The Avenger
by E. Phillips Oppenheim · English · Gutenberg #9871 · 439,182 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Avenger
Author: E. Phillips Oppenheim
Release date: February 1, 2006 [eBook #9871]
Most recently updated: June 29, 2015
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AVENGER ***
Produced by E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Mary
Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg
[Illustration: frontispiece]
THE AVENGER
BY E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
Author of
"The Master Mummer," "A Maker of History,"
"The Malefactor," "The Lost Leader,"
"The Great Secret," Etc.
_Illustrated by_
ALEC BALL
1908
CONTENTS
I. A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR
II. THE HORROR OF THE HANSOM
III. DISCUSSING THE CRIME
IV. UNDER A CLOUD
V. ON THE TELEPHONE
VI. ONE THOUSAND POUNDS' REWARD
VII. THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER
VIII. THE BARONESS INTERVENES
IX. A BOX AT THE ALHAMBRA
X. OUTCAST
XI. FALSE SENTIMENT
XII. TIDINGS FROM THE CAPE
XIII. SEARCHING THE CHAMBERS
XIV. THE DEAD MAN'S BROTHER
XV. THE LAWYER'S SUGGESTION
XVI. A DINNER IN THE STRAND
XVII. A CONFESSION OF LOVE
XVIII. AN AMATEUR DETECTIVE
XIX. DESPERATE WOOING
XX. STABBED THROUGH THE HEART
XXI. THE FLIGHT OF LOUISE
XXII. THE CHÂTEAU OF ÉTARPE
XXIII. A PASSIONATE PILGRIM
XXIV. AN INVITATION TO DINNER
XXV. THE MAN IN THE YELLOW BOOTS
XXVI. MADAME DE MELBAIN
XXVII. THE SPY
XXVIII. THE SCENE IN THE AVENUE
XXIX. A SUBSTANTIAL GHOST
XXX. THE QUEEN OF MEXONIA
XXXI. RETURNED FROM THE TOMB
XXXII. AT THE HÔTEL SPLENDIDE
XXXIII. A HAND IN THE GAME
XXXIV. AN ILL-ASSORTED COUPLE
XXXV. HIS WIFE
XXXVI. THE MURDERED MAN'S EFFECTS
XXXVII. THE WIDOW'S ULTIMATUM
XXXVIII. INEFFECTUAL WOOING
XXXIX. THE COLONEL'S MISSION
XL. BLACKMAIL
XLI. THE COLONEL SPEAKS
XLII. LOVE REMAINS
ILLUSTRATIONS
"THERE PLASHED ACROSS HER FACE A QUIVER, AS THOUGH OF PAIN"
"AT THE SIGHT OF THE TWO MEN, THE BARONESS STOPPED SHORT"
"HE WAS THERE ON HIS KNEES, WITH HIS ARMS AROUND THE TERRIFIED WOMAN"
"'TO THE NEAREST POLICE STATION! THAT'S WHERE I'M OFF.'"
CHAPTER I
A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR
The man and the woman stood facing one another, although in the uncertain
firelight which alone illuminated the room neither could see much save
the outline of the other's form. The woman stood at the further end of
the apartment by the side of the desk--his desk. The slim trembling
fingers of one hand rested lightly upon it, the other was hanging by her
side, nervously crumpling up the glove which she had only taken off a few
minutes before. The man stood with his back to the door through which he
had just entered. He was in evening dress; he carried an overcoat over
his arm, and his hat was slightly on the back of his head. A cigarette
was still burning between his lips, the key by means of which he had
entered was swinging from his little finger. So far no words had passed
between them. Both were apparently stupefied for the moment by the
other's unexpected presence.
It was the man who recovered his self-possession first. He threw his
overcoat into a chair, and touched the brass knobs behind the door.
Instantly the room was flooded with the soft radiance of the electric
lights. They could see one another now distinctly. The woman leaned a
little forward, and there was amazement as well as fear flashing in her
soft, dark eyes. Her voice, when she spoke, sounded to herself unnatural.
To him it came as a surprise, for the world of men and women was his
study, and he recognized at once its quality.
"Who are you?" she exclaimed. "What do you want?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"It seems to me," he answered, "that I might more fittingly assume the
role of questioner. However, I have no objection to introduce myself. My
name is Herbert Wrayson. May I ask," he continued with quiet sarcasm, "to
what I am indebted for this unexpected visit?"
She was silent for a moment, and as he watched her his surprise grew.
Equivocal though her position was, he knew very well that this was no
ordinary thief whom he had surprised in his rooms, engaged to all
appearance in rifling his desk. The fact that she was a beautiful woman
was one which he scarcely took into account. There were other things more
surprising which he could not ignore. Her evening dress of black net was
faultlessly made, and he knew enough of such things to be well aware that
it came from the hands of no ordinary dressmaker. A string of pearls, her
only ornament, hung from her neck, and her black hat with its drooping
feathers was the fellow of one which he had admired a few evenings ago at
the Ritz in Paris. It flashed upon him that this was a woman of
distinction, one who belonged naturally, if not in effect, to the world
of which even he could not claim to be a habitant. What was she doing in
his rooms?--of what interest to her were he and his few possessions?
"Herbert Wrayson," she repeated, leaning a little towards him. "If your
name is Herbert Wrayson, what are you doing in these rooms?"
"They happen to be mine," he answered calmly.
"Yours!"
She picked up a small latch-key from the desk.
"This is number 11, isn't it?" she asked quickly.
"No! Number 11 is the flat immediately overhead," he told her.
She appeared unconvinced.
"But I opened the door with this key," she declared.
"Mr. Barnes and I have similar locks," he said. "The fact remains that
this is number 9, and number 11 is one story overhead."
She drew a long breath, presumably of relief, and moved a step forward.
"I am very sorry!" she declared. "I have made a mistake. You must please
accept my apologies."
He stood motionless in front of the door. He was pale, clean-shaven, and
slim, and in his correct evening clothes he seemed a somewhat ordinary
type of the well-bred young Englishman. But his eyes were grey, and his
mouth straight and firm.
She came to a standstill. Her eyes seemed to be questioning him. She
scarcely understood his attitude.
"Kindly allow me to pass!" she said coldly.
"Presently!" he answered.
Her veil was still raised, and the flash of her eyes would surely have
made a weaker man quail. But Wrayson never flinched.
"What do you mean by that?" she demanded. "I have explained my presence
in your room. It was an accident which I regret. Let me pass at once."
"You have explained your presence here," he answered, "after a fashion!
But you have not explained what your object may be in making use of that
key to enter Mr. Barnes' flat. Are you proposing to subject his
belongings to the same inspection as mine?" he asked, pointing to his
disordered desk.
"My business with Mr. Barnes is no concern of yours!" she exclaimed
haughtily.
"Under ordinary circumstances, no!" he admitted. "But these are not
ordinary circumstances. Forgive me if I speak plainly. I found you
engaged in searching my desk. The presumption is that you wish to do the
same thing to Mr. Barnes'."
"And if I do, sir!" she demanded, "what concern is it of yours? How do
you know that I have not permission to visit his rooms--that he did not
himself give me this key?"
She held it out before him. He glanced at it and back into her face.
"The supposition," he said, "does not commend itself to me."
"Why not?"
He looked at the clock.
"You see," he declared, "that it is within a few minutes of midnight. To
be frank with you, you do not seem to me the sort of person likely to
visit a bachelor such as Mr. Barnes, in a bachelor flat, at this hour,
without some serious object."
She kept silence for several moments. Her bosom was rising and falling
quickly, and a brilliant spot of colour was burning in her cheeks. Her
head was thrown a little back, she was regarding him with an intentness
which he found almost disconcerting. He had an uncomfortable sense that
he was in the presence of a human being who, if it had lain in her
power, would have killed him where he stood. Further, he was realizing
that the woman whom at first glance he had pronounced beautiful, was
absolutely the first of her sex whom he had ever seen who satisfied
completely the demands of a somewhat critical and highly cultivated
taste. The silence between them seemed extended over a time crowded and
rich with sensations. He found time to marvel at the delicate whiteness
of her bosom, gleaming like polished ivory under the network of her black
gown, to appreciate with a quick throb of delight the slim roundness of
her perfect figure, the wonderful poise of her head, the soft richness of
her braided hair. Every detail of feature and of toilet seemed to satisfy
to the last degree each critical faculty of which he was possessed. He
felt a little shiver of apprehension when he recalled the cold brutality
of the words which had just left his lips! Yet how could he deal with her
differently?
"Is this man--Morris Barnes--your friend?" she asked, breaking a silence
which had done more than anything else to unnerve him.
"No!" he answered. "I scarcely know the man. I have never seen him except
in the lift, or on the stairs."
"Then you have no excuse for keeping me here," she declared. "I may be
his friend, or I may be his enemy. At least I possess the key of his
flat, presumably with his permission. My presence here I have explained.
I can assure you that it is entirely accidental! You have no right to
detain me for a moment."
The clock on the mantelpiece struck midnight. A sudden passion surged in
his veins, a passion which, although at the time he could not have
classified it, was assuredly a passion of jealousy! He remembered the man
Barnes, whom he hated.
"You shall not go to his rooms--at this hour!" he exclaimed. "You don't
know the man! If you were seen--"
She laughed mockingly.
"Let me pass!" she insisted.
He hesitated. She saw very clearly that she was conquering. A moment
before she had respected this man. After all, though, he was like
the others.
"I will go with you and wait outside," he said doggedly. "Barnes, at this
hour--is not always sober!"
Her lips curled.
"Be wise," she said, "and let me go. I do not need your protection or--"
She broke off suddenly. The interruption was certainly startling
enough. From a table only a few feet off came the shrill tinkle of a
telephone bell. Wrayson mechanically stepped backwards and took the
receiver into his hand.
"Who is it?" he asked.
The voice which answered him was faint but clear. It seemed to Wrayson to
come from a long way off.
"Is that Mr. Wrayson's flat in Cavendish Mansions?" it asked.
"Yes!" Wrayson answered. "Who are you?"
"I am a friend of Mr. Morris Barnes," the voice answered. "May I
apologize for calling you up, but the matter is urgent. Can you tell me
if Mr. Barnes is in?"
"I am not sure, but I believe he is never in before one or two o'clock,"
Wrayson answered.
"Will you write down a message and leave it in his letter-box?" the
voice asked anxiously. "It is very important or I would not trouble you."
"Very well," Wrayson answered. "What is it?"
"Tell him instantly he returns to leave his flat and go to the Hotel
Francis. A friend is waiting there for him, the friend whom he has been
expecting!"
"A lady?" Wrayson remarked a little sarcastically.
"No!" the voice answered. "A friend. Will you do this? Will you promise
to do it?"
"Very well," Wrayson said. "Who are you, and where are you ringing up
from?"
"Remember you have promised!" was the only reply.
"All right! Tell me your name," Wrayson demanded.
No answer. Wrayson turned the handle of the instrument viciously.
"Exchange," he asked, "who was that talking to me just now?"
"Don't know," was the prompt answer. "We can't remember all the calls we
get. Ring off, please!"
Wrayson laid down the receiver and turned round with a sudden sense of
apprehension. There was a feeling of emptiness in the room. He had not
heard a sound, but he knew very well what had happened. The door was
slightly open and the room was empty. She had taken advantage of his
momentary absorption to slip away.
He stepped outside and stood by the lift, listening. The landing was
deserted, and there was no sound of any one moving anywhere. The lift
itself was on the ground floor. It had not ascended recently or he must
have heard it. He returned to his room and softly closed the door. Again
the sense of emptiness oppressed him. A faint perfume around the place
where she had stood came to him like a whiff of some delicious memory. He
set his teeth, lit a cigarette, and sitting down at his desk wrote a few
lines to his neighbour, embodying the message which had been given him.
With the note in his hand he ascended to the next floor.
There was apparently no light in flat number 11, but he rang the bell and
listened. There was no answer, no sound of any one moving within. For
nearly ten minutes he waited--listening. He was strongly tempted to open
the door with his own key and see for himself if she was there. Then he
remembered that Barnes was a man whom he barely knew, and cordially
disliked, and that if he should return unexpectedly, the situation would
be a little difficult to explain. Reluctantly he descended to his own
flat, and mixing himself a whisky and soda, lit a pipe and sat down,
determined to wait until he heard Barnes return. In less than a quarter
of an hour he was asleep!
CHAPTER II
THE HORROR OF THE HANSOM
Wrayson sat up with a sudden and violent start. His pipe had fallen on to
the floor, leaving a long trail of grey ash upon his waistcoat and
trousers. The electric lights were still burning, but of the fire nothing
remained but a pile of ashes. As soon as he could be said to be conscious
of anything, he was conscious of two things. One was that he was
shivering with cold, the other that he was afraid.
Wrayson was by no means a coward. He had come once or twice in his life
into close touch with dangerous happenings, and conducted himself with
average pluck. He never attempted to conceal from himself, however, that
these few minutes were minutes of breathless, unreasoning fear. His heart
was thumping against his side, and the muscles at the back of his neck
were almost numb as he slowly looked round the room. His eyes paused at
the door. It was slightly open, to his nervous fancy it seemed to be
shaking. His teeth chattered, he felt his forehead, and it was wet.
He rose to his feet and listened. There was no sound anywhere, from above
or below. He tried to remember what it was that had awakened him so
suddenly. He could remember nothing except that awful start. Something
must have disturbed him! He listened again. Still no sound. He drew a
little breath, and, with his eyes glued upon the half-closed door,
recollected that he himself had left it open that he might hear Barnes go
upstairs. With a little laugh, still not altogether natural, he moved to
the spirit decanter and drank off half a wineglassful of neat whisky!
"Nerves," he said softly to himself. "This won't do! What an idiot I was
to go to sleep there!"
He glanced at the clock. It was five minutes to three. Then he moved
towards the door, and stood for several moments with the handle in his
hand. Gradually his confidence was returning. He listened attentively.
There was not a sound to be heard in the entire building. He turned back
into the room with a little sigh of relief.
"Time I turned in," he muttered. "Wonder if that's rain."
He lifted the blind and looked out. A few stars were shining still in a
misty sky, but a bank of clouds was rolling up and rain was beginning to
fall. The pavements were already wet, and the lamp-posts obscured. He was
about to turn away when a familiar, but unexpected, sound from the street
immediately below attracted his notice. The window was open at the top,
and he had distinctly heard the jingling of a hansom bell.
He threw open the bottom sash and leaned out. A hansom cab was waiting at
the entrance to the flats. Wrayson glanced once more instinctively
towards the clock. Who on earth of his neighbours could be keeping a cab
waiting outside at that hour in the morning? With the exception of Barnes
and himself, they were most of them early people. Once more he looked out
of the window. The cabman was leaning forward in his seat with his head
resting upon his folded arms. He was either tired out or asleep. The
attitude of the horse was one of extreme and wearied dejection. Wrayson
was on the point of closing the window when he became aware for the first
time that the cab had an occupant. He could see the figure of a man
leaning back in one corner, he could even distinguish a white-gloved hand
resting upon the apron. The figure was not unlike the figure of Barnes,
and Barnes, as he happened to remember, always wore white gloves in the
evening. Barnes it probably was, waiting--for what? Wrayson closed the
window a little impatiently, and turned back into the room.
"Barnes and his friends can go to the devil," he muttered. "I am
off to bed."
He took a couple of steps across the room, and then stopped short. The
fear was upon him again. He felt his heart almost stop beating, a cold
shiver shook his whole frame. He was standing facing his half-open door,
and outside on the stone steps he heard the soft, even footfall of
slippered feet, and the gentle rustling of a woman's gown.
He was not conscious of any movement, but when she reached the landing he
was standing there on the threshold, with the soft halo of light from
behind shining on to his white, fiercely questioning face. She came
towards him without speech, and her veil was lowered so that he could
only imperfectly see her face, but she walked as one newly recovered from
illness, with trembling footsteps, and with one hand always upon the
banisters. When she reached the corner she stopped, and seemed about to
collapse. She spoke to him, and her voice had lost all its quality. It
sounded harsh and unreal.
"Why are you--spying on me?" she asked.
"I am not spying," he answered. "I have been asleep--and woke up
suddenly."
"Give me--some brandy!" she begged.
She stood upon the threshold and drank from the wineglass which he
had filled. When she gave it back to him, he noticed that her fingers
were steady.
"Will you come downstairs and let me out?" she asked. "I have looked
down and it is all dark on the ground floor. I am not sure that I
know my way."
He hesitated, but only for a moment. Side by side they walked down four
flights of steps in unbroken silence. He asked no question, she attempted
no explanation. Only when he opened the door and she saw the waiting
hansom she very nearly collapsed. For a moment she clung to him.
"He is there--in the cab," she moaned. "Where can I hide?"
"Whoever it is," Wrayson answered, with his eyes fixed upon the hansom,
"he is either drunk or asleep."
"Or dead!" she whispered in his ear. "Go and see!"
Then, before Wrayson could recover from the shock of her words, she was
gone, flitting down the unlit side of the street with swift silent
footsteps. His eyes followed her mechanically. Then, when she had turned
the corner, he crossed the pavement towards the cab. Even now he could
see little of the figure in the corner, for his silk hat was drawn down
over his eyes.
"Is that you, Barnes?" he asked.
There came not the slightest response. Then for the first time the
hideous meaning of those farewell words of hers broke in upon his brain.
Had she meant it? Had she known or guessed? He leaned forward and
touched the white-gloved hand. He raised it and let go. It fell like a
dead, inert thing. He stepped back and confronted the cabman, who was
rubbing his eyes.
"There's something wrong with your fare, cabby," he said.
The cabby raised the trap door, looked down, and descended heavily on to
the pavement.
"Well, I'm blowed!" he said. "Here, wake up, guv'nor!"
There was no response. The cabby threw open the apron of the cab and
gently shook the recumbent figure.
"I can't wait 'ere all night for my fare!" he exclaimed. "Wake up, God
luv us!" he broke off.
He stepped hastily back on to the pavement, and began tugging at one of
his lamps.
"Push his hat back, sir," he said. "Let's 'ave a look at 'im."
Wrayson stood upon the step of the cab and lifted the silk hat from the
head of the recumbent figure. Then he sprang back quickly with a little
exclamation of horror. The lamp was shining full now upon the man's face,
livid and white, upon his staring but sightless eyes, upon something
around his neck, a fragment of silken cord, drawn so tightly that the
flesh seemed to hang over and almost conceal it.
"Throttled, by God!" the cabman exclaimed. "I'm off to the police
station."
He clambered up to his seat, and without another word struck his horse
with the whip. The cab drove off and disappeared. Wrayson turned slowly
round, and, closing the door of the flats, mounted with leaden feet to
the fourth story.
He entered his own rooms, and walked without hesitation to the window,
which was still open. The fresh air was almost a necessity, for he felt
himself being slowly stifled. His knees were shaking, a cold icy horror
was numbing his heart and senses. A feeling of nightmare was upon him, as
though he had risen unexpectedly from a bed of delirium. There in front
of him, a little to the left, was the broad empty street amongst whose
shadows she had disappeared. On one side was the Park, and there was
obscurity indefinable, mysterious; on the other a long row of tall
mansions, a rain-soaked pavement, and a curving line of gas lamps.
Beyond, the river, marked with a glittering arc of yellow dots; further
away the glow of the sleeping city. Shelter enough there for any
one--even for her. A soft, damp breeze was blowing in his face; from
amongst the dripping trees of the Park the birds were beginning to make
their morning music. Already the blackness of night was passing away, the
clouds were lightening, the stars were growing fainter. Wrayson leaned a
little forward. His eyes were fixed upon the exact spot where she had
crossed the road and disappeared. All the horror of the coming day and
the days to come loomed out from the background of his thoughts.
CHAPTER III
DISCUSSING THE CRIME
The murder of Morris Barnes, considered merely as an event, came as a
Godsend to the halfpenny press, which has an unwritten but immutable
contract with the public to provide it with so much sensation during the
week, in season or out of season. Nothing else was talked about anywhere.
Under the influence of the general example, Wrayson found himself within
a few days discussing its details with perfect coolness, and with an
interest which never flagged. He seemed continually to forget his own
personal and actual connection with the affair.
It was discussed, amongst other places, at the Sheridan Club, of which
Wrayson was a member, and where he spent most of his spare time. At one
particular luncheon party the day after the inquest, nothing else was
spoken of. For the first time, in Wrayson's hearing, a new and somewhat
ominous light was thrown upon the affair.
