall never get at the truth.  To
approach any of those three women would only be to place them on their
guard, and without their assistance we can't possibly act with success."

"Then what do you suggest?"  I asked.

"Suggest?  I can suggest nothing," he answered.  "The complications on
every side are too great--far too great."

"Only Eva Glaslyn can assist us," I observed.  "Yes.  She alone can most
probably tell us the truth, but her friendship for the Blains is proof
positive that her secret is a guilty one, even though she was so near
being a victim."

"She was a victim," I declared.  "When I saw her she was apparently
lifeless, lying cold and still in the chair, with every appearance of
one dead.  But what causes you to think that her secret is a guilty
one?"  I asked hastily.

"The Blains undoubtedly are implicated in the matter, and she, their
friend, is in possession of their secret," he argued.  "As a victim, she
would be prompted to expose them if she did not fear exposure herself.
She's therefore held to enforced silence."

His argument was a very forcible one, and during the remainder of the
journey to London I sat back calmly reflecting upon it.  It was a theory
which had not before occurred to me, but I hesitated to accept it,
because I could not believe that upon this woman who held me beneath the
spell of her marvellous beauty could there rest any such hideous shadow
of guilt.  I remembered those clear blue eyes, that fair open
countenance, and that frank manner of speech, and refused to give
credence to my friend's allegation.

Slowly passed the days.  Summer heat increased and in London the
silk-hatted world had already turned their thoughts towards the open
fields and the sea-beach.  The summer holidays were drawing near at
hand.  How much that brief vacation of a week or fortnight means to the
toiling Londoner! and how much more to his ailing wife and puny family,
doomed to live year after year in the smoke-halo of some black, grimy
street into which the sun never seems to shine, or in some cheap,
crowded suburb where the jerry-built houses stand in long, inartistic,
parallel rows and the cheap streets swarm with unwashed, shouting
offspring!  I had arranged to take my holiday in winter and go down to
the Riviera, a treat I had long since promised myself, therefore both
Dick and I continued our work through those stifling days, obtaining
from Boyd every now and then the results of his latest inquiries.  These
results, it must be said, were absolutely nil.

I had agreed with Dick to keep our suspicions entirely to ourselves,
therefore we gave no information to Boyd, preferring to carry out our
inquiries in our own method rather than seeking his aid.  It was well,
perhaps, that we did this, for the police too often blunder by
displaying too great an energy.  I was determined if possible to protect
Eva.

At Riverdene, Dick and I were welcome guests and were often invited to
Sunday river-parties, thus showing that any suspicions entertained of us
in that quarter had been removed.  Time after time I had met Eva, and we
had on lots of occasions gone out on the river together, exploring over
and over again that winding shaded backwater, and picking lilies and
forget-me-nots at the spot where on that memorable evening we had first
exchanged confidences.

I had received no invitation to The Hollies, but she had apologised,
saying that the unusual heat had prostrated her mother, and that for the
present they had been compelled to abandon their picnics.  Many were the
afternoons and evenings I idled away in a deck-chair on that well-kept
lawn, or, accompanied by Mary, Eva, Cleugh and Fred Langdale, who, by
the way, turned out to be an insufferable, over-dressed "bounder" who
was continually dangling at Eva's skirts, we would go forth and pay
visits to various house-boats up and down stream.

Langdale looked upon me with a certain amount of jealousy, I think, and,
truth to tell, was not, as I had imagined, of the milk-and-water genus.
Eva seemed to regard him as a necessary evil, and used him as a tame
cat, a kind of body servant to fetch and carry for her.  From her
remarks to me, however, I had known full well from the first that there
was not a shadow of affection on her side.  She had explained how she
simply tolerated him because companions were few at Hampton and he was a
fairly good tennis player, while he, on his part, was unconsciously
making an arrant ass of himself in the eyes of all by his efforts to
cultivate a drawl that he deemed aristocratic, and to carefully
caressing his moustache in an upward direction.

Dick Cleugh, thorough-going Bohemian that he was, cared but little, I
believe, for those riparian gatherings.  True, he played tennis, rowed,
punted and ate the strawberries and cream with as great a zest as any of
us; nevertheless, I knew that he accepted the invitation with but one
object, and that he would far rather have strolled in one of the parks
with Lily Lowry than row Mary Blain up and down the stream.

Lily often came to our chambers.  She was about twenty-two, of a rather
Southern type of beauty, with a good figure, a graceful gait, and a
decidedly London _chic_.  She spoke, however, with that nasal twang
which stamps the true South Londoner, and her expressions were not
absolutely devoid of the slang of the Newington Butts.  Yet withal she
was a quiet, pleasant girl.

Thus half the month of July went by practically without incident, until
one blazing day at noon, when, I went forth into Fleet Street for lunch,
I unexpectedly encountered Dick, hot and hurrying, his hat tilted back.
He had left home very early that morning to work up some "startling
discovery" that had been made out at Plaistow, and already hoarse-voiced
men were crying the "Fourth _Comet_" with the "latest details" he had
unearthed.

In reply to his question as to where I was going, I told him that after
luncheon I had to go down to Walworth to make some trifling inquiry,
whereupon he said--

"Then I wish you'd do a favour for me, old fellow."

"Of course," I answered promptly.  "What is it?"

"Call at the Lowrys and tell Lily to meet me at Loughborough Junction at
eight to-night, at the usual place.  I want to take her to the Crystal
Palace to see the fire

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