There were four men at the luncheon party, which was really not a
luncheon party at all, but a promiscuous coming together of four of the
men who usually sat at what was called the Colonel's table. First of all
there was the Colonel himself,--Colonel Edgar Fitzmaurice, C.B.,
D.S.O.,--easily the most popular member of the club, a distinguished
retired officer, white-haired, kindly and genial, a man of whom no one
had ever heard another say an unkind word, whose hand was always in his
none too well-filled pockets, and whose sympathies were always ready to
be enlisted in any forlorn cause, deserving or otherwise. At his right
hand sat Wrayson; on his left Sydney Mason, a rising young sculptor, and
also a popular member of this somewhat Bohemian circle. Opposite was
Stephen Heneage, a man of a different and more secretive type. He called
himself a barrister, but he never practised; a journalist at times, but
he seldom put his name to anything he wrote. His interests, if he had
any, he kept to himself. In a club where a man's standing was reckoned by
what he was and what he produced, he owed such consideration as he
received to a certain air of reserved strength, the more noteworthy
amongst a little coterie of men, who amongst themselves were accustomed
to speak their minds freely, and at all times. If he was never brilliant,
he had never been heard to say a foolish thing or make a pointless
remark. He moved on his way through life, and held his place there more
by reason of certain negative qualities which, amongst a community of
optimists, were universally ascribed to him, than through any more
personal or likable gifts. He had a dark, strong face, but a slim, weakly
body. He was never unduly silent, but he was a better listener than
talker. If he had no close friends, he certainly had no enemies. Whether
he was rich or poor no man knew, but next to the Colonel himself, no one
was more ready to subscribe to any of those charities which the
Sheridanites were continually inaugurating on behalf of their less
fortunate members. The man who succeeds in keeping the "ego" out of sight
as a rule neither irritates nor greatly attracts. Stephen Heneage was
one of those who stood in this position.
They were talking about the murder, or rather the Colonel was talking and
they were listening.
"There is one point," he remarked, filling his glass and beaming
good-humouredly upon his companions, "which seems to have been entirely
overlooked. I am referring to the sex of the supposed assassin!"
Wrayson looked up inquiringly. It was a point which interested him.
"Nearly all of you have assumed," the Colonel continued, "that it must
have taken a strong man to draw the cord tight enough to have killed that
poor fellow without any noticeable struggle. As a matter of fact, a child
with that particular knot could have done it. It requires no strength,
only delicacy of touch, rapidity and nerve."
"A woman, then--" Wrayson began.
"Bless you, yes! a woman could have done it easily," the Colonel
declared, "only unfortunately there don't seem to have been any women
about. Why, I've seen it done in Korea with a turn of the wrist. It's
all knack."
Wrayson shuddered slightly. The Colonel's words had troubled him more
than he would have cared to let any one know.
"Woman or man or child," Mason remarked, "the person who did it seems to
have vanished in some remarkable manner from the face of the earth."
"He certainly seems," the Colonel admitted, "to have covered up his
traces with admirable skill. I have read every word of the evidence at
the inquest, and I can understand that the police are completely
confused."
Heneage and Mason exchanged glances of quiet amusement whilst the
Colonel helped himself to cheese.
"Dear old boy," the latter murmured, "he's off on his hobby. Let him go
on! He enjoys it more than anything in the world."
Heneage nodded assent, and the Colonel returned to the subject with
avidity a few moments later.
"This man Morris Barnes," he affirmed, "seems to have been a somewhat
despicable, at any rate, a by no means desirable individual. He was of
Jewish origin, and he had not long returned from South Africa, where
Heaven knows what his occupation was. The money of which he was
undoubtedly possessed he seems to have spent, or at any rate some part
of it, in aping the life of a dissipated man about town. He was known
to the fair promenaders of the Empire and Alhambra, he was an _habitué_
of the places where these--er--ladies partake of supper after the
exertions of the evening. Of home life or respectable friends he seems
to have had none."
"This," Mason declared, leaning back and lighting a cigarette, "is better
than the newspapers. Go on, Colonel! Your biography may not be
sympathetic, but it is lifelike!"
The Colonel's eyes were full of a distinct and vivid light. He scarcely
heard the interruption. He was on fire with his subject.
"You see," he continued, "that the man's days were spent amongst a class
where the passions run loose, where restraint is an unknown virtue, where
self and sensuality are the upraised gods. One can easily imagine that
from amongst such a slough might spring at any time the weed of tragedy.
In other words, this man Morris Barnes moved amongst a class of people
to whom murder, if it could be safely accomplished, would be little more
than an incident."
The Colonel lit a cigar and leaned back in his chair. He was enjoying
himself immensely.
"The curious part of the affair is, though," he continued deliberately,
"that this murder, as I suppose we must call it, bears none of the
hall-marks of rude passion. On the contrary, it suggests in more ways
than one the touch of the finished artist. The man's whole evening has
been traced without the slightest difficulty. He dined at the Café Royal
alone, promenaded afterwards at the Alhambra, and drove on about
supper-time to the Continental. He left there at 12.30 with a couple of
ladies whom he appeared to know fairly well, called at their flat for a
drink, and sent one out to his cabby--rather unusual forethought for such
a bounder. When he reappeared and directed the man to drive him to
Cavendish Mansions, Battersea, the driver tried to excuse himself. Both
he and his horse were dead tired, he said. Barnes, however, insisted upon
keeping him, and off they went. At Cavendish Mansions, Barnes alighted
and offered the man a sovereign. Naturally enough the fellow could not
change it, and Barnes went in to get some silver from his rooms,
promising to return in a minute or two. The cabby descended and walked to
the corner of the street to see if he could beg a match for his pipe from
any passer-by. He may have been away for perhaps five minutes, certainly
no more, during which time he stood with his back to the Mansions. Seeing
no one about, he returned to his cab, ascended to his seat, naturally
without looking inside, and fell fast asleep. The next thing he remembers
is being awakened by Wrayson here! So much for the cabby."
"What a fine criminal judge was lost to the country, Colonel, when you
chose the army for a career," Mason remarked, turning round to order some
coffee. "Such coherence--such an eye for detail. Pass the matches,
Wrayson. Thanks, old chap!"
The Colonel smiled placidly.
"I am afraid," he said, "that I should never have had the heart to
sentence anybody to anything, but I must admit that things of this sort
do interest me. I love to weigh them up and theorize. The more
melodramatic they are the better."
Heneage helped himself to a cigarette from Mason's case, and leaned back
in his chair.
"I never have the patience," he remarked, "to read about these things in
the newspapers, but the Colonel's _résumé_ is always thrilling. Do go on.
There won't be any pool till four o'clock."
The Colonel smiled good-naturedly.
"It's good of you fellows to listen to my prosing," he remarked. "No use
denying that it is a sort of hobby of mine. You all know it. Well, we'll
say we've finished with the cabby, then. Enter upon the scene, of all
people in the world, our friend Wrayson!"
"Hear, hear!" murmured Mason.
Wrayson changed his position slightly. With his head resting upon his
hand, he seemed to be engaged in tracing patterns upon the tablecloth.
"Wrayson knows nothing of Barnes beyond the fact that they are neighbours
in the same flats. Being the assistant editor of a journal of world-wide
fame, however, he has naturally a telephone in his flat. By means of that
instrument he receives a message in the middle of the night from an
unknown person in an unknown place, which he is begged to convey to
Barnes. The message is in itself mysterious. Taken in conjunction with
what happened to Barnes, it is deeply interesting. Barnes, it seems, is
to go immediately on his arrival, at whatever hour, to the Hotel Francis.
Presumably he would know from whom the message came, and the sender does
not seem to have doubted that if it was conveyed to Barnes he would obey
the summons. Wrayson agrees to and does deliver it. That is to say, he
writes it down and leaves it in the letter-box of Barnes' door, Barnes not
having yet returned. Now we begin to get mysterious. That communication
from our friend here has not been discovered. It was not in the
letter-box; it was not upon the person of the dead man. We cannot tell
whether or not he ever received it. I believe that I am right so far?"
"Absolutely," Wrayson admitted.
"Our friend Wrayson, then," the Colonel continued, beaming upon his
neighbour, "instead of going to bed like a sensible man, takes up a book
and falls asleep in his easy-chair. He wakes up about three or four
o'clock, and his attention is then attracted by the jingling of a hansom
bell below. He looks out of window and sees a cab, both the driver and
the occupant of which appear to be asleep. The circumstance striking him
as somewhat unusual, he descends to the street and finds--well, rather
more than he expected. He finds the cabman asleep, and his fare
scientifically and effectually throttled by a piece of silken cord."
Wrayson turned to the waiter and ordered a liqueur brandy.
"Have one, you fellows?" he asked. "Good! Four, waiter."
He tossed his own off directly it arrived. His lips were pale, and the
hand which raised the glass to his lips shook. Heneage alone, who was
watching him through a little cloud of tobacco smoke, noticed this.
"Have you finished with me, Colonel?" Wrayson asked.
"Practically," the Colonel answered, smiling, "unless you can answer one
of the three queries suggested by my _résumé_. First, who killed Morris
Barnes? Secondly, when was it done? Thirdly, where was it done? I have
left out a possible fourth, why was it done? because, in this case, I
think that the motive and the man are practically identical. I mean that
if you discover one, you discover the other."
Heneage leaned across the table towards the Colonel.
"You are a magician, Colonel," he declared quietly. "I glanced through
this case in the paper, and it did not even interest me. Since I have
listened to you I have fallen under the spell of the mysterious. Have you
any theories?"
The Colonel's face fell a little.
"Well, I am afraid not," he admitted regretfully. "To be perfectly
interesting the affair certainly ought to present something more definite
in the shape of a clue. You see, providing we accept the evidence of
Wrayson and the cabman, and I suppose," he added, laying his hand
affectionately upon Wrayson's shoulder, "we must, the actual murderer is
a person absolutely unseen or unheard of by any one. If you are all
really interested we will discuss it again in a week's time after the
adjourned inquest."
"I, for one, shall look forward to it," Heneage remarked, glancing across
towards Wrayson. "What about a pool?"
"I'm on," Wrayson declared, rising a little abruptly.
"And I," Mason assented.
"And I can't," the Colonel said regretfully. "I must go down to Balham
and see poor Carlo Mallini; I hear he's very queer."
The Colonel loved pool, and he hated a sick-room. The click of the
billiard balls reached him as he descended the stairs, but he only sighed
and set out manfully for Charing Cross. On the way he entered a
fruiterer's shop and inquired the price of grapes. They were more than he
expected, and he counted out the contents of his trousers pockets before
purchasing.
"A little short of change," he remarked cheerfully. "Yes! all right, I'll
take them."
He marched out, swinging a paper bag between his fingers, travelled third
class to Balham, and sat for a couple of hours with the invalid whom he
had come to see, a lonely Italian musician, to whom his coming meant more
than all the medicine his doctor could prescribe. He talked to him
glowingly of the success of his recent concert (more than a score of the
tickets sold had been paid for secretly by the Colonel himself and his
friends), prophesied great things for the future, and laughed away all
the poor fellow's fears as to his condition. There were tears in his eyes
as he walked to the station, for he had visited too many sick-beds to
have much faith in his own cheerful words, and all the way back to London
he was engaged in thinking out the best means of getting the musician
sent back to his own country, Arrived at Charing Cross, he looked
longingly towards the club, and ruefully at the contents of his pocket.
Then with a sigh he turned into a little restaurant and dined for
eighteen-pence.
CHAPTER IV
UNDER A CLOUD
Exactly one week later, six men were smoking their after-dinner cigars at
the same round table in the dining-room at the Sheridan Club. As a rule,
it was the hour when, with all the reserve of the day thrown aside,
badinage and jest reigned supreme, and the humourist came to his own.
To-night chairs were drawn a little closer together, voices were subdued,
and the conversation was of a more serious order. Not even the pleasant
warmth of the room, the fragrance of tobacco, and the comfortable sense
of having dined, could altogether dispel a feeling of uneasiness which
all more or less shared. It chanced that all six were friends of Herbert
Wrayson's.
The Colonel, as usual, was in the chair, but even on his kindly features
the cloud hovered.
"Of course," he said, "none of us who know Wrayson well would believe for
a moment that he could be connected in any way with this beastly affair.
The unfortunate part of it is, that others, who do not know him, might
easily be led to think otherwise!"
"It is altogether his own fault, too," Mason remarked. "He gave his
evidence shockingly."
"And his movements that night, or rather that morning, were certainly a
little peculiar," another man remarked. "His connection with the affair
seemed to consist of a series of coincidences. The law does not look
favourably upon coincidences!"
"But, after all," the Colonel remarked, "he scarcely knew the fellow!
Just nodded to him on the stairs, and that sort of thing. Why, there
isn't a shadow of a motive!"
"We can't be sure of that, Colonel," Heneage remarked quietly. "I wonder
how much we really know of the inner lives of even our closest friends? I
fancy that we should be surprised if we realized our ignorance!"
The Colonel stroked his grey moustache thoughtfully.
"That may be true," he said, "of a good many of us. Wrayson, however,
never struck me as being a particularly secretive sort of chap."
"Unfortunately, that counts for very little," Heneage declared. "The
things which surprise us most in life come often from the most unlikely
people. We none of us mean to be deceitful, but a perfectly honest life
is a luxury which few of us dare indulge in."
The Colonel regarded him gravely.
"I hope," he said, "that you don't mean that you consider Wrayson
capable--"
"I wasn't thinking of Wrayson at all," Heneage interrupted. "I was
generalizing. But I must say this. I think that, given sufficient
provocation or motive, there isn't one of us who wouldn't be capable of
committing murder. A man's outer life is lived according to the laws of
circumstances and society: his inner one no one knows anything about,
except himself--and God!"
"Heneage," Mason sighed, "is always cynical after 'kümmel.'"
Heneage shrugged his shoulders and lit a cigarette.
"No!" he said, "I am not cynical. I simply have a weakness for the truth.
You will find it rather a hard material to collect if you set out in
earnest. But to return to Wrayson. Let me ask you a question. We are all
friends of his, more or less intimate friends. You would all of you scout
the idea of his having any share in the murder of Morris Barnes. What did
you make of his evidence at the inquest this afternoon? What do you think
of his whole deportment and condition?"
"I can answer that in one word," the Colonel declared. "I think that it
is unfortunate. The poor fellow has been terribly upset, and his nerves
have not been able to stand the strain. That is all there is about it!"
"Wrayson has been working up to the limit for years," Mason remarked,
"and he's not a particularly strong chap. I should say that he was about
due for a nervous breakdown."
A waiter approached the table and addressed the Colonel--he was wanted on
the telephone. During his absence, Heneage leaned back in his chair and
relapsed into his usual imperturbability. He was known amongst his
friends generally as the silent man. It was very seldom that he
contributed so much to their discussions as upon this occasion. Perhaps
for that reason his words, when he spoke, always carried weight. Mason
changed his place and sat beside him. The others had wandered off into a
discussion upon a new magazine.
"Between ourselves, Heneage," Mason said quietly, "have you anything at
the back of your head about Wrayson?"
Heneage did not immediately reply. He was gazing at the little cloud of
blue tobacco smoke which he had just expelled from his lips.
"There is no reason," he declared, "why my opinion should be worth any
more than any one else's. I think as highly of Wrayson as any of you."
"Granted," Mason answered. "But you have a theory or an idea of some
sort concerning him. What is it?"
"If you really want to know," Heneage said, "I believe that Wrayson has
kept something back. It is a very dangerous thing to do, and I believe
that he realizes it. I believe that he has some secret knowledge of the
affair which he has not disclosed--knowledge which he has kept out of his
evidence altogether."
"A--guilty--knowledge?" Mason whispered.
"Not necessarily!" Heneage answered. "He may be shielding some one."
"If you are right," Mason said anxiously, "it is a serious affair."
"Very serious indeed," Heneage assented. "I believe that he is
realizing it."
The Colonel came back looking a little disturbed.
"Sorry, boys, but I must be off," he announced. "Wrayson has just
telephoned to ask me to go down and see him. I'm afraid he's queer! I've
sent for a hansom."
"Poor chap!" Mason murmured. "Let us know if any of us can do anything."
The Colonel nodded and took his departure. The others drifted up into the
billiard-room. Heneage alone remained seated at the end of the table. He
was playing idly with his wineglass, but his eyes were fixed steadfastly,
if a little absently, upon the Colonel's empty place.
CHAPTER V
ON THE TELEPHONE
It was a little hard even for the Colonel to keep up his affectation of
cheerfulness when he found himself alone with the man whom he had come to
visit. His experience of life had been large and varied, but he had never
yet seen so remarkable a change in any human being in twenty-four hours.
There were deep black lines under his eyes, his cheeks were colourless,
every now and then his features twitched nervously, as though he were
suffering from an attack of St. Vitus' dance. His hand, which had lain
weakly in the Colonel's, was as cold as ice, although there was a roaring
fire in the room. He had admitted the Colonel himself, and almost dragged
him inside the door.
"Did you meet any one outside--upon the stairs?" he asked feverishly.
"No one upon the stairs," the Colonel answered. "There was a man lighting
his pipe in the doorway."
Wrayson shivered as he turned away.
"Watching me!" he declared. "There are two of them! They are watching me
all the time."
The Colonel took off his coat. The room seemed to him like a furnace.
Then he stretched out his hands and laid them upon Wrayson's shoulders.
"What if they are?" he declared cheerfully. "They won't eat you. Besides,
it is very likely the dead man's rooms they are watching."
"They followed me home from the inquest," Wrayson muttered.
The Colonel laughed.
"And if I'd been living here," he remarked, "they'd have followed me
home just the same. Now, Herbert, my young friend," he continued,
"sit down and tell me all about it like a man. You're in a bit of
trouble, of course, underneath all this. Let's hear it, and we'll
find the best way out."
The Colonel's figure was dominant; his presence alone seemed to dispel
that unreal army of ghosts and fancies which a few moments before had
seemed to Wrayson to be making his room like the padded cell of a lunatic
asylum. His tone, too, had just enough sympathy to make its cheerfulness
reassuring. Wrayson began to feel glimmerings of common sense.
"Yes!" he said, "I've something to tell you. That's why I telephoned."
The Colonel rose again to his feet, and began fumbling in the pocket of
his overcoat.
"God bless my soul, I almost forgot!" he exclaimed, "and the fellows
would make me bring it. We guessed how you were feeling--much better to
have come up and dined with us. Here we are! Get some glasses, there's a
good chap."
A gold-foiled bottle appeared, and a packet of hastily cut sandwiches.
Wrayson found himself mechanically eating and drinking before he knew
where he was. Then in an instant the sandwiches had become delicious, and
the wine was rushing through his veins like a new elixir of life. He was
himself again, the banging of anvils in his head had ceased; he was
shaken perhaps, but a sane man. His eyes filled with tears, and he
gripped the Colonel by the hand.
"Colonel, you're--you're--God knows what you are," he murmured. "All the
ordinary things sound commonplace. I believe I was going mad."
The Colonel leaned back and laughed as though the idea tickled him.
"Not you!" he declared. "Bless you, I know what nerves are! Out in India,
thirty-five years ago, I've had to relieve men on frontier posts who
hadn't seen a soul to speak to for six months! Weird places some of them,
too--gives me the creeps to think of them sometimes! Now light up that
cigar," he added, throwing one across, "and let's hear the trouble."
Wrayson lit his cigar with fingers which scarcely shook. He threw the
match away and smoked for a moment in silence.
"It's about this Morris Barnes affair," he said abruptly. "I've kept
something back, and I'm a clumsy hand at telling a story that doesn't
contain all the truth. The consequence is, of course, that I'm suspected
of having had a hand in it myself."
The Colonel's manner had for a moment imperceptibly changed. Lines had
come out in his face which were not usually visible, his upper lip had
stiffened. One could fancy that he might have led his men into battle
looking something like this.
"What is it that you know?" he asked.
"There was another person in the flats that night, who was interested in
Morris Barnes, who visited his rooms, who was with me when I first saw
him dead."
The Colonel shaded his face with his hand. The heat from the fire
was intense.
"Why have you kept back this knowledge?" he asked.
"Because--it was a woman, and I am a fool!" Wrayson answered.
There was a silence. Then the Colonel pushed back his chair and dabbed
his forehead with his handkerchief. The room was certainly hot, and the
handkerchief was wet.
"Tell me about it," he said quietly. "I expected something of the sort!"
"On that morning," Wrayson began, "I returned home about twelve o'clock,
let myself in with my own latch-key, and found a woman standing before my
open desk going through my papers."
"A friend?" the Colonel asked.
"A complete stranger!" Wrayson answered. "Her surprise at seeing me was
at least equal to my own. I gathered that she had believed herself to be
in the flat of Morris Barnes, which is the corresponding one above."
"What did you do?" the Colonel asked.
"What I should have done I am not sure," Wrayson answered, "but while I
was talking to her the telephone bell rang, and I received that message
which I spoke about at the inquest. It was a mysterious sort of
business--I can hear that voice now. I was interested, and while I stood
there she slipped away."
"Is that all?" the Colonel asked.
"No!" Wrayson answered with a groan. "I wish to God it was!"
The Colonel moved his position a little. The cigar had burnt out between
his fingers, but he made no effort to light it.
"Go on," he said. "Tell me the rest. Tell me what happened afterwards."
"I wrote down the message for Barnes and left it in his letter-box.
There seemed then to be no light in his flat. Afterwards I lit a pipe,
left my door open, and sat down, with the intention of waiting till
Barnes came home and explaining what had happened. I fell asleep in my
chair and woke with a start. It was nearly three o'clock. I was going to
turn in when I heard the jingling of a hansom bell down below. I looked
out of the window and saw the cab standing in the street. Almost at the
same time I heard footsteps outside. I went to the door of my flat and
came face to face with the girl descending from the floor above."
"At three o'clock in the morning?" the Colonel interrupted.
Wrayson nodded.
"She was white and shaking all over," he continued rapidly. "She asked
me for brandy and I gave it to her; she asked me to see her out of the
place, and I did so. When I opened the door to let her out and we saw
the man leaning back in the cab, she moaned softly to herself. I said
something about his being asleep or drunk--'or dead!' she whispered in
my ear, and then she rushed away from me. She turned into the Albert
Road and disappeared almost at once. I could not have followed her if I
would. I had just begun to realize that something was wrong with the man
in the cab!"
"This is all?" the Colonel asked.
"It is all!" Wrayson answered.
"You do not know her name, or why she was here? You have not seen
her since?"
Wrayson shook his head.
"I know absolutely nothing," he said, "beyond what I have told you."
The Colonel struck a match and relit his cigar.
"I should like to understand," he said quietly, "why you avoided all
mention of her in your evidence."
Wrayson laughed oddly.
"I should like to understand that myself," he declared. "I can only
repeat what I said before. She was a woman, and I was a fool."
"In plain English," the Colonel said, "you did it to shield her?"
"Yes!" Wrayson answered.
The Colonel nodded thoughtfully.
"Well," he said, "you were in a difficult position, and you made a
deliberate choice. I tell you frankly that I expected to hear worse
things. Do you believe that she committed the murder?"
"No!" Wrayson answered. "I do not!"
"You believe that she may be associated with--the person who did?"
"I cannot tell," Wrayson declared.
"In any case," the Colonel continued, "you seem to have been the only
person who saw her. Whether you were wise or not to omit all mention of
her in your evidence--well, we won't discuss that. The best of us have
gone on the wrong side of the hedge for a woman before now--and damned
glad to do it. What I can't quite understand, old chap, is why you have
worked yourself up into such a shocking state. You don't stand any chance
of being hanged, that I can see!"
Wrayson laughed a little shamefacedly.
"To tell you the truth," he said, "I am beginning to feel ashamed of
myself. I think it was the sense of being spied upon, and being
alone--in this room--which got a bit on my nerves. I feel a different man
since you came down."
The Colonel nodded cheerfully.
"That's all right," he declared. "The next thing to--"
The Colonel broke off in the midst of his sentence. A few feet away from
him the telephone bell was ringing. Wrayson rose to his feet and took the
receiver into his hand.
"Hullo!" he said.
The voice which answered him was faint but clear. Wrayson almost dropped
the instrument. He recognized it at once.
"Is that Mr. Herbert Wrayson?" it asked.
"Yes!" Wrayson answered. "Who are you?"
"I am the person who spoke to you a few nights ago," was the answer.
"Never mind my name for the present. I wish to arrange a meeting--for
some time to-morrow. I have a matter--of business--to discuss with you."
"Anywhere--at any time," Wrayson answered, almost fiercely. "You cannot
be as anxious to see me as I am to know who you are."
The voice changed a little in its intonation. A note of mockery had
stolen into it.
"You flatter me," it said. "I trust that our meeting will be mutually
agreeable. You must excuse my coming to Battersea, as I understand that
your flat is subjected to a most inconvenient surveillance. May I call at
the office of your paper, at say eleven o'clock tomorrow?"
"Yes!" Wrayson answered. "You know where it is?"
"Certainly! I shall be there. A Mr. Bentham will ask for you.
Good night!"
Wrayson's unknown friend had rung off. He replaced the receiver and
turned to the Colonel.
"Do you know who that was?" he asked eagerly.
"I can guess," the Colonel answered.
"To-morrow, at eleven o'clock," Wrayson declared, "I shall know who
killed Morris Barnes."
CHAPTER VI
ONE THOUSAND POUNDS' REWARD
But when the morrow came, and his visitor was shown into Wrayson's
private office, he was not quite so sure about it. Mr. Bentham had not in
the least the appearance of a murderer. Clean-shaven, a little slow in
speech, quietly dressed, he resembled more than anything a country
solicitor in moderate practice.
He bowed in correct professional manner, and laid a brown paper parcel
upon the table.
"I believe," he said, "that I have the honour of addressing Mr. Wrayson?"
Wrayson nodded a little curtly.
"And you, I suppose," he remarked, "are the owner of the mysterious
voice which summoned Morris Barnes to the Francis Hotel on the night of
his murder?"
"It was I who spoke to you," Mr. Bentham admitted.
"Very well," Wrayson said, "I am glad to see you. It was obvious, from
your message, that you knew of some danger which was threatening Morris
Barnes that night. It is therefore only fair to presume that you are also
aware of its source."
"You go a little fast, sir," Mr. Bentham objected.
"My presumption is a fair one," Wrayson declared. "You are perhaps aware
of my unfortunate connection with this affair. If so, you will understand
that I am particularly anxious to have it cleared up."
"It is not at all certain that I can help you," his visitor said
precisely. "It depends entirely upon yourself. Will you permit me to put
my case before you?"
"By all means," Wrayson answered. "Go ahead."
Mr. Bentham took the chair towards which Wrayson had somewhat impatiently
pointed, and unbuttoned his coat. It was obvious that he was not a person
to be hurried.
"In the first place, Mr. Wrayson," he said, "I must ask you distinctly to
understand that I am not addressing you on my own account. I am a lawyer,
and I am acting on behalf of a client."
"Who is he?" Wrayson asked. "What is his name?"
The ghost of a smile flickered across the lawyer's thin lips.
"I am not at liberty to divulge his identity," he answered. "I am,
however, fully empowered to act for him."
Wrayson shrugged his shoulders.
"He may find it necessary to disclose it, and before very long," he
remarked. "Well, go on."
Mr. Bentham discreetly ignored the covert threat in Wrayson's words.
"My mission to you, Mr. Wrayson," he declared, "is a somewhat delicate
one. It is not, in fact, connected with the actual--tragedy to which you
have alluded. My commission is to regain possession of a paper which was
stolen either from the person of Morris Barnes or from amongst his
effects, on that night."
Wrayson looked up eagerly.
"The motive at last!" he exclaimed. "What was the nature of this
paper, sir?"
Mr. Bentham's eyebrows were slowly raised.
"That," he said, "we need not enter into for the moment. The matter of
business between you and myself, or rather my client, is this. I am
authorized to offer a thousand pounds reward for its recovery."
Wrayson was impressed, although the other's manner left him a
little puzzled.
"Why not offer the reward for the discovery of the murderer?" he asked.
"It would come, I presume, to the same thing."
"By no means," the lawyer answered dryly. "I am afraid that I have not
expressed myself well. My client cares nothing for Morris Barnes, dead or
alive. His interest begins and ends with the recovery of that paper."
"But isn't it almost certain," Wrayson persisted, "that the thief and the
murderer are the same person? Your client ought to have come forward at
the inquest. The thing which has chiefly troubled the police in dealing
with this matter is the apparent lack of motive."
"My client is not actuated in any way by philanthropic motives," Mr.
Bentham said coldly. "To tell you the truth, he does not care whether the
murderer of Morris Barnes is brought to justice or not. He is only
anxious to recover possession of the document of which I have spoken."
"If he has a legal claim to it," Wrayson said, "he had better offer his
reward openly. He would probably help himself then, and also those who
are anxious to have this mystery solved."
"Are you amongst those, Mr. Wrayson?" his visitor asked quietly.
Wrayson started slightly, but he retained his self-composure.
"I am very much amongst them," he answered. "My connection with the
affair was an extremely unpleasant one, and it will remain so until the
murderer of Morris Barnes is brought to book."
"Or murderess," Mr. Bentham murmured softly.
Wrayson reeled in his chair as though he had been struck a violent
and unexpected blow. He understood now the guarded menace of his
visitor's manner. He felt the man's eyes taking merciless note of his
whitening cheeks.
"My client," the lawyer continued, "desires to ask no questions. All that
he wants is the document to which he is entitled, and which was stolen on
the night when Mr. Morris Barnes met with his unfortunate accident."
Wrayson had pulled himself together with an effort.
"I presume," he said, "from your frequent reiteration, that I may take
this as being to some extent a personal offer. If so, let me assure you,
sir, that so far as I am concerned I know nothing whatever of any papers
or other belongings which were in the possession of my late neighbour. I
have never seen or heard of any. I do not even know why you should have
come to me at all."
"I came to you," Mr. Bentham said, "because I was very well aware that,
for some reason or other, your evidence at the inquest was not quite as
comprehensive as it might have been."
"Then, for Heaven's sake, tell me all that you know!" Wrayson exclaimed.
"Take my word for it, I know nothing of this document or paper. I have
neither seen it nor heard of it. I know nothing whatever of the man or
his affairs. I can't help you. I would if I could. On the other hand, you
can throw some light upon the motive for the crime. Who is your client?
Let me go and see him for myself."
Mr. Bentham rose to his feet, and began slowly to draw on his gloves.
"Mr. Wrayson," he said quietly, "I am disappointed with the result of my
visit to you. I admit it frankly. You are either an extremely ingenuous
person, or a good deal too clever for me. In either case, if you will not
treat with me, I need not waste your time."
Wrayson moved to the door and stood with his back to it.
"I am not at all sure," he said, "that I am justified in letting you go
like this. You are in possession of information which would be invaluable
to the police in their search for the murderer of Morris Barnes."
Mr. Bentham smiled coldly.
"And are not you," he remarked, "in the same fortunate position--with the
unfortunate exception, perhaps, of having already given your testimony?
Of the two, if disclosures had to be made, I think that I should prefer
my own position."
Wrayson remained where he was.
"I am inclined," he said, "to risk it. At least you would be compelled to
disclose your client's name."
Mr. Bentham visibly flinched. He recovered himself almost immediately,
but the shadow of fear had rested for a moment, at any rate, upon his
impassive features.
"I am entirely at your service," he said coldly. "My client has at least
not broken the laws of his country."
Wrayson stood away from the door.
"You can go," he said shortly, "if you will leave me your address."
Mr. Bentham bowed.
"I regret that I have no card with me," he said, "but I have an office,
a single room only, in number 8, Paper Buildings, Adelphi. If you should
happen to come across--that document--"
Wrayson held open the door.
"If I should come to see you," he said, "it will be on other business."
* * * * *
Wrayson lunched at the club that morning, and received a warm greeting
from his friends. The subject of the murder was, as though by common
consent, avoided. Towards the end of the meal the Colonel received a
telegram, which he read and laid down upon the table in front of him.
"By Jove!" he said softly, "I'd forgotten all about it. Boys, you've got
to help me out."
"We're on," Mason declared. "What is it? a fight?"
"It's a garden party my girls are giving to-morrow afternoon," the
Colonel answered. "I promised to take some of you down. Come, who's going
to help me out? Wrayson? Good! Heneage? Excellent! Mason? Good fellows,
all of you! Two-twenty from Waterloo, flannels and straw hats."
The little group broke up, and the Colonel was hurried off into the
Committee Room. Wrayson and Heneage exchanged dubious glances.
"A garden party in May!" the latter remarked.
"Taking time by the forelock a little, isn't it?"
Wrayson sighed resignedly.
"It's the Colonel!" he declared. "We should have to go if it were
December!"
CHAPTER VII
THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER
After all, the garden party was not so bad. The weather was perfect, and
the grounds of Shirley House were large enough to find amusement for all
the guests. Wrayson, who had made great friends with the Colonel's
younger daughter, enjoyed himself immensely. After a particularly
strenuous set of tennis, she led him through the wide-open French windows
into a small morning-room.
"We can rest for a few minutes in here," she remarked. "You can consider
it a special mark of favour, for this is my own den."
"You are spoiling me," Wrayson declared, laughing. "May I see those
photographs?"
"If you like," she answered, "only you mustn't be too critical, for I'm
only a beginner, you know. Here's a bookful of them you can look through,
while I go and start the next set."
She placed a volume in his hand and swung out of the room, tall, fresh,
and graceful. Wrayson watched her admiringly. In her perfect naturalness
and unaffected good-humour, she reminded him a good deal of her father,
but curiously enough there was some other likeness which appealed to him
even more powerfully, and yet which he was unable to identify. It puzzled
him so that for a moment or two after her departure he sat watching the
door through which she had disappeared, with a slight frown upon his
forehead. She was undoubtedly charming, and yet something in connection
with her seemed to impress him with an impending sense of trouble.
Everything about her person and manners was frank and girlish, and yet
she was certainly recalling to his mind things that he had been
struggling all the afternoon to forget. Already he began to feel the
clouds of nervousness and depression stealing down upon him. He struck
the table with his clenched fist. He would have none of it. Outside was
the delicious sunshine, through the open window stole in the perfume of
the roses which covered the wall, and mignonette from the trim borders,
and stocks from the bed fringing the lawn. The murmur of pleasant
conversation was incessant and musical. For a time Wrayson had escaped.
He swore to himself that he would go back no more into bondage; that he
would dwell no more upon the horrors through which he had lived. He would
take hold of the pleasant things of life with both hands, and grip them
tightly. A man should be master of his thoughts, not the slave of
unwilling memories. He would choose for himself whither they should lead
him; he would fight with all his nerve and will against the unholy
fascination of those few thrilling hours. He looked impatiently towards
the door, and longed for the return of his late companion that he might
continue his half-laughing flirtation. Then he remembered the album still
upon his knee, and opened it quickly. He had dabbled a little in
photography; he would find something here to keep his thoughts from the
forbidden place. And he did indeed find something--something which set
his heart thumping, and drew all the colour, which the sun and vigorous
exercise had brought, from his cheeks; something at which he stared with
wide-open eyes, which he held before him with trembling, nerveless
fingers. The picture of a woman! The picture of her!
It had lain loose in the book, with its back towards him. Only chance
made him turn it over. As he looked he understood. There was the
likeness, such likeness as there may be between a beautiful woman, a
little sad, a little scornful, with the faint lines of mockery about her
curving lips, the world-weary light in her distant eyes, and the fresh,
ingenuous girl with whom he had been bandying pleasantries during the
last few hours. He had felt it unknowingly. He realized it now, and the
thought of what it might mean made him catch at his breath like a
drowning man. Then she came in.
He heard her gay laughter outside, a backward word flung to one of the
tennis players, as she stepped in through the window, her cheeks still
flushed, and her eyes aglow.
"We really ought to watch this set," she declared. "That is, if you are
not too much absorbed in my handiwork. What have you got there?"
He held it out to her with a valiant attempt at unconcern.
"Do you mind telling me who this is?" he asked.
She glanced at it carelessly enough, but at once her whole expression
changed. The smile left her lips, her eyes filled with trouble.
"Where did you find it?" she asked, in a low tone.
"In the album," he answered. "It was loose between the pages."
She took it gently from his fingers, and crossing the room locked it
in her desk.
"I had no idea that it was here," she said. "It is a picture of my
eldest sister, or rather my step-sister."
The change in her manner was so apparent that, under ordinary
circumstances, Wrayson would not have dreamed of pursuing the subject.
But the conventions of life seemed to him small things just then.
"Your step-sister!" he exclaimed. "I had no idea--shall I meet her this
afternoon?"
"No!" she answered, gravely. "What do you say--shall we go out now?"
She took up her racket, but he lingered.
"Please don't think me hopelessly inquisitive, Miss Fitzmaurice," he
said, "but I have really a reason for being very interested in the
original of that picture. I should like to meet your step-sister."
"You will never do so here, I am afraid," she answered. "My father and
she disagreed years ago. He does not allow us to see or hear from her. We
may not even mention her name."
"Your father," Wrayson remarked thoughtfully, "is not a stern parent by
any means."
"I should think not," she answered, smiling. "Dear old dad! I have never
heard him say an unkind word to any one in my life."
"And yet--" Wrayson began, hesitatingly.
"Do you mind if we don't talk any more about it?" she interrupted simply.
"I think you can understand that it is not a very pleasant subject. Do
you feel like another set, or would you rather do something else?"
"Tennis, by all means, if you are rested," he answered. "We will find our
old opponents and challenge them again."
Wrayson made a supreme effort, and his spirits for the rest of the
afternoon were almost boisterous. Yet all the time the nightmare was
there behind. It crept out whenever he caught sight of his host moving
about amongst his guests, beaming and kindly. His daughter! The Colonel's
daughter! What was he to do? The problem haunted him continually. All the
time he had to be pushing it back.
The guests began to depart at last. By seven o'clock the last carriage
was rolling down the avenue. The Colonel, with a huge smile of relief,
and a large cigar, came and took Wrayson's arm.
"Good man!" he exclaimed. "You've worked like a Trojan. We'll have one
whisky and soda, eh? and then I'll show you your room. Say when!"
"I've enjoyed myself immensely," Wrayson declared. "Miss Edith has been
very kind to me."
"I'm glad you've made friends with her," the Colonel said. "She's a
harum-scarum lot, I'm afraid, and a sad chatterbox, but she's the right
sort of a person for a man with nerves like you! You're looking a bit
white still, I see!"
Wrayson would have spoken then, but his tongue seemed to cling to the
roof of his mouth. He had been asked to bring his clothes and dine, and
in the minutes' solitude while he changed, he made a resolute effort to
face this new problem. There was not the slightest doubt in his mind that
the girl whom he had surprised in his rooms, ransacking his desk, and
whom subsequently he had assisted to escape from the Mansions, was
identical with the original of this portrait. She was the Colonel's
daughter. With a flash of horror, he remembered that it had been the
Colonel himself who had pointed out the possibility of a woman's hands
having drawn that silken cord together! Half dressed he sat down in a
chair and buried his face in his hands.
The dinner gong disturbed him. He sprang up, tied his tie with trembling
fingers, and hastily completed his toilet. Once more, with a great
effort, and an almost reckless resort to his host's champagne, he
triumphed over the demons of memory which racked his brain. At dinner his
gayety was almost feverish. Edith Fitzmaurice, who was his neighbour,
found him a delightful companion. Only the Colonel glanced towards him
now and then anxiously. He recognized the signs of high-pressure, and the
light in Wrayson's eyes puzzled him.
There were no other men dining, and in course of time the two were left
alone. The Colonel passed the cigars and touched the port wine decanter,
which, however, he only offered in a half-hearted way.
"If you don't care about any more wine," he said, "we might have a smoke
in the garden."
Wrayson rose at once.
"I should like it," he said abruptly. "I don't know how it is, but I seem
half-stifled to-day."
They passed out into the soft, cool night. A nightingale was singing
somewhere in the elm trees which bordered the garden. The air was sweet
with the perfume of early summer flowers. Wrayson drew a long, deep
breath of content.
"Let us sit down, Colonel," he said; "I have something to tell you."
The Colonel led the way to a rustic seat. A few stars were out, but no
moon. In the dusky twilight, the shrubs and trees beyond stood out with
black and almost startling distinctness against the clear sky.
"You remember the girl--I told you about, whom I found in my flat, and
afterwards?" Wrayson asked hoarsely.
The Colonel nodded.
"Certainly! What about her? To tell you the truth, I am afraid I--"
Wrayson stopped him with a quick, fierce exclamation.
"Don't, Colonel!" he said. "Wait until you have heard what I have to say.
I have seen her picture--to-day."
The Colonel removed his cigar from his mouth.
"Her picture!" he exclaimed. "To-day! Where? My dear fellow, this is very
interesting! You know my opinion as to that young--"
Again Wrayson stopped him, this time with an oath.
"In your house, Colonel," he said. "Your daughter showed it to me--in
an album!"
The Colonel sat like a man turned to stone. The hand which held his cigar
shook so that the ash fell upon his waistcoat.
"Go on!" he faltered.
"I asked who it was. I was told that it was your daughter! Miss Edith's
step-sister! Forgive me, Colonel! I had to tell you!"
The Colonel seemed to have shrunk in his place. The cigar slipped from
his fingers and fell unheeded on to the grass. His mouth trembled and
twitched pitifully.
"My--my daughter Louise!" he faltered. "Wrayson, you are not serious!"
"It is God's truth," Wrayson answered. "I would stake my soul upon it
that the girl--I told you about--was the original of that picture! When I
look at your daughter Edith I can see the likeness."
The Colonel's head was buried in his hands. His exclamation sounded
like a sob.
"My God!" he murmured.
Then there was silence. Only the nightingale went on with his song.
CHAPTER VIII
THE BARONESS INTERVENES
The Baroness trifled with some grapes and looked languidly round the
room.
"My dear Louise," she declared, "it is the truth what every one tells me
of your country. You are a dull people. I weary myself here."
The girl whom she had addressed as Louise shrugged her shoulders.
"So do I, so do all of us," she answered, a little wearily. "What would
you have? One must live somewhere."
The Baroness sighed, and from a chatelaine hung with elegant trifles
selected a gold cigarette case. An attentive waiter rushed for a match
and presented it. The Baroness gave a little sigh of content as she
leaned back in her chair. She smoked as one to the manner born.
"One must live somewhere, it is true," she agreed, "but why London? I
think that of all great cities it is the most provincial. It lacks what
you call the atmosphere. The people are all so polite, and so deadly,
deadly dull. How different in Paris or Berlin, even Brussels!"
"Circumstances are a little against us, aren't they?" Louise remarked.
"Our opportunities for making acquaintances are limited."
The Baroness made a little grimace.
"You, my young friend," she said, "are of the English--very English.
Quite Saxon, in fact. With you there would never be any making of
acquaintances! I feel myself in the bonds of a cast-iron chaperonage
whenever I move out with you. Why is it, little one? Have you never any
desire to amuse yourself?"
"I don't quite understand you," her companion answered dryly. "If you
mean that I have no desire to encourage promiscuous acquaintances, you
are certainly right. I prefer to be dull."
The Baroness sighed gently.
"Some of my dearest friends," she murmured, "I have--but there, it is a
subject upon which we disagree. We will talk of something else. Shall we
go to the theatre to-night?"
"As you will," Louise answered indifferently. "There isn't much that we
haven't seen, is there?"
"We will send for a paper and see," the Baroness said. "We cannot sit and
look at one another all the evening. With music one can make dinner last
out till nine or even half past--an idea, my Louise!" she exclaimed
suddenly. "Cannot we go to a music-hall, the Alhambra, for example? We
could take a box and sit back."
"It is not customary," Louise declared coldly. "If you really wish it,
though, I don't--I don't--"
Her speech was broken off in a somewhat extraordinary manner. She was
leaning a little forward in her chair, all her listlessness and pallor
seemed to have been swept away by a sudden rush of emotion. The colour
had flooded her cheeks, her tired eyes were suddenly bright; was it with
fear or only surprise? The Baroness wasted no time in asking questions.
She raised her lorgnettes and turned round, facing the direction in
which Louise was looking. Coming directly towards them from the further
end of the restaurant was a young man, whose eyes never swerved from
their table. He was pale, somewhat slight, but the lines of his mouth
were straight and firm, and there was not lacking in him that air of
distinction which the Baroness never failed to recognize. She put down
her glasses and looked across at Louise with a smile. She was quite
prepared to approve.
The young man stopped at their table and addressed himself directly to
Louise. The Baroness frowned as she saw how scanty were the signs of
encouragement in her young companion's face. She leaned a little forward,
ready at the first signs of an introduction to make every effort to atone
for Louise's coldness by a most complete amiability. This young man
should not be driven away if she could help it!
"I have been hoping, Miss Fitzmaurice," Wrayson said calmly, "that I
might meet you somewhere."
She shrank a little back for a moment. There flashed across her face a
quiver, as though of pain.
"Why do you think," she asked, "that that is my name?"
"Your father, Colonel Fitzmaurice, is one of my best friends," he
answered gravely. "I was at his house yesterday. I only came up this
morning. I beg your pardon! You are not well!"
Every vestige of colour had left her cheeks. The Baroness touched her
foot under the table, and Louise found her voice with an effort.
"How did you know that Colonel Fitzmaurice was my father?" she asked
breathlessly.
"I found a picture in your sister's album," he answered.
The answer seemed somehow to reassure her. She leaned a little towards
him. Under cover of the music her voice was inaudible to any one else.
"Mr. Wrayson," she said, "please don't think me unkind. I know that I
have a great deal to thank you for, and that there are certain
explanations which you have almost a right to demand from me. And yet I
ask you to go away, to ask me nothing at all, to believe me when I assure
you that there is nothing in the world so undesirable as any acquaintance
between you and me."
Wrayson was staggered, the words were so earnestly spoken, and the look
which accompanied them was so eloquent. He was never sure, when he
thought it over afterwards, what manner of reply he might not have made
to an appeal, the genuineness of which was absolutely convincing. But
before he could frame an answer, the Baroness intervened.
"Louise," she said softly, "do you not think that this place is a
little public for intimate conversation, and will you not introduce to
me your friend?"
Wrayson, who had been afraid of dismissal, turned at once, almost
eagerly, towards the Baroness. She smiled at him graciously. Louise
hesitated for a moment. There was no smile upon her lips. She bowed,
however, to the inevitable.
"This is Mr. Wrayson," she said quietly; "the Baroness de Sturm."
The Baroness raised her eyebrows, and she bestowed upon Wrayson a
comprehending look. The graciousness of her manner, however, underwent no
abatement.
"I fancy," she said, "that I have heard of you somewhere lately, or is
it another of the same name? Will you not sit down and take your coffee
with us--and a cigarette--yes?"
"We are keeping Mr. Wrayson from his friends, no doubt," Louise said
coldly. "Besides--do you see the time, Amy?"
But Wrayson had already drawn up a chair to the table.
"I am quite alone," he said. "If I may stay, I shall be delighted."
"Why not?" the Baroness asked, passing her cigarette case. "You can solve
for us the problem we were just then discussing. Is it _comme-il-faut,_
Mr. Wrayson, for two ladies, one of whom is almost middle-aged, to visit
a music-hall here in London unescorted?"
Wrayson glanced from Louise to her friend.
"May I inquire," he asked blandly, "which is the lady who is posing as
being almost middle-aged?"
The Baroness laughed at him softly, with a little contraction of the
eyebrows, which she usually found effective.
"We are going to be friends, Mr. Wrayson," she declared. "You are
sitting there in fear and trembling, and yet you have dared to pay a
compliment, the first I have heard for, oh! so many months. Do not be
afraid. Louise is not so terrible as she seems. I will not let her send
you away. Now you must answer my question. May we do this terrible
thing, Louise and I?"
"Assuredly not," he answered gravely, "when there is a man at hand who is
so anxious to offer his escort as I."
The Baroness clapped her hands.
"Do you hear, Louise?" she exclaimed.
"I hear," Louise answered dryly.
The Baroness made a little grimace.
"You are in an impossible humour, my dear child," she declared.
"Nevertheless, I declare for the music-hall, and for the escort of your
friend, Mr. Wrayson, if he really is in earnest."
"I can assure you," he said, "that you would be doing me a great kindness
in allowing me to offer my services."
The Baroness beamed upon him amiably, and rose to her feet.
"You have come," she avowed, "in time to save me from despair. I am not
used to go about so much unescorted, and I am not so independent as
Louise. See," she added, pushing a gold purse towards him, "you shall pay
our bill while we put on our cloaks. And will you ask afterwards for my
carriage, and we will meet in the portico?"
"With pleasure!" Wrayson answered, rising to his feet as they left the
table. "I will telephone for a box to the Alhambra. There is a wonderful
new ballet which every one is going to see."
He called the waiter and paid the bill from a remarkably well-filled
purse. As he replaced the change, it was impossible for him to avoid
seeing a letter addressed and stamped ready for posting, which occupied
one side of the gold bag. The name upon the envelope struck him as being
vaguely familiar; what had he heard lately of Madame de Melbain? It was
associated somehow in his mind with a recent event. It lingered in his
memory for days afterwards.
Louise and the Baroness left the room in silence. In the cloak-room the
latter watched her friend curiously as she arranged her wrap.
"So that is Mr. Wrayson," she remarked.
"Yes!" Louise answered deliberately. "I wish that you had let him go!"
The Baroness laughed softly.
"My dear child," she protested, "why? He seems to me quite a personable
young man, and he may be useful! Who can tell?"
Louise shrugged her shoulders. She stood waiting while the Baroness made
somewhat extensive use of her powder-puff.
"You forget," she said quietly, "that I am already in Mr. Wrayson's debt
pretty heavily."
The Baroness looked quickly around. She considered her young friend a
little indiscreet.
"I find you amusing, _ma chère_," she remarked. "Since when have you
developed scruples?"
Louise turned towards the door.
"You do not understand," she said. "Come!"
CHAPTER IX
A BOX AT THE ALHAMBRA
The Baroness lowered her lorgnettes and turned towards Wrayson.
"There is a man," she remarked, "in the stalls, who finds us apparently
more interesting than the performance. I do not see very well even
with my glasses, but I fancy, no! I am quite sure, that his face is
familiar to me."
Wrayson leaned forward from his seat in the back of the box and looked
downward. There was no mistaking the person indicated by the Baroness,
nor was it possible to doubt his obvious interest in their little party.
Wrayson frowned slightly as he returned his greeting.
"Ah, then, you know him," the Baroness declared. "It is a friend,
without doubt."
"He belongs to my club," Wrayson answered. "His name is Heneage. I beg
your pardon! I hope that wasn't my fault."
The Baroness had dropped her lorgnettes on the floor. She stooped
instantly to discover them, rejecting almost peremptorily Wrayson's aid.
When she sat up again she pushed her chair a little further back.
"It was my clumsiness entirely," she declared. "Ah! it is more restful
here. The lights are a little trying in front. You are wiser than I, my
dear Louise, to have chosen a seat back there."
She turned towards the girl as she spoke, and Wrayson fancied that there
was some subtle meaning in the swift glance which passed between the two.
Almost involuntarily he leaned forward once more and looked downwards.
Heneage's inscrutable face was still upturned in their direction. There
was nothing to be read there, not even curiosity. As the eyes of the two
men met, Heneage rose and left his seat.
"You know my friend, perhaps?" Wrayson remarked. "He is rather an
interesting person."
The Baroness shrugged her shoulders.
"We are cosmopolitans, Louise and I," she remarked. "We wander about so
much that we meet many people whose names even we do not remember. Is it
not so, _chérie_?"
Louise assented carelessly. The incident appeared to have interested her
but slightly. She alone seemed to be taking an interest in the
performance, which from the first she had followed closely. More than
once Wrayson had fancied that her attention was only simulated, in order
to avoid conversation.
"This ballet," she remarked, "is wonderful. I don't believe that you
people have seen any of it--you especially, Amy."
The Baroness glanced towards the stage.
"My dear Louise," she said, "you share one great failing with the
majority of your country-people. You cannot do more than one thing at a
time. Now I can watch and talk. Truly, the dresses are ravishing.
Doucet never conceived anything more delightful than that blend of
greens! Tell me about your mysterious-looking friend, Mr. Wrayson. Is
he, too, an editor?"
Wrayson shook his head.
"To tell you the truth," he said, "I know very little about him. He is
one of those men who seldom talk about themselves. He is a barrister, and
he has written a volume of travels. A clever fellow, I believe, but
possibly without ambition. At any rate, one never hears of his doing
anything now."
"Perhaps," the Baroness remarked, with her eyes upon the stage, "he is
one of those who keep their own counsel, in more ways than one. He does
not look like a man who has no object in life."
Wrayson glanced downwards at the empty stall.
"Very likely," he admitted carelessly, "and yet, nowadays, it is a little
difficult, isn't it, to do anything really worth doing, and not be found
out? They say that the press is lynx-eyed."
Louise leaned a little forward in her chair.
"And you," she remarked, "are an editor! Do you feel quite safe, Amy? Mr.
Wrayson may rob us of our most cherished secrets."
Her eyes challenged his, her lips were parted in a slight smile.
Underneath the levity of her remark, he was fully conscious of the
undernote of serious meaning.
"I am not afraid of Mr. Wrayson," the Baroness answered, smiling. "My age
and my dressmaker are the only two things I keep entirely to myself, and
I don't think he is likely to guess either."
"And you?" he asked, looking into her companion's eyes.
"There are many things," she answered, in a low tone, "which one keeps
to oneself, because confidences with regard to them are impossible.
And yet--"
She paused. Her eyes seemed to be following out the mystic design painted
upon her fan.
"And yet?" he reminded her under his breath.
"Yet," she continued, glancing towards the Baroness, and lowering her
voice as though anxious not to be overheard, "there is something
poisonous, I think, about secrets. To have them known without disclosing
them would be very often--a great relief."
He leaned a little towards her.
"Is that a challenge?" he asked, "if I can find out?"
The colour left her face with amazing suddenness. She drew away from him
quickly. Her whisper was almost a moan.
"No! for God's sake, no!" she murmured. "I meant nothing. You must not
think that I was speaking about myself."
"I hoped that you were," he answered simply.
The Baroness turned in her chair as though anxious to join in the
conversation. At that moment came a knock at the door of the box. Wrayson
rose and opened it. Heneage stood there and entered at once, as though
his coming were the most natural thing in the world.
"Thought I recognized you," he remarked, shaking hands with Wrayson. "I
believe, too, I may be mistaken, but I fancy that I have had the pleasure
of meeting the Baroness de Sturm."
The Baroness turned towards him with a smile. Nevertheless, Wrayson
noticed what seemed to him a strange thing. The slim-fingered, bejewelled
hand which rested upon the ledge of the box was trembling. The Baroness
was disturbed.
"At Brussels, I believe," she remarked, inclining her head graciously.
"At Brussels, certainly," he answered, bowing low.
She turned to Louise.
"Louise," she said, "you must let me present Mr. Heneage--Miss Deveney.
Mr. Heneage has a cousin, I believe, of the same name, in the Belgian
Legation. I remember seeing you dance with him at the Palace."
The two exchanged greetings. Heneage accepted a chair and spoke of the
performance. The conversation became general and of stereotyped form. Yet
Wrayson was uneasily conscious of something underneath it all which he
could not fathom. The atmosphere of the box was charged with some
electrical disturbance. Heneage alone seemed thoroughly at his ease. He
kept his seat until the close of the performance, and even then seemed in
no hurry to depart. Wrayson, however, took his cue from the Baroness, who
was obviously anxious for him to go.
"Goodnight, Heneage!" he said. "I may see you at the club later."
Heneage smiled a little oddly as he turned away.
"Perhaps," he said.
It was not until they were on their way out that Wrayson realized that
she was slipping away from him once more. Then he took his courage into
his hands and spoke boldly.
"I wonder," he said, "if I might be allowed to see you ladies home. I
have something to say to Miss Fitzmaurice," he added simply, turning to
the Baroness.
"By all means," she answered graciously, "if you don't mind rather an
uncomfortable seat. We are staying in Battersea. It seems a long way out,
but it is quiet, and Louise and I like it."
"In Battersea?" Wrayson repeated vaguely.
The Baroness looked over her shoulder. They were standing on the
pavement, waiting for their electric brougham.
"Yes!" she answered, dropping her voice a little, "in Frederic Mansions.
By the bye, we are neighbours, I believe, are we not?"
"Quite close ones," Wrayson answered. "I live in the next block of
flats."
The Baroness looked again over her shoulder.
"Your friend, Mr. Heneage, is close behind," she whispered, "and we are
living so quietly, Louise and I, that we do not care for callers. Tell
the man 'home' simply."
Wrayson obeyed, and the carriage glided off. Heneage had been within a
few feet of them when they had started, and although his attention
appeared to be elsewhere, the Baroness' caution was obviously justified.
She leaned back amongst the cushions with a little sigh of relief.
"Mr. Wrayson," she inquired, "may I ask if Mr. Heneage is a particular
friend of yours?"
Wrayson shook his head.
"I do not think that any man could call himself Heneage's particular
friend," he answered. "He is exceedingly reticent about himself and his
doings. He is a man whom none of us know much of."
The Baroness leaned a little forward.
"Mr. Heneage," she said slowly, "is associated in my mind with days and
events which, just at present, both Louise and I are only anxious to
forget. He may be everything that he should be. Perhaps I am
prejudiced. But if I were you, I would have as little to do as possible
with that man."
"We do not often meet," Wrayson answered, "and ours is only a club
acquaintanceship. It is never likely to be more."
"So much the better," the Baroness declared. "Don't you agree with
me, Louise?"
"I do not like Mr. Heneage," the girl answered. "But then, I have never
spoken a dozen words to him in my life."
"You have known him intimately?" Wrayson asked the Baroness.
She shrugged her shoulders and looked out of the window.
"Never that, quite," she answered. "I know enough of him, however, to be
quite sure that the advice which I have given you is good."
The carriage drew up in the Albert Road, within a hundred yards or so of
Wrayson's own block of flats. The Baroness alighted first.
"You must come in and have a whisky and soda," she said to Wrayson.
"If I may," he answered, looking at Louise.
The Baroness passed on. Louise, with a slight shrug of the shoulders,
followed her.
CHAPTER X
OUTCAST
The room into which a waiting man servant showed them was large and
handsomely furnished. Whisky and soda, wine and sandwiches were upon the
sideboard. The Baroness, stopping only to light a cigarette, moved
towards the door.
"I shall return," she said, "in a quarter of an hour."
She looked for a moment steadily at her friend, and then turned away.
Louise strolled to the sideboard and helped herself to a sandwich.
"Come and forage, won't you?" she asked carelessly. "There are some
_pâté_ sandwiches here, and you want whisky and soda, of course--or do
you prefer brandy?"
"Neither, thanks!" Wrayson answered firmly. "I want what I came for.
Please sit down here and answer my questions."
She laughed a little mockingly, and turning round, faced him, her head
thrown back, her eyes meeting his unflinchingly. The light from a
rose-shaded electric lamp glittered upon her hair. She was wearing black
again, and something in her appearance and attitude almost took his
breath away. It reminded him of the moment when he had seen her first.
"First," she said, "I am going to ask you a question. Why did you do it?"
"Do what?" he asked.
She gave vent to a little gesture of impatience. He must know quite well
what she meant.
"Why did you give evidence at the inquest and omit all mention of me?"
"I don't know," he answered bluntly.
"You have committed yourself to a story," she reminded him, "which is
certainly not altogether a truthful one. You have run a great risk,
apparently to shield me. Why?"
"I suppose because I am a fool," he answered bitterly.
She shook her head.
"No!" she declared, "that is not the reason."
He moved a step nearer to her.
"If I were to admit my folly," he said, "what difference would it
make--if I were to tell you that I did it to save you--the inconvenience
of an examination into the motive for your presence in Morris Barnes'
rooms that night--what then?"
"It was generous of you," she declared softly. "I ought to thank you."
"I want no thanks," he answered, almost roughly. "I want to know that I
was justified in what I did. I want you to tell me what you were doing
there alone in the rooms of such a man, with a stolen key. And I want you
to tell me what you know about his death."
"Is that all?" she asked.
"Isn't it enough?" he declared savagely. "It is enough to be making an
old man of me, anyhow."
"You have a right to ask these questions," she admitted slowly, "and I
have no right to refuse to answer them."
"None at all," he declared. "You shall answer them."
There was a moment's silence. She leaned a little further back against
the sideboard. Her eyes were fixed upon his, but her face was
inscrutable.
"I cannot," she said slowly. "I can tell you nothing."
Wrayson was speechless for a moment. It was not only the words
themselves, but the note of absolute finality with which they were
uttered, which staggered him. Then he found himself laughing, a sound
so unnatural and ominous that, for the first time, fear shone in the
girl's eyes.
"Don't," she cried, and her hands flashed towards him for a moment
as though the sight of him hurt her. "Don't be angry! Have pity on
me instead."
His nerves, already overwrought, gave way.
"Pity on a murderess, a thief!" he cried. "Not I! I have suffered enough
for my folly. I will go and tell the truth to-morrow. It was you who
killed him. You did it in the cab and stole back to his rooms to
rob--afterwards. Horrible! Horrible!"
Her face hardened. His lack of self-control seemed to stimulate her.
"Have it so," she declared. "I never asked you for your silence. If you
repent it, go and make the best bargain you can with the law. They will
let you off cheaply in exchange for your information!"
He walked the length of the room and back. Anything to escape from her
eyes. Already he hated the words which he had spoken. When he faced her
again he was master of himself.
"Listen," he said; "I was a little overwrought. I spoke wildly. I have no
right to make such an accusation. But--"
She held out her hand as though to stop him, but he went steadily on.
"But I have a right to demand that you tell me the truth as to what you
were doing in Barnes' rooms that night, and what you know of his death.
Remember that but for me you would have had to tell your story to a less
sympathetic audience."
"I never forget it," she answered, and for the first time her change to a
more natural tone helped him to believe in himself and his own judgment.
"If you want me to tell you how grateful I am, I might try, but it would
be a very hard task."
"All that I ask of you," he pleaded, "is that you tell me enough to
convince me that my silence was justified. Tell me at least that you had
no knowledge of or share in that man's death!"
"I cannot do that," she answered.
He took a quick step backwards. The horror once more was chilling his
blood, floating before his eyes.
"You cannot!" he repeated hoarsely.
"No! I knew that the man was in danger of his life," she went on, calmly.
"On the whole, I think that he deserved to die. I do not mind telling you
this, though. I would have saved him if I could."
He drew a great breath of relief.
"You had nothing to do with his actual death, then?"
"Nothing whatever," she declared.
"It was all I asked you, this," he cried reproachfully. "Why could you
not have told me before?"
She shook her head.
"You asked me other things," she answered calmly. "So much of the truth
you shall know, at any rate. I have pleaded not guilty to the material
action of drawing that cord around the worthless neck of the man whom you
knew as Morris Barnes. I plead guilty to knowing why he was murdered,
even if I do not know the actual person who committed the deed, and I
admit that I was in his rooms for the purpose of robbery. That is all I
can tell you."
He drew a little nearer to her.
"Enough! Do you know what it is that you have said? What are you?
Who are you?"
She shrugged her shoulders. Somehow, from her side at least, the tragical
note which had trembled throughout their interview had passed away. She
helped herself to soda water from a siphon on the sideboard.
"You appear, somewhat to my surprise," she remarked, "to know that. I
wonder at poor little Edith giving me away."
"All that I know is that you are living here under a false name,"
he declared.
She shook her head.
"My mother's," she told him. "The discarded daughter always has a right
to that, you know."
Her eyes mocked him. He felt himself helpless. This was the opportunity
for which he had longed, and it had come to him in vain. He recognized
the fact that his defeat was imminent. She was too strong for him.
"I am disappointed," he said, a little wearily. "You will not let me
believe in you."
"Why should you wish to?" she asked quickly
Almost immediately she bit her lip, as though she regretted the words,
which had escaped her almost involuntarily. But he was ready enough with
his answer.
"I cannot tell you that," he said gravely. "I never thought of myself as
a particularly emotional person. In fact, I have always rather prided
myself on my common sense. That night I think that I went a little mad.
Your appearance, you see, was so unusual."
She nodded.
"I must have been rather a shock to you," she admitted.
She watched him closely. The fire in his eyes was not yet quenched.
"Yes!" he said, "you were a shock. And the worst of it is--that you
remain one!"
"Ah!"
"You mean to keep me at arm's length," he said slowly, "to tell me as
little as possible, and get rid of me. I am not sure that I am willing."
She only raised her eyebrows. She said nothing.
"You have told me nothing of the things I want to know," he cried
passionately. "Who and what are you? What place do you hold in the
world?"
"None," she answered quietly. "I am an outcast."
He glanced around him.
"You are rich!"
"On the contrary," she assured him, "I am nearly a pauper."
"How do you live, then?" he asked breathlessly.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Why do you ask me these questions?" she said. "I cannot answer them.
Whatever my life may be, I live it to myself."
He leaned a little towards her. His breath was coming quickly, and she,
too, caught something of the nervous excitement of his manner.
"There are better things," he began.
"Not for me," she interrupted quickly. "I tell you that I am an
outcast. Of you, I ask only that you go away--now--before the Baroness
returns, and do your best to blot out the memory of that one night
from your life. Remember only that you did a generous action. Remember
that, and no more."
"Too late," he answered; "I cannot do it."
"You are a man," she answered, "and you say that?"
"It is because I am a man, and you are what you are, that I cannot," he
answered slowly.
There was a moment's breathless silence. Only he fancied that her face
had somehow grown softer.
"You must not talk like that," she said. "You do not know what you are
saying--who or what I am. Listen! I think I hear the Baroness."
She leaned a little forward, and the madness fired his blood. Half
stupefied, she yielded to his embrace, her lips rested upon his, her
frightened eyes were half closed. His arms held her like a vice, he could
feel her heart throbbing madly against his. How long they remained like
it he never knew--who can measure the hours spent in Paradise! She flung
him from her at last, taking him by surprise with a sudden burst of
energy, and before he could stop her she had left the room. In her place,
the Baroness was standing upon the threshold, dressed in a wonderful blue
wrapper, and with a cigarette between her teeth. She burst into a little
peal of laughter as she looked into his distraught face.
"For an Englishman," she remarked, "you are a little rapid in your
love affairs, my dear Mr. Wrayson, is it not so? So she has left you
_planté là_!"
"I--was mad," Wrayson muttered.
The Baroness helped herself to whisky and soda.
"Come again and make your peace, my friend," she said. "You will see no
more of her to-night."
Wrayson accepted the hint and went.
CHAPTER XI
FALSE SENTIMENT
With his nerves strung to their utmost point of tension Wrayson walked
homeward with the unseeing eyes and mechanical footsteps of a man unable
as yet fully to collect his scattered senses. But for him the events of
the evening were not yet over. He had no sooner turned the key in the
latch of his door and entered his sitting-room, than he became aware of
the fact that he had a visitor. The air was fragrant with tobacco smoke;
a man rose deliberately from the easy-chair, and, throwing the ash from
his cigarette into the fire, turned to greet him. Wrayson was so
astonished that he could only gasp out his name.
"Heneage!" he exclaimed.
Heneage nodded. Of the two, he was by far the more at his ease.
"I wanted to see you, Wrayson," he said, "and I persuaded your
housekeeper--with some difficulty--to let me wait for your arrival. Can
you spare me a few minutes?"
"Of course," Wrayson answered. "Sit down. Will you have anything?"
Heneage shook his head.
"Not just now, thanks!"
Wrayson took off his hat and coat, threw them upon the table, and lit a
cigarette.
"Well," he said, "what is it?"
"I have come," Heneage said quietly, "to offer you some very good
advice. You are run down, and you look it. You need a change. I should
recommend a sea voyage, the longer the better. They say that your paper
is making a lot of money. Why not a voyage round the world?"
"What the devil do you mean?" Wrayson asked.
Heneage flicked off the ash from his cigarette, and looked for a moment
thoughtfully into the fire.
"Three weeks ago last Thursday, I think it was," he began, reflectively,
"I had supper with Austin at the Green Room Club, after the theatre. He
persuaded me, rather against my will, I remember, for I was tired that
night, to go home with him and make a fourth at bridge. Austin's flat, as
you know, is just below here, on the Albert Road."
Wrayson stopped smoking. The cigarette burned unheeded between his
fingers. His eyes were fixed upon his visitor.
"Go on," he said.
"We played five rubbers," Heneage continued, still looking into the fire;
"it may have been six. I left somewhere in the small hours of the
morning, and walked along the Albert Road on the unlit side of the
street. As I passed the corner here, I saw a hansom waiting before your
door, and you--with somebody else, standing on the pavement."
"Anything else?" Wrayson demanded.
"No!" Heneage answered. "I saw you, I saw the lady, and I saw the cab.
It was a cold morning, and I am not naturally a curious person. I
hurried on."
Wrayson picked up the cigarette, which had fallen from his fingers, and
sat down. He could scarcely believe that this was not a dream--that it
was indeed Stephen Heneage who sat opposite to him, Heneage the
impenetrable, whose calm, measured words left no indication whatever as
to his motive in making this amazing revelation.
"You are naturally wondering," Heneage continued, "why, having seen what
I did see, I kept silence. I followed your lead, because I fancied, in
the first place, that the presence of that young lady was a personal
affair of your own, and that she could have no possible connection with
the tragedy itself. You were evidently disposed to shield her and
yourself at the same time. I considered your attitude reasonable, if a
little dangerous. No man is obliged to give himself away in matters of
this sort, and I am no scandalmonger. The situation, however, has
undergone a change."
Wrayson looked up quickly.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"To-night," Heneage said calmly, "I recognized your nocturnal visitor
with the Baroness de Sturm.
"And what of that?" Wrayson demanded.
Heneage, who was leaning back in his chair, looking into the fire with
half closed eyes, straightened himself, and turned directly towards his
companion.
"How much do you know about the Baroness de Sturm?" he asked.
"Nothing at all," Wrayson answered. "I met her for the first time
to-night."
Heneage looked back into the fire.
"Ah!" he murmured. "I thought that it might be so. The young lady is
perhaps an old friend?"
"I cannot discuss her," Wrayson answered. "I can only say that I will
answer for her innocence as regards any complicity in the murder of
Morris Barnes."
Heneage nodded sympathetically.
"Still," he remarked, "the man was murdered."
"I suppose so," Wrayson admitted.
"And in a most mysterious manner," Heneage continued. "You have gathered,
I dare say, from your knowledge of me, that these affairs always interest
me immensely. I am almost as great a crank as the Colonel. I have been
thinking over this case a great deal, but I must confess that up to
to-night I have not been able to see a gleam of daylight. I had dismissed
the young lady from my mind. Now, however, I cannot do so."
"Simply because you saw her with the Baroness de Sturm?" Wrayson asked.
"They are living together," Heneage reminded him, "a condition which
naturally makes for a certain amount of intimacy."
"Do you know anything against the Baroness?" Wrayson demanded.
"Against her?" Heneage repeated thoughtfully. "Well, that depends."
"Do you mean to insinuate that she is an adventuress?" Wrayson
asked bluntly.
"Certainly not," Heneage replied. "She is a representative of one of the
oldest families in Europe, a _persona grata_ at the Court of her country,
and an intimate friend of Queen Helena's. She is by no means an
adventuress."
"Then why," Wrayson asked, "should you attach such significance to the
fact of her friendship with Miss Deveney?"
"Because," Heneage remarked, lighting another cigarette, "I happen to
know that the Baroness is at present under the strictest police
surveillance!"
Wrayson started. Heneage's first statement had reassured him: his later
one was simply terrifying. He stared at his visitor in dumb alarm.
"I came to know of this in rather a curious way," Heneage continued. "My
information, in fact, came direct from her own country. She is being
watched with extraordinary care, in connection with some affair of which
I must confess that I know nothing. She is staying in London, a city
which I happen to know she detests, without any ostensible reason. Of all
parts, she has chosen Battersea as a place of residence. It is her
companion whom I saw leaving your flat at three o'clock on the morning of
Barnes' murder. I am bound to say, Wrayson, that I find these facts
interesting."
"Why have you come to me?" Wrayson asked. "What are you going to do
about them?"
"I am going to set myself the task of solving the mystery of Morris
Barnes' death," Heneage answered calmly. "If I succeed, I am very much
afraid that, directly or indirectly, the presence of Miss Deveney in the
flats that night will become known."
"And you advise me, therefore," Wrayson remarked, "to take a voyage--in
plain words, to clear out."
"Exactly," Heneage agreed.
Wrayson threw his cigarette angrily into the fire.
"What the devil business is it of yours?" he demanded.
Heneage looked at him steadily.
"Wrayson," he said, "I am sorry that you should use that tone with me. I
am no moralist. I admit frankly that I take this matter up because my
personal tastes prompt me to. But murder, however great the provocation,
is an indefensible thing."
"I am not seeking to justify it," Wrayson declared.
"I am glad to hear that," Heneage answered. "I cannot believe, either,
that you would shield any one directly or indirectly connected with such
a crime. I am going to ask you, therefore, to tell me what Miss Deveney
was doing in these flats on that particular evening."
Wrayson was silent. In the light of what he had just been told about the
Baroness, he knew very well how Heneage would regard the truth. Of
course, she was innocent, innocent of the deed itself and of all
knowledge of it. But Heneage did not know her; he would be hard to
convince. So Wrayson shook his head.
"I can tell you nothing," he said. "I admit frankly my sympathies are not
with you. I should not say a word likely to bring even inconvenience upon
Miss Deveney."
"Dare you tell me," Heneage asked calmly, "that her visit was to you?
No! I thought not," he added, as Wrayson remained silent. "I believe
that that young lady could solve the mystery of Morris Barnes' death, if
she chose."
Then Wrayson had an idea. At any rate, the disclosure would do no harm.
"Do you know who Miss Deveney is?" he asked.
Heneage looked across at him quickly.
"Do you?"
"Yes! She is the eldest daughter of the Colonel!"
"Our Colonel?" Heneage exclaimed.
Wrayson nodded.
"Her real name is Miss Fitzmaurice," he said. "Her mother's name
was Deveney."
Heneage looked incredulous.
"Are you sure about this?" he asked.
"Absolutely," Wrayson answered. "I saw her picture the day of the garden
party, and I recognized her at once. There is no doubt about it
whatever. She and the Baroness were schoolfellows in Brussels. There is
no mystery about their friendship at all."
Heneage was thoughtful for several moments.
"This is interesting," he said at last, "but it does not, of course,
affect the situation."
"You mean that you will go on just the same?" Wrayson demanded.
"Certainly! And it rests with you to say whether you will be on my side
or theirs," Heneage declared. "If you are on mine, you will tell me what
Miss Deveney was doing in these flats on that night of all others. If you
are on theirs, you will go and warn them that I am determined to solve
the mystery of Morris Barnes' death--at all costs."
"I had no idea," Wrayson remarked quietly, "that you were ambitious to
shine as an amateur policeman."
"We all have our hobbies," Heneage answered. "Take the Colonel, for
instance, the most harmless, the most good-natured man who ever lived.
Nothing in the world fascinates him so much as the details of a tragedy
like this, however gruesome they may be. I have seen him handle a
murderer's knife as though he loved it. His favourite museum is the
professional Chamber of Horrors in Scotland Yard. My own interests run in
a slightly different direction. I like to look at an affair of this sort
as a chess problem, and to set myself to solve it. I like to make a
silent study of all the characters around, to search for motives and
dissect evidence. Human nature has its secrets, and very wonderful
secrets too."
"I once," Wrayson said thoughtfully, "saw a man tracked down by
bloodhounds. My sympathies were with the man."
Heneage nodded.
"Your view of life," he remarked, "was always a sentimental one."
"No correct view," Wrayson declared, "can ignore sentiment."
"Granted; but it must be true sentiment, not false," Heneage said. "This
sentiment which interferes with justice is false sentiment."
"Justice is altogether an arbitrary, a relative phrase," Wrayson
declared. "I know no more about the case of Morris Barnes than you do. I
knew the man by sight and repute, and I knew the manner of his life, and
it seems to me a likely thing that there is more human justice about his
death than in the punishing the person who compassed it."
"There are cases of that sort," Heneage admitted. "That is the advantage
of being an amateur, like myself. My discoveries, if I make any, are my
own. I am not bound to publish them."
Wrayson smiled a little bitterly.
"You would be less than human if you didn't," he said.
Heneage rose to his feet and began putting on his coat. Wrayson remained
in his seat, without offering to help him.
"So I may take it, I suppose," he said, as he moved towards the door,
"that my visit to you is a failure?"
"I have not the slightest idea of running away, if that is what you
mean," Wrayson answered. "I am obliged to you for your warning, but what
I did I am prepared to stand by."
"I am sorry," Heneage answered. "Good night!"
CHAPTER XII
TIDINGS FROM THE CAPE
Wrayson paused for a moment in his work to answer the telephone which
stood upon his table.
"What is it?" he asked sharply.
His manager spoke to him from the offices below.
"Sorry to disturb you, sir, but there is a young man here who won't go
away without seeing you. His name is Barnes, and he says that he has just
arrived from South Africa."
It was a busy morning with Wrayson, for in an hour or so the paper went
to press, but he did not hesitate for a moment.
"I will see him," he declared. "Bring him up yourself."
Wrayson laid down the telephone. Morris Barnes had come from South
Africa. It was a common name enough, and yet, from the first, he was sure
that this was some relative. What was the object of his visit? The ideas
chased one another through his brain. Was he, too, an avenger?
There was a knock at the door, and the clerk from downstairs ushered in
his visitor. Wrayson could scarcely repress a start. It was a younger
edition of Morris Barnes who stood there, with an ingratiating smile upon
his pale face, a trifle more Semitic in appearance, perhaps, but in other
respects the likeness was almost startling. It extended even to the
clothes, for Wrayson recognized with a start a purple and white tie of
particularly loud pattern. The cut of his coat, the glossiness of his hat
and boots, too, were all strikingly reminiscent of the dead man.
His visitor was becoming nervous under Wrayson's close scrutiny. His
manner betrayed a curious mixture of diffidence and assurance. He seemed
overanxious to create a favourable impression.
"I took the liberty of coming to see you, Mr. Wrayson," he said, twisting
his hat round in his hand. "My name is Barnes, Sydney Barnes. Morris
Barnes was my brother."
Wrayson pointed to a chair, into which his visitor subsided with
exaggerated expressions of gratitude. He had very small black eyes, set
very close together, and he blinked continually. The more Wrayson studied
him, the less prepossessing he found him.
"What can I do for you, Mr. Barnes?" he asked quietly.
"I have just come from Cape Town," the young man said. "Such a shock it
was to me--about my poor brother! Oh! such a shock!"
"How did you hear about it?" Wrayson asked.
"Just a newspaper--I read an account of it all. It did give me a turn and
no mistake. Directly I'd finished, I went and booked my passage on the
_Dunottar Castle._ I had a very fair berth over there--two quid a week,
but I felt I must come home at once. Fact is," he continued, looking down
at his trousers, "I had no time to get my own togs together. I was so
anxious, you see. That's why I'm wearing some of poor Morris's."
"Are you the only relative?" Wrayson asked.
"'Pon my sam, I am," the other answered with emphasis. "We hadn't a
relation in the world. Father and mother died ten years ago, and Morris
and I were the only two. Anything that poor Morris possessed belongs to
me, sure! There's no one else to claim a farthing's worth. You must know
that yourself, Mr. Wrayson, eh?"
"If, as you say, you are the only relative, your brother's effects, of
course, belong to you," Wrayson answered.
"It's a sure thing," the young man declared. "I've been to the landlord
of the flat, and he gave me up the keys at once. There's only one
quarter's rent owing. Pretty stiff though--isn't it? Fifty pounds!"
"Your brother's was a furnished flat, I believe," Wrayson answered. "That
makes a difference, of course."
The young man's face fell.
"Then the furniture wasn't his?" he remarked.
Wrayson shook his head.
"No! the furniture belongs to the landlord. There will be an inventory,
of course, and you will be able to find out if anything was your
brother's."
It was obvious that Mr. Sydney Barnes had not as yet entered upon the
purpose of his visit. He fidgeted for a moment or two with his hat, and
looked up at Wrayson, only to look nervously away again. To set him more
at his ease, Wrayson lit a cigarette and passed the box over.
"Thank you, Mr. Wrayson! Thank you, sir!" his visitor exclaimed. "You
see I'm a smoker," he added, holding up his yellow-stained forefinger.
"That is, I smoke when I can afford to. Things have been pretty dicky
out in South Africa lately, you know. Terrible hard it has been to make
a living."
"Your brother was supposed to have done pretty well out there," Wrayson
remarked, more for the sake of keeping the conversation alive than
anything. The effect of his words, however, was electrical. Mr. Sydney
Barnes leaned over from his chair, and his little black eyes twinkled
like polished beads.
"Mr. Wrayson," he declared, "a week before he sailed for England, Morris
was on his uppers! He was caught in Johannesburg when the war broke out,
and he had to stay there. When he turned up in Cape Town again, his own
mother wouldn't have known him. He was in rags--he'd come down on a
freight--he hadn't a scrap of luggage, or a copper to his name. That was
Morris when he came to me in Cape Town!"
Wrayson was listening attentively; he almost feared to let his visitor
see how interested he was.
"He was fair done in!" the young man continued. "He never had the pluck
of a chicken, and the night he found me in Cape Town he cried like a
baby. He had lost everything, he said. It was no use staying in the
country any longer. He was wild to get back to England. And yet, do you
know, sir, all the time I had the idea that he was keeping something back
from me. And he was! He was, too! The--!"
He stopped short. The vindictiveness of his countenance supplied
the epithet.
"You'll excuse me if I'm a bit excited, Mr. Wrayson," he continued. "I'll
leave you to judge how I've been served when you hear all. He got over
me, and I lent him nearly half of my savings, and he started back to
England. He took this flat at two hundred pounds a year the very week he
got back, and he's lived, from what I can hear, like a lord ever since.
Will you believe this, sir! He sent back the money he borrowed from me a
quid at a time, and wrote me to say he was saving it with great
difficulty--out of his salary of three pounds a week. When he'd paid back
the lot, I never heard another line from him. I was doing rotten myself,
and he knew well enough that I should have been over first steamer if I'd
known about his two hundred a year flat, and all the rest of it. What do
you think of my brother, sir, eh? What do you think of him? Treated me
nicely, didn't he? Nine pounds ten it was I lent him, and nine pounds ten
was all I had back, and here he was living like a duke, and lying to me
about his three pounds a week; and there was I hawkering groceries on a
barrow, selling sham diamonds, any blooming thing to get a mouthful to
eat. Nice sort of brother that, eh? What?"
Wrayson repressed an inclination to smile. There was something grimly
humourous about his visitor's indignation.
"You must remember," he said, "that your brother is dead, and that his
death itself was a terrible one. Besides, even if you have had to wait
for a little time, you are his heir now."
The young man was breathing hard. The perspiration stood out in little
beads upon his forehead. He showed his teeth a little. He was becoming
more and more unpleasant to look upon as his excitement increased.
"Look here, Mr. Wrayson!" he exclaimed. "I'm coming to that. I've been
through his things. Clothes! I never saw such a collection. All from a
West End tailor, too! And boots! Patent, with white tops; pumps,
everything slap up! Heaven knows what he must have spent upon his
clothes. Bills from restaurants, too; why, he seems to have thought
nothing of spending a quid or two on a dinner or a supper. Photographs
of ladies, little notes asking him to tea; why, between you and me, Mr.
Wrayson, sir, he was living like a prince! And look here!"
He rose to his feet and planked down a bank-book on the desk in front
of Wrayson.
"Look here, sir," he declared. "Every three months, within a day or two,
cash--five hundred pounds. Here you are. Here's the last: March
27--cash, £500! Look back! January 1--By cash £500! October 2--cash,
£500! There you are, right back to the very day he arrived in England.
And he left South Africa with ten bob of mine in his pocket, after he'd
paid his passage! and from what I can hear, he never did a day's work
after he landed. And me over there working thirteen and fourteen hours a
day, and half the time stony-broke! There's a brother for you! Cain was
a fool to him!"
"But you must remember that after all you are going to reap the benefit
of it now," Wrayson remarked.
"Ah! but am I?" the young man exclaimed fiercely. "That's what I want to
know. Look here! I've been through every letter and every scrap of paper
I can find, I've been to the bank and to his few pals, and strike me dead
if I can find where that five hundred pounds came from every three
months! It was in gold always; he must have gone and changed it
somewhere--five hundred golden sovereigns every three months, and I can't
find where they came from!"
"Have you been to a solicitor?" Wrayson asked.
"Not yet," the young man answered. "I don't see what good he'll be when I
do. Morris was always one of the close sort, and I can't fancy him
spending much over lawyers."
"What made you come to me?" Wrayson inquired.
"Well, the caretaker at the flat told me that you and Morris used to
speak now and then, and I'm trying every one. I'm afraid he wasn't quite
classy enough for you to have palled up with, but I thought he might have
let something slip perhaps."
Wrayson shook his head.
"He never spoke to me of his affairs," he said. "He always seemed to have
plenty of money, though."
"Doesn't the bank-book prove it?" the young man exclaimed excitedly.
"Every one who knew anything about him says the same. There was I half
starved in Cape Town, and here was he spending two thousand a year.
Beast, he was! I'll find out where it came from if it takes me a
lifetime."
Wrayson leaned back in his chair. Nothing since the events of that night
itself had appealed to him more than the coming of this young man and his
strange story.
"I am sorry that I have no information to give you," he said. "On the
other hand, if I can help you in any other way I shall be very glad."
"What should you advise me to do?" the young man asked.
"I should like to think the matter over carefully," Wrayson answered.
"What are your engagements for to-day? Can you lunch with me?"
"I have no engagements," his visitor answered eagerly. "When and
what time?"
Wrayson repressed a smile.
"I shall be ready in twenty minutes," he answered. "We will go out
together if you don't mind waiting."
"I'm on," Mr. Sydney Barnes declared, crossing his legs. "Don't you hurry
on my account. I'll wait as long as you like."
CHAPTER XIII
SEARCHING THE CHAMBERS
Wrayson took his guest to a popular restaurant, where there was music and
a five-course luncheon for three and six. Their conversation during the
earlier part of the meal was limited, for Mr. Sydney Barnes showed
himself possessed of an appetite which his host contemplated with
respectful admiration. His sallow cheeks became flushed and his
nervousness had subsided, long before the arrival of the coffee.
"I say, this is all right, this place is," he said, leaning back in his
chair with a large cigar between his teeth. "Jolly expensive, I suppose,
isn't it?"
Wrayson smiled.
"It depends," he answered. "I don't suppose your brother would have found
it so. A bachelor can do himself pretty well on two thousand a year."
"I only hope I get hold of it," Mr. Sydney Barnes declared fervently.
"This is the way I should like to live, this is."
"I hope you will," Wrayson answered. "An income of that sort could
scarcely disappear into thin air, could it? By the bye, Mr. Barnes, that
reminds me of a very important circumstance which, up to now, we have not
mentioned. I mean the way your brother met with his death."
The young man nodded thoughtfully.
"Ah!" he remarked, "he was murdered, wasn't he? Some one must have owed
him a nasty grudge. Morris always was a one to make enemies."
"I don't know whether the same thing has occurred to you," Wrayson
continued, "but I can't help wondering whether there may not have been
some connection between his death and that mysterious income of his."
"I've thought of that myself," the young man declared. "All the same,
I can't see what he could have carried about with him worth two
thousand a year."
"Exactly," Wrayson answered, "but you see the matter stands like this. He
was in receipt of about £500 every three months, as his bank-book proves.
This sum would represent five per cent interest on forty thousand pounds.
Now, considering your brother's position when he left you at Cape Town,
and the fact that you cannot discover at his bankers or elsewhere any
documents alluding to property or shares of any sort, one can scarcely
help dismissing the hypothesis that this payment was the result of
dividends or interest. At any rate, let us put that out of the question
for the moment. Your brother received five hundred pounds every three
months from some one. People don't give money away for nothing nowadays,
you know. From whom and for what services did he receive that money?"
Mr. Sydney Barnes looked puzzled.
"Ask me another," he remarked facetiously.
"You do not know of any secrets, I suppose, which your brother may have
stumbled into possession of?"
"Not I! He went about with his eyes open and his mouth closed, but I
never heard of his having that sort of luck."
"He could not have had any adventures on the steamer, for he came back
steerage," Wrayson continued thoughtfully, "and he was in funds almost
from the moment he landed in England. I am afraid, Mr. Barnes, that he
must have been deceiving you in Cape Town."
"If I could only have a dozen words with him!" the young man
muttered savagely.
"It would be useful," Wrayson admitted, "but, unfortunately, it is out of
the question. Either he was deceiving you, or he was in possession of
something which turned out far more valuable than he had imagined."
"If so, where is it?" Mr. Sydney Barnes demanded. "If it was worth that
to him, it may be to me."
"Exactly," Wrayson remarked, "but the question of your brother's
murder comes in there. People don't commit a crime like that for
nothing, you know. If it was information which your brother had, it
died with him. If it was documents, they were probably stolen by the
person who killed him."
"Come, that's cheerful," the young man declared ruefully. "If you're
guessing right, where do I come in?"
"I'm afraid you don't come in," Wrayson answered; "but remember I am only
following out a surmise. Have you looked through your brother's papers
carefully?"
"I've gone through 'em all," Mr. Sydney Barnes answered, "but, of course,
I was looking for scrip or a memorandum of investments, or something of
that sort. Perhaps if a clever chap like you were to go through them, you
might come across a clue."
"It seems hard to believe that he shouldn't have left something of the
sort behind him," Wrayson answered. "It might be only an address, or a
name, or anything."
"Will you come round with me and see?" Mr. Barnes demanded eagerly. "It
wouldn't take you long. You're welcome to see everything there is there."
Wrayson called for the bill.
"Very well," he said, "we will take a hansom round there at once."
They left the place a few minutes later, and drove to Battersea.
"There's a quarter to run, the landlord says, so I'm staying here,"
Barnes explained, as he unlocked the front door. "I can't afford a
servant or anything of that sort of course, but I shall just sleep here."
The rooms had a ghostly and unkempt appearance. The atmosphere of the
sitting-room was stuffy and redolent of stale tobacco smoke. Wrayson's
first action was to throw open the window.
"There isn't a sign of a paper anywhere, except in that desk," the young
man remarked. "You'll find things in a mess, but whatever was there is
there now. I've destroyed nothing."
Wrayson seated himself before the desk, and began a careful search. There
were restaurant bills without number, and a variety of ladies' cards,
more or less soiled. There were Empire and Alhambra programmes, a bundle
of racing wires, and an account from a bookmaker showing a small debit
balance. There were other miscellaneous bills, a plaintive epistle from a
lady signing herself Flora, and begging for the loan of a fiver for a
week, and an invitation to tea from a spinster who called herself Poppy.
Amongst all this mass of miscellaneous documents there were only three
which Wrayson laid on one side for further consideration. One of these
was a note, dated from the Adelphi a few days before the tragedy, and
written in a stiff, legal hand. It contained only a few lines:
"DEAR SIR,--
"My client will be happy to meet you at any time on Thursday you may be
pleased to appoint, either here or at your own address. Please reply,
making an appointment, by return of post.
"Yours faithfully,
"W. BENTHAM."
The second document was also in the shape of a letter from a firm of
private detective agents and was dated only a day earlier than the
lawyer's letter. It ran as follows:
"MY DEAR SIR,--
"In reply to your inquiry, our charges for watching a single person in
London only are three guineas a day, including all expenses. For that
sum we can guarantee that the person with whose movements you desire to
keep in touch will be closely shadowed from roof to roof, so long as
the person remains within seven miles of Charing Cross. A daily report
will be made to you, and should legal proceedings ensue from any
information procured by us, you may rely upon any witness whom we might
place in the box.
"Trusting to hear from you,
"We are, yours sincerely,
"McKENNA & FOULDS."
The third document which Wrayson had preserved was the Cunard sailing
list for the current month, the plan of a steamer which sailed within a
week of the murder, and a few lines from the steamship office respecting
accommodation.
"These, at any rate, will give you something to do," Wrayson remarked.
"You can go to the lawyer and find out who his client was who desired to
see your brother. There is a chance there! You can go to McKenna & Foulds
and find out who it was whom he wanted shadowed, and you can go to the
Cunard office and see whether he really intended sailing for America."
Mr. Sydney Barnes looked a little doubtful.
"I suppose," he suggested timidly, "you couldn't spare the time to go
round to these places with me? You see, I'm not much class over here,
even in Morris's togs. They'd take more notice of you, being a gentleman.
Good God! what's that?"
Both men had started, for the sound was unexpected. Some one was fitting
a latch-key into the door!
CHAPTER XIV
THE DEAD MAN'S BROTHER
At the sight of the two men who awaited her entrance, the Baroness
stopped short. Whatever alarm or surprise she may have felt at their
presence was effectually concealed from them by the thick veil which she
wore, through which her features were undistinguishable. As though
purposely, she left to them the onus of speech.
Wrayson took a quick step towards her.
"Baroness!" he exclaimed. "What are you--I beg your pardon, but what are
you doing here?"
She raised her veil and looked at them both attentively. In her hand she
still held the latch-key by means of which she entered.
"Do you know," she answered quietly, "I was just going to ask you the
same thing."
"Our presence is easily explained," Wrayson answered. "This is Mr. Sydney
Barnes, the brother of the Mr. Barnes who used to live here. He is
keeping the flat on for a short time."
The Baroness was surprised, and showed it. Without a moment's hesitation,
however, she accepted Wrayson's words as an introduction to the young
man, and held out her hand to him with a brilliant smile.
"I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Barnes," she said, "even under such
painful circumstances. I knew your brother very well, and I have heard
him speak of you."
[Illustration: "AT THE SIGHT OF THE TWO MEN, THE BARONESS STOPPED SHORT"]
Mr. Sydney Barnes did not attempt to conceal his surprise. He shook
hands with the Baroness, however, and regarded her with undisguised
admiration.
"Well, this licks me!" he exclaimed frankly. "Do you mean to say that you
were a friend of Morris's?"
"Certainly," the Baroness answered. "Why not?"
"Oh! I don't know," the young man declared. "I'm getting past being
surprised at anything. I suppose it's the oof that makes the difference.
A friend of Morris's, you said. Why, perhaps--" He hesitated, and glanced
towards Wrayson.
"There is no harm in asking the Baroness, at any rate," Wrayson said.
"The fact of the matter is," he continued, turning towards her, "that Mr.
Sydney Barnes here finds himself in a somewhat extraordinary position. He
is the sole relative and heir of his brother, and he has come over here
from South Africa, naturally enough, to take possession of his effects.
Now there is no doubt, from his bank-book, and his manner of life, that
Morris Barnes was possessed of a considerable income. According to his
bank-book it was £2,000 a year."
The Baroness nodded thoughtfully.
"He told me once that he was worth as much as that," she remarked,
"Exactly, but the curious part of the affair is that, up to the present,
Mr. Sydney Barnes has been unable to discover the slightest trace of any
investments or any sum of money whatever. Now can you help us? Did
Morris Barnes ever happen to mention to you in what direction his
capital was invested? Did he ever give you any idea at all as to the
source of his income?"
The Baroness stood quite still, as though lost in thought. Wrayson
watched her with a curious sense of fascination. He knew very well that
the subtle brain of the woman was occupied in no fruitless attempt at
reminiscence; he was convinced that the Baroness had never exchanged a
single word with Morris Barnes in her life. She was thinking her way
through this problem--how best to make use of this unexpected tool. Their
eyes met and she smiled faintly. She judged rightly that Wrayson, at any
rate, was not deceived.
"I cannot give you any definite information," she said at last, "but--"
She hesitated, and the young man's eagerness escaped all bounds.
"But what?" he cried, leaning breathlessly towards her. "You know
something! What is it? Go on! Go on!"
"I think that if I can remember it," she continued, "I can tell you the
name of the solicitor whom he employed."
The young man dashed his fist upon the table. He was pale almost
to the lips.
"By God! you must remember it," he cried. "Don't say you've forgotten.
It's most important. Two thousand a year!--pounds! Think!"
She turned towards Wrayson. She wished to conciliate him, but the young
man was not a pleasant sight.
"It was something like Benton," she suggested.
Wrayson glanced downward at one of the three documents which he had
preserved.
"Bentham!" he exclaimed. "Was that it?"
The face of the Baroness cleared at once.
"Of course it was! How stupid of me to have forgotten. His offices are
somewhere in the Adelphi."
Barnes caught up his hat.
"Where is that?" he exclaimed. "I'm off."
Wrayson held out his hand.
"Wait a moment," he said. "There is no hurry for an hour or so. This
affair may not be quite so simple, after all."
"Why not?" the young man demanded fiercely. "It's my money, isn't it? I
can take out letters of administration. It belongs to me. He'll have to
give it up."
"In the long run I should say that he will--if he has it," Wrayson
answered. "But before you go to him, remember this. He has seen the
account of your brother's death. He did not appear at the inquest. He has
taken no steps to discover his next of kin. Both of these proceedings
were part of his natural duty."
"Mr. Wrayson is quite right," the Baroness remarked. "Mr. Bentham has not
behaved as an honest man. He will have to be treated firmly but
carefully. You are a little excited just now. Wait for an hour or so, and
perhaps Mr. Wrayson will go with you."
Barnes turned towards him eagerly, and Wrayson nodded.
"Yes! I'll go," he said. "I know Mr. Bentham slightly. He once paid me
rather a curious visit. But never mind that now."
"Was it in connection with this affair?" the Baroness asked him quietly.
Wrayson affected not to hear. He passed his cigarette case to Barnes, who
was stamping up and down the room, muttering to himself.
"Look here, you'd better have a smoke and calm down, young man," he
said. "It's no use going to see Bentham in a state like this."
The young man threw himself into a chair. Suddenly he sat up again, and
addressed the Baroness.
"I say," he exclaimed, "how is it that you have a key to this flat? What
did you come here for this afternoon?"
The Baroness laughed softly.
"Well, I got the key from the landlord a few days ago. I told him that I
might take the flat, and he told me to come in and look at it and return
the key--which you see I haven't done. To be quite honest with you,
though, I had another reason for coming here."
The young man looked at her with mingled suspicion and admiration. She
had raised her veil now, and even Wrayson was aware that he had scarcely
realized how beautiful a woman she was. Her tailor-made gown of dark
green cloth fitted her to perfection; she was turned out with all that
delightful perfection of detail which seems to be the Frenchwoman's
heritage. Her smile, half pathetic, half appealing, was certainly
sufficient to turn the head of a dozen young men such as Sydney Barnes.
"I have told you," she continued, "that your brother and I used to be
very good friends. I wrote him now and then some rather foolish letters.
He promised to destroy them, but--men are so foolish, you know,
sometimes--I was never quite sure that he had kept his word, and I meant
to take this opportunity of looking for myself that he had not left them
about. You do not blame me, Mr. Sydney? You are not cross?"
He kept his eyes upon her as though fascinated.
"No!" he said. "No! I mean of course not."
"These letters," she continued, "you have not seen them, Mr. Sydney? No?
Or you, Mr. Wrayson?"
"We have not come across any letters at all answering to that
description," Wrayson assured her.
The Baroness glanced across at Barnes, who was certainly regarding her in
somewhat peculiar fashion.
"Why does Mr. Sydney look at me like that?" she asked, with a little
shrug of the shoulders. "He does not think that I came here to steal?
Why, Mr. Sydney," she added, "I am very, very much richer than ever your
brother was."
"Richer--than he was! Richer than two thousand a year!" he gasped.
The Baroness laughed softly but heartily. She stole a sidelong glance
at Wrayson.
"Why, my dear young man," she said, "it costs me--oh! quite as much as
that each year to dress."
Barnes looked at her as though she were something holy. When he spoke,
there was awe in his tone. The problem which had formed itself in his
thoughts demanded expression.
"And you say that you were a pal--I mean a friend of Morris's? You wrote
him letters?"
The Baroness smiled.
"Why not?" she exclaimed. "Women have queer tastes, you know. We like all
sorts of men. I think I must ask Mr. Wrayson to bring you in to tea one
afternoon. Would you like to come?"
"Yes!" he answered.
She nodded a farewell and turned to Wrayson.
"As for you," she said under her breath, "you had better come soon if
you want to make your peace with Louise."
"May I come this afternoon?" he asked.
She nodded, and held out her exquisitely gloved hand.
"I knew you were going to be an ally," she murmured under her breath.
"Don't let the others get hold of him."
She was gone before Wrayson could ask for an explanation. The others! If
only he could discover who they were.
He turned back into the room.
"Do you mind coming down into my flat for a moment, Barnes?" he asked. "I
want to telephone to the office before I go out with you again."
The young man followed him heavily. He seemed a little dazed. In
Wrayson's sitting-room, he stood looking about him as though appraising
the value of the curios, pictures, and engravings with which the
apartment was crowded. Wrayson, while waiting for his call, watched him
curiously. In his present state his vulgarity was perhaps less glaringly
apparent, but his lack of attractiveness was accentuated. His ears seemed
to have grown larger, his pinched, Semitic features more repulsive, and
his complexion sallower. He was pitchforked into a world of which he knew
nothing, and he seemed stunned by his first contact with it. Only one
thing remained--the greed in his eyes. They seemed to have grown narrower
and brighter with desire.
He did not speak until they were in the cab. Then he turned to Wrayson.
"I say," he exclaimed, "what was her name?"
Wrayson smiled.
"The Baroness de Sturm," he answered.
"Baroness! Real Baroness! All O.K., I suppose?"
"Without a doubt," Wrayson answered.
"And Morris knew her--she wrote letters to him," he continued, "a
woman--like that."
He was silent for several moments. It was obvious that his opinion of his
brother was rising rapidly. His tone had become almost reverential.
"I've got to find where that money is," he said abruptly. "If I go
through fire and water to get it, I'll have it! I'll keep on Morris's
flat. I'll go to his tailor! I'll--you're laughing at me. But I mean it!
I've had enough of grubbing along on nothing a week, and living in the
gutters. I want a bit of Morris's luck."
Wrayson put his head out of the cab. The young man's face was not
pleasant to look at.
"We are there," he said. "Come along."
CHAPTER XV
THE LAWYER'S SUGGESTION
The offices of Mr. Bentham were situated at the extreme end of a dingy,
depressing looking street which ran from the Adelphi to the Embankment
Gardens. It was a street of private hotels which no one had ever heard
of, and where apparently no one ever stayed. A few cranky institutions,
existing under the excuse of charity, had their offices there, and a firm
of publishers, whose glory was of the past, still dragged out their
uncomfortable and profitless existence in a building whose dusty windows
and smoke-stained walls sufficiently proclaimed their fast approaching
extinction. They found the name of Mr. Bentham upon a rusty brass plate
outside the last building in the street, with the additional intimation
that his offices were upon the first floor. There they found him, without
clerks, without even an errand boy, in a large bare apartment overlooking
the embankment. The room was darkened by the branches of one of a row of
elm trees, and the windows themselves were curtainless. There was no
carpet upon the floor, no paper upon the walls, no rows of tin boxes,
none of the usual surroundings of a lawyer's office. The solicitor, who
had bidden them enter, did not at first offer them any salutation. He
paused in a letter which he was writing and his eyes rested for a moment
upon Wrayson, and for a second or two longer upon his companion.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Bentham!" Wrayson said. "My name is Wrayson--you
remember me, I daresay."
"I remember you certainly, Mr. Wrayson," the lawyer answered. His eyes
were resting once more upon Sydney Barnes.
"This," Wrayson explained, "is Mr. Sydney Barnes, a brother of the Mr.
Morris Barnes, who was, I believe, a client of yours."
"Scarcely," the lawyer murmured, "a client of mine, although I must
confess that I was anxious to secure him as one. Possibly if he had lived
a few more hours, the epithet would have been in order."
Wrayson nodded.
"From a letter which we found in Mr. Barnes' desk," he remarked, "we
concluded that some business was pending between you. Hence our visit."
Mr. Bentham betrayed no sign of interest or curiosity of any sort.
"I regret," he said, "that I cannot offer you chairs. I am not
accustomed to receive my clients here. If you care to be seated upon
that form, pray do so."
Wrayson glanced at the form and declined. Sydney Barnes seemed scarcely
to have heard the invitation. His eyes were glued upon the lawyer's face.
"Will you tell me precisely," Mr. Bentham said, "in what way I can be of
service to you?"
"I want to know where my brother's money is," Barnes declared, stepping a
little forward. "Two thousand a year he had. We've seen it in his
bank-book. Five hundred pounds every quarter day! And we can't find a
copper! You were his lawyer, or were going to be. You must have known
something about his position."
Mr. Bentham looked straight ahead with still, impassive face. No trace
of the excitement in Sydney Barnes' face was reflected in his features.
"Two thousand a year," he repeated calmly. "It was really as much as
that, was it? Your brother had, I believe, once mentioned the amount to
me. I had no idea, though, that it was quite so large."
"I am his heir," the young man declared feverishly. "I'll take my oath
there's no one else. I'm going to take out letters of administration. He
hadn't another relation on God's earth."
Mr. Bentham regarded the young man thoughtfully.
"Have you any idea, Mr. Barnes," he asked, "as to the source of
this income?"
"Of course I haven't," Barnes answered. "That's why we're here. You must
know something about it."
"Your brother was not my client," the lawyer said slowly. "If his death
had not been quite so sudden, I think that he might have been. As it is,
I know very little of his affairs. I am afraid that I can be of very
little use to you."
"You must know something," Barnes declared doggedly. "You must tell us
what you do know."
"Your brother was," Mr. Bentham said, "a very remarkable man. Has it
never occurred to you, Mr. Barnes, that this two thousand a year might
have been money received in payment of services rendered--might have
been, in short, in the nature of a salary?"
"Not likely," Barnes answered, contemptuously. "Morris did no work at
all. He did nothing but just enjoy himself and spend money."
"Nothing but enjoy himself and spend money," Mr. Bentham repeated. "Ah!
Did you see a great deal of your brother during the last few years?"
"I saw nothing of him at all. I was out in South Africa. I have only just
got back. Not but that I'd been here long ago," the young man added, with
a note of exasperation in his tone, "if I'd had any idea of the luck he
was in. Why, I lent him a bit to come back with, though I was only
earning thirty bob a week, and the brute only sent it me back in bits,
and not a farthing over."
"That was not considerate of him," Mr. Bentham agreed--"not at all
considerate. Your brother had the command of considerable sums of money.
In fact, Mr. Barnes, I may tell you, without any breach of confidence, I
think that if he had kept his appointment with me on the night when he
was murdered, I was prepared, on behalf of my client, to hand him a
cheque for ten thousand pounds!"
Barnes struck the table before him with his clenched fist.
"For what?" he cried, hysterically. "Ten thousand pounds for what?"
"Your brother," Mr. Bentham said calmly, "was possessed of securities
which were worth that much or even more to my client."
"And where are they now?" Barnes gasped.
"I do not know," Mr. Bentham answered. "If you can find them, I think it
very likely that my client might make you a similar offer."
It was the first ray of hope. Barnes moistened his dry lips with his
tongue, and drew a long breath.
"Securities!" he muttered. "What sort of securities?"
"There, unfortunately," Mr. Bentham said, "I am unable to help you. I am
an agent only in the matter. They were securities which my client was
anxious to buy, and your brother was not unwilling to sell for cash,
notwithstanding the income which they were bringing him in."
"But how can I look for them, if I don't know what they are?" Barnes
protested.
"There are difficulties, certainly," the lawyer admitted, carefully
polishing his spectacles with the corner of a silk handkerchief; "but,
then, as you have doubtless surmised, the whole situation is a
difficult one."
"You can get to know," Barnes exclaimed. "Your client would tell you."
Mr. Bentham sighed gently.
"Of course," he said, "I am only quoting my own opinion, but I do not
think that my client would do anything of the sort. These securities
happen to be of a somewhat secret nature. Your brother was in a position
to make an exceedingly clever use of them. It appears incidentally to
have cost him his life, but there are risks, of course, in every
profession."
Barnes stared at him with wide-open eyes. He seemed, for the moment,
struck dumb. Wrayson, who had been silent during the greater part of the
conversation, turned towards the lawyer.
"You believe, then," he asked, "that Morris Barnes was murdered for the
sake of these securities?"
"I believe--nothing," the lawyer answered. "It is not my business to
believe. Mr. Morris Barnes was in the receipt of an income of two
thousand a year, which we might call dividend upon these securities. My
client, through me, made Mr. Barnes a cash offer to buy them outright,
and although I must admit that Mr. Barnes had not closed with us, yet I
believe that he was on the point of doing so. He had doubtless had it
brought home to him that there was a certain amount of danger associated
with his position generally. The night on which my client arrived in
England was the night upon which Mr. Morris Barnes was murdered. The
inference to be drawn from this circumstance I can leave, I am sure, to
the common sense of you two gentlemen."
"First, then," Wrayson said, "it would appear that he was murdered by the
people who were paying him two thousand a year, and who were acting in
opposition to your client!"
Mr. Bentham shrugged his shoulder gently.
"It does not sound unreasonable," he admitted.
"And secondly," Wrayson continued, "if that was so, he was probably
robbed of these securities at the same time."
"Now that, also," Mr. Bentham said smoothly, "sounds reasonable. But, as
a matter of fact," he continued, looking down upon the table, "there are
certain indications which go to disprove it. My personal opinion is that
the assassin--granted that there was an assassin, and granted that he was
acting on behalf of the parties we have referred to--met with a
disappointment."
"In plain words," Wrayson interrupted, "you mean that the other side have
not possessed themselves of the securities?"
"They certainly have not," Mr. Bentham declared. "They still remain--the
property by inheritance of this young gentleman here--Mr. Sydney Barnes,
I believe."
His tone was so even, so expressionless, that its slightest changes were
noticeable. It seemed to Wrayson that a faint note of sarcasm had crept
into these last few words. Mr. Barnes himself, however, was quite
oblivious of it. His yellow-stained fingers were spread out upon the
table. He leaned over towards the lawyer. His under lip protruded, his
deep-set eyes seemed closer than ever together. He was grimly, tragically
in earnest.
"Look here," he said. "What can I do to get hold of 'em? I don't care
what it is. I'm game! I'll deal with your man--the cash client. I'll give
you a commission, see! Five per cent on all I get. How's that? I'll play
fair. Now chuck away all this mystery. What were these securities? Where
shall I start looking for them?"
Mr. Bentham regarded him with stony face. "There are certain points," he
said, "upon which I cannot enlighten you. My duty to my client forbids
it. I cannot describe to you the nature of those securities. I cannot
suggest where you should look for them. All that I can say is that they
are still to be found, and that my client is still a buyer."
The young man turned to Wrayson. His face was twitching with some
emotion, probably anger.
"Did you ever hear such bally rot!" he exclaimed. "He knows all
about these securities all right. They belong to me. He ought to be
made to tell."
Wrayson shrugged his shoulders.
"It does seem rather a wild-goose chase, doesn't it?" he remarked. "Can't
you tell him a little more, Mr. Bentham?"
Mr. Bentham sighed, as though his impotence were a matter of sincere
regret to him.
"The only advice I can offer Mr. Barnes," he said, "is that he induce you
to aid him in his search. Between you, I should never be surprised to
hear of your success."
"And why," Wrayson asked, "should you consider me such a useful ally?"
Mr. Bentham looked at him steadily for a moment.
"You appear to me," he said, "to be a young man of intelligence--and you
know how to keep your own counsel. I should consider Mr. Barnes very
fortunate if you could make up your mind to aid him in his search."
"It is not my affair," Wrayson answered stiffly. "I could not possibly
pledge myself to enter upon such a wild-goose chase."
Mr. Bentham turned over some papers which lay upon the table before him.
He had apparently had enough of the conversation.
"You must not call it exactly that, Mr. Wrayson," he said. "Mr. Barnes'
success in his quest would probably result in an act of justice to
society. To you personally, I should imagine it would be expressly
interesting."
"What do you mean?" Wrayson asked, quickly.
The lawyer looked at him calmly.
"It should solve the mystery of Morris Barnes' murder!" he answered.
Wrayson touched his companion on the shoulder.
"I think that we might as well go," he said. "Mr. Bentham does not mean
to tell us anything more."
Barnes moved slowly towards the door, but with reluctance manifested in
his sullen face and manner.
"I don't know how I'm going to set about this job," he said, turning once
more towards the lawyer. "I shall do what I can, but you haven't seen the
last of me, yet, Mr. Bentham. If I fail, I shall come back to you."
The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. He was already absorbed in other work.
CHAPTER XVI
A DINNER IN THE STRAND
Wrayson was conscious, from the moment they left Mr. Bentham's office, of
a change in the deportment of the young man who walked by his side. A
variety of evil passions had developed one at least more tolerable--he
was learning the lesson of self-restraint. He did not speak until they
reached the corner of the street.
"Where can we get a drink?" he asked, almost abruptly. "I want
some brandy."
Wrayson took him to a bar close by. They sat in a quiet corner.
"I want to ask you something," he said, leaning halfway over the little
table between them. "How much do you know about the lady who came into my
brother's flat when we were there?"
The direct significance of the question startled Wrayson. This young man
was beginning to think.
"How much do I know of her?" he repeated. "Very little."
"She is really a Baroness--not one of these faked-up ones?"
"She is undoubtedly the Baroness de Sturm," Wrayson answered, a
little stiffly.
"And she has plenty of coin?"
"Certainly," Wrayson answered. "She is a great lady, I believe, in her
own country."
Barnes struck the table softly with the flat of his hand. His eyes were
searching for his answer in Wrayson's face, almost before the words had
left his lips.
"Do you believe then," he asked, "that a woman like that wrote
love-letters to Morris? You knew Morris. He was what those sort of people
call a bounder. Same as me! If he knew her at all it was a wonder. I
can't believe in the love-letters."
Wrayson shrugged his shoulders.
"The whole affair," he declared, "everything connected with your brother,
is so mysterious that I really don't know what to say."
"You knew Morris," the young man persisted. "You know the Baroness. Set
'em down side by side. They don't go, eh? You know that. Morris could tog
himself up as much as he liked, and he was always a good 'un at that when
he had the brass, but he'd never be able to make himself her sort. And if
she's a real lady, and wasn't after the brass, then I don't believe that
she ever wrote him love-letters. What?"
Wrayson said nothing. The young man held out his empty glass to a waiter.
"More brandy," he ordered briefly. "Look here, Mr. Wrayson," he added,
adopting once more his mysterious manner, "those love-letters don't go!
What did the Baroness want in my brother's flat? She struck me dumb when
I first saw her. I admit it. I'd have swallowed anything. More fool me! I
tell you, though, I'm not having any more. Will you come along with me to
her house now, and see if we can't make her tell us the truth?"
Wrayson shook his head deliberately.
"Mr. Barnes," he said, "I am sorry to disappoint you, and I sympathize
very much with your position, but you mustn't take it for granted that
I am, shall we say, your ally in this matter. I haven't either the time
or the patience to give to investigations of this sort. I have done
what I could for you, and I will give you what advice I can, or help
you in any way, if you care to come and see me. But you mustn't count
on anything else."
Barnes' face dropped. He was obviously disappointed.
"You won't come and see the Baroness with me even?" he asked.
"I think not," Wrayson answered. "To tell you the truth, I don't think
that it would be of any use. Even if your suspicions are correct--and you
scarcely know what you suspect, do you?--the Baroness is much too clever
a woman to allow herself to be pumped by either you or me."
Wrayson felt himself subjected for several moments to the scrutinizing
stare of those blinking, unpleasant eyes.
"You're not taking her side against me, are you?" Barnes asked
distrustfully.
"Certainly not," Wrayson answered impatiently. "You must be reasonable,
my young friend. I have done what I can to put you in the way of helping
yourself, but I am a busy man. I have my own affairs to look after, and I
can't afford to play the part of a twentieth-century Don Quixote."
"I understand," the young man said slowly. "You are going to turn me up."
"You are putting a very foolish construction upon what I have said,"
Wrayson answered irritably. "I have gone out of my way to help you, but,
frankly, I think that yours is a wild-goose chase."
Barnes rose to his feet and finished his brandy.
"I don't believe it," he declared. "I'm going to have that two thousand a
year, if I have to take that man Bentham by the throat and strangle the
truth out of him. If I can't find out without, I'll make him tell me the
truth if I swing for it. By God, I will!"
They left the place together and walked towards the corner of the street.
"I shouldn't do anything rash, if I were you," Wrayson said. "I fancy
you'd find Bentham a pretty tough sort to tackle. You must excuse me now.
I am going into the club for a few minutes."
"How are you, Wrayson?" a quiet voice asked behind.
Wrayson turned round abruptly. It was Stephen Heneage who had greeted
him--the one man whom, at that moment, he was least anxious to meet of
any person in the world. Already he could see that Heneage was taking
quiet but earnest note of his companion.
Wrayson nodded a little abruptly and left Barnes without any
further farewell.
"Coming round to the club?" he asked.
Heneage assented, and glanced carelessly behind at Barnes, who was
walking slowly in the opposite direction.
"Who's your friend?" he asked. "You shook him off a little suddenly,
didn't you?"
"He is not a friend," Wrayson answered, "and I was trying to get rid of
him when you came up. He is nobody of any account."
Heneage shook his head thoughtfully.
"It won't do, Wrayson," he said. "That young man possessed a cast of
features which are positively unmistakable."
"What do you mean?" Wrayson demanded.
"I mean that he was a relation, and a near relation, too, I should
imagine, of our deceased friend Morris Barnes," Heneage answered coolly.
"I shall be obliged to make that young man's acquaintance."
"Damn you and your prying!" Wrayson exclaimed angrily. "I wish--"
He stopped abruptly. Heneage was already retracing his steps.
Wrayson, after a moment's indecision, went on to the club, and made his
way at once to the billiard-room. The Colonel was sitting in his usual
corner chair, watching a game of pool, beaming upon everybody with his
fatherly smile, encouraging the man who met with ill luck, and applauding
the successful shots. He was surrounded by his cronies, but he held out
his hand to Wrayson, who leaned against the wall by his side and waited
for his opportunity.
"Colonel," he said at last in his ear, taking advantage of the applause
which followed a successful shot, "I want half an hour's talk with you,
quite by ourselves. Can you slip away and come and dine with me
somewhere?"
The Colonel looked dubious.
"I'm afraid they won't like it," he answered. "Freddy and George are
here, and Tempest's coming in later."
"I can't help it," Wrayson answered. "You can guess what it's about. It's
a serious matter."
The Colonel sighed.
"We might find an opportunity later on," he suggested.
"It won't do," Wrayson answered. "I want to get right away from here. I
wouldn't bother you if it wasn't necessary."
"I'm sure you wouldn't," the Colonel admitted. "We'll slip away quietly
when this game is over. It won't be long. Good shot, Freddy! Sixpence,
you divide!"
They found themselves in the Strand about half an hour later.
"Where shall we go?" Wrayson asked. "Somewhere quiet."
"Across the way," the Colonel answered. "We shan't see any one we
know there."
Wrayson nodded, and they crossed the street and entered Luigi's. It was
early for diners, and they found a small table in a retired corner.
Wrayson ordered the dinner, and then leaned across the table towards
his guest.
"It's that Barnes matter, Colonel," he said quietly. "Heneage has taken
it up and means going into it thoroughly. He saw me letting out your
daughter that night."
The Colonel was in the act of helping himself to _hors d'oeuvre._ His
fork remained suspended for a moment in the air. Then he set it down with
trembling fingers. The cheery light had faded from his face. He seemed
suddenly older. His voice sounded unnatural.
"Heneage!" he repeated, sharply. "Stephen Heneage! What affair is
it of his?"
"None," Wrayson answered. "He likes that sort of thing, that's all. He
saw--your daughter with a lady--the Baroness de Sturm, and the seeing
them together, after he had watched her come out of the flat that night,
seemed to suggest something to him. He warned me that he had made up his
mind to solve the mystery of Morris Barnes' murder; he advised me, in
fact, to clear out. And now, since then--"
The waiter brought the soup. Wrayson broke off and talked for a moment or
two to the _maître d'hôtel,_ who had paused at their table. Presently,
when they were alone, he went on.
"Since then, a young brother of Barnes has turned up from South Africa.
There was some mystery about Morris Barnes and the source of his income.
The brother is just as determined to solve this as Heneage seems to be to
discover the--the murderer! They will work together, and I am afraid! Not
for myself! You know for whom."
The Colonel was very grave. He ate slowly, and he seemed to be thinking.
"There is one man, a solicitor named Bentham," Wrayson continued, "who I
believe knows everything. But I do not think that even Heneage will be
able to make him speak. His connection with the affair is on behalf of a
mysterious client. Young Barnes and I went to see him this afternoon, but
beyond encouraging the boy to search for the source of his brother's
income, he wouldn't open his mouth."
"A solicitor named Bentham," the Colonel repeated mechanically. "Ah!"
"Do you know him?" Wrayson asked.
"I have heard of him," the Colonel answered. "A most disreputable person,
I believe. He has offices in the Adelphi."
Wrayson nodded.
"And whatever his business is," he continued, "it isn't the ordinary
business of a solicitor. He has no clerks--not even an office boy!"
The Colonel poured himself out a glass of wine.
"No clerks--not even an office boy! It all agrees with what I have heard.
A bad lot, Wrayson, I am afraid--a thoroughly bad lot. Are you sure that
up to now he has kept his own counsel?"
"I am sure of it," Wrayson answered.
The Colonel seemed in some measure to have recovered himself. He looked
Wrayson in the face, and though grave, his expression was decidedly
more natural.
"Herbert," he asked, sinking his voice almost to a whisper, "who do you
believe murdered Morris Barnes?"
"God knows," Wrayson answered.
"Do you believe--that--my daughter had any hand in it?"
"No!" Wrayson declared fiercely.
The Colonel was silent for a moment. He seemed to be contemplating the
label on the bottle of claret which reposed in its cradle by their side.
"And yet," he said thoughtfully, "she would necessarily be involved in
any disclosures which were made."
"And so should I," Wrayson declared. "And those two, Sydney Barnes and
Heneage, mean to bring about disclosures. That is why I felt that I must
talk to some one about this. Colonel, can't you get your daughter to tell
us the whole truth--what she was doing in Barnes' flat that night, and
all the rest of it? We should be forewarned then!"
The Colonel covered his face with his hand for a moment. The question
obviously distressed him.
"I can't, Herbert," he said, in a low tone. "You would scarcely think,
would you, that I was the sort of man to live on irreconcilable terms
with one of my own family? But there it is. Don't think hardly of her. It
is more the fault of circumstances than her fault. But I couldn't go to
see her--and she wouldn't come to see me."
Wrayson sighed.
"It is like the rest of this cursed mystery, utterly incomprehensible,"
he declared. "I shall never--"
With his glass half raised to his lips, he paused suddenly in his
sentence. His face became a study in the expression of a boundless
amazement. His eyes were fastened upon the figures of two people on their
way up the room, preceded by the smiling _maître d'hôtel._ Some words, or
rather an exclamation, broke incoherently from his lips. He set down his
glass hurriedly, and a stain of red wine crept unheeded across the
tablecloth.
"Look," he whispered hoarsely,--"look!"
CHAPTER XVII
A CONFESSION OF LOVE
The Colonel turned bodily round in his chair. The couple to whom Wrayson
had drawn his attention were certainly incongruous enough to attract
notice anywhere. The man was lank, elderly, and of severe appearance. He
was bald, he had slight side-whiskers, he wore spectacles, and his face
was devoid of expression. He was dressed in plain dinner clothes of
old-fashioned cut. The tails of his coat were much too short, his collar
belonged to a departed generation, and his tie was ready made. In a small
Scotch town he might have passed muster readily enough as the clergyman
or lawyer of the place. As a diner at Luigi's, ushered up the room to the
soft strains of "La Mattchiche," and followed by such a companion, he was
almost ridiculously out of place. If anything, she was the more
noticeable of the two to the casual observer. Her hair was dazzlingly
yellow, and arranged with all the stiffness of the coiffeur's art. She
wore a dress of black sequins, cut perilously low, and shorn a little by
wear of its pristine splendour. Her complexion was as artificial as her
high-pitched voice; her very presence seemed to exude perfumes of the
patchouli type. She was the sort of person concerning whom the veriest
novice in such matters could have made no mistake. Yet her companion
seemed wholly unembarrassed. He handed her the menu and looked calmly
around the room.
"Who are those people?" the Colonel asked. "Rather a queer combination,
aren't they?"
"The man is Bentham, the lawyer," Wrayson answered. His eyes were fixed
upon the lady, who seemed not at all indisposed to become the object of
any stray attention.
"That Bentham!" the Colonel repeated, under his breath. "But what on
earth--where the mischief could he pick up a companion like that?"
Wrayson scarcely heard him. He had withdrawn his eyes from the lady with
an effort.
"I have seen that woman somewhere," he said thoughtfully--"somewhere
where she seemed quite as much out of place as she does here.
Lately, too."
"H'm!" the Colonel remarked, leaning back in his chair to allow the
waiter to serve him. "She's not the sort of person you'd be likely to
forget either, is she?"
"And, by Heavens, I haven't!" Wrayson declared, suddenly laying down his
knife and fork. "I remember her now. It was at the inquest--Barnes'
inquest. She was one of the two women at whose flat he called on his way
home. What on earth is Bentham doing with her?"
"You think," the Colonel remarked quietly, "that there is some
connection--"
"Of course there is," Wrayson interrupted. "Does that old fossil look
like the sort to take such a creature about for nothing? Colonel, he
doesn't know himself--where those securities are! He's brought that
woman here to pump her!"
The Colonel passed his hand across his forehead.
"I am getting a little confused," he murmured.
"And I," Wrayson declared, with barely suppressed excitement, "am
beginning to see at least the shadow of daylight. If only you had some
influence with your daughter, Colonel!"
The Colonel looked at him steadfastly. Wrayson wondered whether it was
the light, or whether indeed his friend had aged so much during the last
few months.
"I have no influence over my daughter, Wrayson," he said. "I thought that
I had already explained that. And, Herbert," he added, leaning over the
table, "why don't you let this matter alone? It doesn't concern you. You
are more likely to do harm than good by meddling with it. There may be
interests involved greater than you know of; you may find understanding a
good deal more dangerous than ignorance. It isn't your affair, anyhow.
Take my advice! Let it alone!"
"I wish I could," Wrayson answered, with a little sigh. "Frankly, I would
if I could, but it fascinates me."
"All that I have heard of it," the Colonel remarked wearily, "sounds
sordid enough."
Wrayson nodded.
"I think," he said, "that it is the sense of personal contact in a case
like this which stirs the blood. I have memories about that night,
Colonel, which I couldn't describe to you--or any one. And now this young
brother coming on the scene seems to bring the dead man to life again.
He's one of the worst type of young bounders I ever came into contact
with. A creature without sentiment or feeling of any sort--nothing but an
almost ravenous cupidity. He's wearing his brother's clothes now--thinks
nothing of it! He hasn't a single regret. I haven't heard a single decent
word pass his lips. But he wants the money. Nothing else! The money!"
"Do you believe," the Colonel asked, "that he will get it?"
"Who can tell?" Wrayson answered. "That Morris Barnes was in possession
of valuables of some sort, everything goes to prove. Just think of the
number of people who have shown their interest in him. There is Bentham
and his mysterious client, the Baroness de Sturm and your daughter,
and--the person who murdered him. Apparently, even though he lost his
life, Barnes was too clever for them, for his precious belongings must
still be undiscovered."
The Colonel finished his wine and leaned back in his chair.
"I am tired of this subject," he said. "I should like to get back to
the club."
Wrayson called for the bill a little unwillingly. He was, in a sense,
disappointed at the Colonel's attitude.
"Very well," he said, "we will bury it. But before we do so, there is one
thing I have had it in my mind to say--for some time. I want to say it
now. It is about your daughter, Colonel!"
The Colonel looked at him curiously.
"My daughter?" he repeated, under his breath.
Wrayson leaned a little forward. Something new had come into his face.
This was the first time he had suffered such words to pass his
lips--almost the first time he had suffered such thoughts to form
themselves in his mind.
"I never looked upon myself," he said quietly, "as a particularly
impulsive person. Yet it was an impulse which prompted me to conceal the
truth as to her presence in the flat buildings that night. It was a
serious thing to do, and somehow I fancy that the end is not yet."
"Why did you do it?" the Colonel asked. "You did not know who she was. It
could not have been that."
"Why did I do it?" Wrayson repeated. "I can't tell you. I only know that
I should do it again and again if the need came. If I told you exactly
how I felt, it would sound like rot. But I'm going to ask you that
question."
"Well?"
The Colonel's grey eyebrows were drawn together. His eyes were keen and
bright. So he might have looked in time of stress; but he was not in the
least like the genial idol of the Sheridan billiard-room.
"If I came to you to-morrow," Wrayson said, "and told you that I had met
at last the woman whom I wished to make my wife, and that woman was your
daughter, what should you say?"
"I should be glad," the Colonel answered simply.
"You and she are, for some unhappy reason, not on speaking terms. That--"
"Good God!" the Colonel interrupted, "whom do you mean? Whom are you
talking about?"
"About your daughter--whom I shielded--the companion of the Baroness de
Sturm. Your daughter Louise."
The Colonel raised his trembling fingers to his forehead. His voice
quivered ominously.
"Of course! Of course! God help me, I thought you meant Edith! I never
thought of Louise. And Edith has spoken of you lately."
"I found your younger daughter charming," Wrayson said seriously, "but
it was of your daughter Louise I was speaking. I thought that you would
understand that."
"My daughter--whom you found--in Morris Barnes' flat--that night?"
"Exactly," Wrayson answered, "and my question is this. I cannot ask you
why you and she parted, but at least you can tell me if you know of any
reason why I should not ask her to be my wife."
The Colonel was silent.
"No!" he said at last, "there is no reason. But she would not consent. I
am sure of that."
"We will let it go at that," Wrayson answered. "Come!"
He had chosen his moment for rising so as to pass down the room almost at
the same time as Mr. Bentham and his strange companion. Prolific of
smiles and somewhat elephantine graces, the lady's darkened eyes met
Wrayson's boldly, and finding there some encouragement, she even favoured
him with a backward glance. In the vestibule he slipped a half-crown into
the attendant's hand.
"See if you can hear the address that lady gives her cabman," he
whispered.
The boy nodded, and hurried out after them. Wrayson kept the Colonel back
under the pretence of lighting a fresh cigar. When at last they strolled
forward, they met the boy returning. He touched his hat to Wrayson.
"Alhambra, sir!" he said, quietly. "Gone off alone, sir, in a hansom.
Gentleman walked."
The Colonel kept silence until they were in the street.
"Coming to the club?" he asked, a little abruptly.
"No!" Wrayson answered.
"You are going after that woman?" the Colonel exclaimed.
"I am going to the Alhambra," Wrayson answered. "I can't help it. It
sounds foolish, I suppose, but this affair fascinates me. It works on my
nerves somehow. I must go."
The Colonel turned on his heel. Without another word, he crossed the
Strand, leaving Wrayson standing upon the pavement. Wrayson, with a
little sigh, turned westwards.
CHAPTER XVIII
AN AMATEUR DETECTIVE
Wrayson easily discovered the object of his search. She was seated upon a
lounge in the promenade, her ample charms lavishly displayed, and her
blackened eyes mutely questioning the passers-by. She welcomed Wrayson
with a smile which she meant to be inviting, albeit she was a little
suspicious. Men of Wrayson's stamp and appearance were not often such
easy victims.
"Saw you at Luigi's, didn't I?" he asked, hat in hand.
She nodded, and made room for him to sit down by her side.
"Did you see the old stick I was with?" she asked. "I don't know why I
was fool enough to go out with him. Trying to pump me about poor old
Barney, too, all the time. Just as though I couldn't see through him."
"Old Barney!" Wrayson repeated, a little perplexed.
She laughed coarsely.
"Oh! come, that won't do!" she declared. "I'm almost sure you're on the
same lay yourself. Didn't I see you at the inquest?--Morris Barnes'
inquest, of course? You know whom I mean right enough."
"I know whom you mean now," Wrayson admitted. "Yes! I was there. Queer
affair, wasn't it?"
The lady nodded.
"I should like a liqueur," she remarked, with apparent irrelevance.
"Benedictine!"
They were seated in front of a small table, and were at times the object
of expectant contemplation on the part of a magnificent individual in
livery and knee-breeches. Wrayson summoned him and ordered two
Benedictines.
"Now I don't mind telling you," the lady continued, leaning over towards
him confidentially, "that I'm dead off that old man who came prying round
and took me out to dinner, to pump me about poor Barney! He didn't get
much out of me. For one thing, I don't know much. But the little I do
know I'd sooner tell you than him."
"You're very kind," Wrayson murmured. "He used to come to these places a
good deal, didn't he?"
She nodded assent.
"He was always either here or at the Empire. He wasn't a bad sort,
Barney, although he was just like all the rest of them, close with his
money when he was sober, and chucking it about when he'd had a drop too
much. What did you want to know about him in particular?"
"Well, for one thing," Wrayson answered, "where he got his money from."
She shook her head.
"He was always very close about that," she said. "The only story I ever
heard him tell was that he'd made it mining in South Africa."
"You have really heard him say that?" Wrayson asked.
"Half a dozen times," she declared.
"That proves, at any rate," he remarked thoughtfully, "that there was
some mystery about his income, because I happen to know that he came
back from South Africa a pauper."
"Very likely," she remarked. "Barney was always the sort who would rather
tell a lie than the truth."
"Did he say anything to you that night about being in any kind of
danger?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"No! I don't think so. I didn't take particular notice of what he said,
because he was a bit squiffy. I believe he mentioned some thing about a
business appointment that night, but I really didn't take much notice."
"You didn't tell them anything about that at the inquest," Wrayson
remarked.
"I know I didn't," she admitted. "You see, I was so knocked over, and I
really didn't remember anything clearly, that I thought it was best to
say nothing at all. They'd only have been trying to ferret things out of
me that I couldn't have told them."
"I think that you were very wise," Wrayson said. "You don't happen to
remember anything else that he said, I suppose?"
"No! except that he seemed a little depressed. But there's something else
about Barney that I always suspected, that I've never heard mentioned
yet. Mind you, it may be true or it may not, but I always suspected it."
"What was that?" Wrayson demanded.
"I believe that he was married," she declared impressively.
"Married!"
Wrayson looked incredulous. It certainly did not seem probable.
"Where is his wife then?" he asked. "Why hasn't she turned up to claim
his effects? Besides, he lived alone. He was my neighbour, you know. His
brother has taken possession of his flat."
The lady rather enjoyed the impression she had made. She was not averse,
either, to being seen in so prominent a place in confidential talk with a
man of Wrayson's appearance. It might not be directly remunerative, but
it was likely to do her good.
"He showed me a photograph once," she continued. "A baby-faced chit of a
girl it was, but he was evidently very proud of it. A little girl of his
down in the country, he told me. Then, do you know this? He was never in
London for Sunday. Every week-end he went off somewhere; and I never
heard of any one who ever saw him or knew where he went to."
"This is very interesting," Wrayson admitted; "but if he was married,
surely his wife would have turned up by now!"
"Why should she?" the lady answered. "Don't you see that she very likely
has what all you gentlemen seem to be so anxious about--his income?"
"By Jove!" Wrayson exclaimed softly. "Of course, if there was
anything mysterious about the source of it, all the more reason for
her to keep dark."
"Well, that's what I've had in my mind," she declared, summoning the
waiter. "I'll take another liqueur, if you don't mind."
Wrayson nodded. His thoughts were travelling fast.
"Did you tell Mr. Bentham this?" he asked.
"Not I," she answered. "The old fool got about as much out of me as he
deserved--and that's nothing."
"I'm sure I'm very much obliged," Wrayson answered, drawing out his
pocketbook. "I wonder if I might be allowed--?"
He glanced at her inquiringly. She nodded. "I'm not proud," she
declared.
* * * * *
"As an amateur detective," Wrayson remarked to himself, as he strolled
homewards, "I am beginning rather to fancy myself. And yet--"
His thoughts had stolen away. He forgot Morris Barnes and the sordid
mystery of which he was the centre. He remembered only the compelling
cause which was driving him towards the solution of it. The night was
warm, and he walked slowly, his hands behind him, and ever before his
eyes the shadowy image of the girl who had brought so many strange
sensations into his somewhat uneventful life. Would he ever see her, he
wondered, without the light of trouble in her eyes, with colour in her
cheeks, and joy in her tone? He thought of her violet-rimmed eyes, her
hesitating manner, her air always as of one who walked hand in hand with
fear. She was not meant for these things! Her lips and eyes were made for
laughter; she was, after all, only a girl. If he could but lift the
cloud! And then he looked upwards and saw her--leaning from the little
iron balcony, and looking out into the cool night.
He half stopped. She did not move. It was too dark to see her features,
but as he looked upwards a strange idea came to him. Was it a gesture or
some unspoken summons which travelled down to him through the
semi-darkness? He only knew, as he turned and entered the flat, that a
new chapter of his life was opening itself out before him.
CHAPTER XIX
DESPERATE WOOING
Wrayson felt, from the moment he crossed the threshold of the room, that
he had entered an atmosphere charged with elusive emotion. He was not
sure of himself or of her as she turned slowly to greet him. Only he was
at once conscious that something of that change in her which he had
prophetically imagined was already shining out of her eyes. She was at
once more natural and further removed from him.
"I am glad," she said simply. "I wanted to say good-bye to you."
He was stunned for a moment. He had not imagined this.
She nodded.
"Good-bye!" he repeated. "You are going away?"
"To-morrow. Oh! I am glad. You don't know how glad I am."
She swept past him and sank into an easy-chair. She wore a black
velveteen evening dress, cut rather high, without ornament or relief of
any sort, and her neck gleamed like polished ivory from which creeps
always a subtle shade of pink. Her hair was parted in the middle and
brushed back in little waves, her eyes were full of fire, and her face
was no longer passive. Beautiful she had seemed to him before, but
beautiful with a sort of impersonal perfection. She was beautiful now in
her own right, the beauty of a woman whom nature has claimed for her own,
who acknowledges her heritage. The fear-frozen subjectivity in which he
had yet found enough to fascinate him had passed away. He felt that she
was a stranger.
"Always," she murmured, "I shall think of London as the city of dreadful
memories. I should like to be going to set my face eastwards or westwards
until I was so far away that even memory had perished. But that is just
where the bonds tell, isn't it?"
"There are many who can make the bonds elastic," he answered. "It is only
a question of going far enough."
"Alas!" she answered, "a few hundred miles are all that are
granted to me. And London is like a terrible octopus. Its arms
stretch over the sea."
"A few hundred miles," he repeated, with obvious relief. "Northward or
southward, or eastward or westward?"
"Southward," she answered. "The other side of the Channel. That, at
least, is something. I always like to feel that there is sea between me
and a place which I--loathe!"
"Is London so hateful to you, then?" he asked.
"Perhaps I should not have said that," she answered. "Say a place of
which I am afraid!"
He looked across at her. He, too, in obedience to a gesture from her,
was seated.
"Come," he said, "we will not talk of London, then. Tell me where you
are going."
She shook her head.
"To a little Paradise I know of."
"Paradise," he reminded her, "was meant for two."
"There will be two of us," she answered, smiling.
He felt his heart thump against his ribs.
"Then if one wanted to play the part of intruder?"
She shook her head.
"The third person in Paradise was always very much _de trop_," she
reminded him.
"It depends upon the people who are already there," he protested.
"My friend," she said, "is in search of solitude, absolute and complete."
He shook his head.
"Such a place does not exist," he declared confidently. "Your friend
might as well have stayed at home."
"She relies upon me to procure it for her," she said.
A rare smile flashed from Wrayson's lips.
"You can't imagine what a relief her sex is to me!" he exclaimed.
"I don't know why," she answered pensively. "Do you know anything about
the North of France, Mr. Wrayson?"
"Not much," he answered. "I hope to know more presently."
Her eyes laughed across at him.
"You know what I said about the third person in Paradise?"
"I can't admit your Paradise," he said.
"You are a heretic," she answered. "It is a matter of sex, of course."
"Naturally! Paradise is so relative. It may be the halo thrown
round a court in the city or a rose garden in the country, any
place where love is!"
"And may I not love my friend!" she demanded.
"You may love me," he answered, the passion suddenly vibrating in his
tone. "I will be more faithful than any friend. I will build Paradise for
you--wherever you will! I will build the walls so high that no harm or
any fear shall pass them."
She waved him back. Something of the old look, which he hated so to see,
was in her face.
"You must not talk to me like this, Mr. Wrayson," she said. "Indeed you
must not."
"Why not?" he demanded. "If there is a reason I will know it."
She looked him steadily in the eyes.
"Can't you imagine one for yourself?" she asked.
He laughed scornfully.
"You don't understand," he said. "There is only one reason in the world
that I would admit--I don't even know that I would accept that. The other
things don't count. They don't exist."
She looked at him a little incredulously. She was still sitting, and he
was standing now before her. Her fingers rested lightly upon the arms of
her chair, she was leaning slightly forward as though watching for
something in his face.
"Tell me that there is another man," he cried, "that you don't care
for me, that you never could care for me, and I will go away and you
shall never see my face again. But nothing short of that will drive me
from you."
He spoke quickly, his tone was full of nervous passion. It never occurred
to her to doubt him.
"You can be what else you like," he continued, "thief,
adventuress--murderess! So long as there is no other man! Come to me and
I will take you away from it all."
She laughed very softly, and his pulses thrilled at the sound, for there
was no note of mockery there; it was the laugh of a woman who listens to
hidden music.
"You are a bold lover," she murmured. "Have you been reading romances
lately? Do you know that it is the twentieth century, and I have seen you
three times? You don't know what you say. You can't mean it."
"By Heaven, I do!" he cried, and for one exquisite moment he held her in
his arms. Then she freed herself with a sudden start. She had lost her
composure. Her cheeks were flushed.
"Don't!" she cried, sharply. "Remember our first meeting. I am not the
sort of person you imagine. I never can be. There are reasons--"
He swept them aside. Something seemed to tell him that if he did not
succeed with her now, his opportunity would be gone forever.
"I will listen to none of them," he declared, standing between her and
the door. "They don't matter! Nothing matters! I choose you for my wife,
and I will have you. I wouldn't care if you came to me from a prison.
Better give in, Louise. I shan't let you escape."
She had indeed something of the look of a beautiful hunted animal as she
leaned a little towards him, her eyes riveted upon his, her lips a little
parted, her bosom rising and falling quickly. She was taken completely by
surprise. She had not given Wrayson credit for such strength of mind or
purpose. She had believed entirely in her own mastery over him, for any
such assault as he was now making. And she was learning the truth. Love
that makes a woman weak lends strength to the man. Their positions were
becoming reversed. It was he who was dictating to her.
"I am going away," she said nervously. "You will forget me. You must
forget me."
"You shall not go away," he answered, "unless I know where. Don't be
afraid. You can keep your secrets, whatever they are. I want to know
nothing. Go on exactly with the life you are leading, if it pleases you.
I shan't interfere. But you are going to be my wife, and you shall not
leave London without telling me about it."
"I am leaving London," she faltered, "to-morrow."
"I was thinking," he remarked, calmly, "of taking a little holiday
myself."
She laughed uneasily.
"You are absurd," she declared, "and you must go away. Really! The
Baroness will be home directly. I would rather, I would very much rather
that she did not find you here."
He held out his arms to her. His eyes were bright with the joy of
conquest.
"I will go, Louise," he answered, "but first I will have my answer--and
no answer save one will do!"
She bit her lip. She was moved by some emotion, but he was unable, for
the moment, to classify it.
"I think," she declared, "that you must be the most persistent man
on earth."
"You are going to find me so," he assured her.
"Listen," she said firmly, "I will not marry you!"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"On that point," he answered, "I am content to differ from you.
Anything else?"
She stamped her foot.
"I do not care for you! I do not wish to marry you!" she repeated. "I am
going away, and I forbid you to follow me."
"No good!" he declared, stolidly. "I am past all that."
She held up her finger, and glanced backward out of the window.
"It is the Baroness," she said. "I must go and open the door."
For one moment she lay passive in his arms; then he could have sworn that
her lips returned his kiss. She was there when they heard the turning of
a latch-key in the door. With a little cry she slipped away and left him
alone. The outer door was thrown open, and the Baroness stood upon the
threshold.
CHAPTER XX
STABBED THROUGH THE HEART
The Baroness recognized Wrayson with a little shrug of the shoulders.
"Ah! my dear Mr. Wrayson," she exclaimed, "this is very kind of you. You
have been keeping Louise company, I hope. And see what droll things
happen! It is your friend, Mr. Barnes, who has brought me home this
evening, and who will take a whisky and soda before he goes. Is it not
so, my friend?"
She turned around, but there was no immediate response. The Baroness
looked over the banisters and beheld her escort in the act of ascending.
"Coming right along," he called out cheerfully. "It was the cabman who
tried to stop me. He wanted more than his fare. Found he'd tackled the
wrong Johnny this time."
Mr. Sydney Barnes came slowly into view. He was wearing an evening suit,
obviously too large for him, a made-up white tie had slipped round
underneath his ear, a considerable fragment of red silk handkerchief was
visible between his waistcoat and much crumpled white shirt. An opera
hat, also too large for him, he was wearing very much on the back of his
head, and he was smoking a very black cigar, from which he had failed to
remove the band. He frowned when he saw Wrayson, but followed the
Baroness into the room with a pronounced swagger.
"You two need no introduction, of course," the Baroness remarked. "I am
not going to tell you where I found Mr. Barnes. I do not expect to be
very much longer in England, so perhaps I am not so careful as I ought to
be. Louise, if she knew, would be shocked. Now, Mr. Wrayson, do not hurry
away. You will take some whisky and soda? I am afraid that my young
friend has not been very hospitable."
"You are very kind," Wrayson said. "To tell you the truth, I was rather
hoping to see Miss Fitzmaurice again. She disappeared rather abruptly."
The Baroness shook her finger at him in mock reproach.
"You have been misbehaving," she declared. "Never mind. I will go and see
what I can do for you."
She stood for a moment before a looking-glass arranging her hair, and
then left the room humming a light tune. Sydney Barnes, with his hands in
his pockets, flung himself into an easy-chair.
"I say," he began, "I don't quite see what you're doing here."
Wrayson looked at him for a moment in supercilious surprise.
"I scarcely see," he answered, "how my movements concern you."
Mr. Barnes was unabashed.
"Oh! chuck it," he declared. "You know very well what I'm thinking of. To
tell you the truth, I've come to the conclusion that there's some
connection between this household and my brothers affairs. That's why I'm
palling on to the Baroness. She's a fine woman--class, you know, and all
that sort of thing, but what I want is the shino! You tumble?"
Wrayson shrugged his shoulders slightly.
"I wish you every success," he said. "Personally, I think that you are
wasting your time here."
"Perhaps so," Barnes answered. "I'm taking my own risks."
Wrayson turned away, and at that moment the Baroness re-entered the room.
"My friend," she said, addressing Wrayson, "I can do nothing for you.
Whether you have offended Louise or made her too happy, I cannot say. But
she will not come down. You will not see her again to-night."
"I am sorry," Wrayson answered. "She is going away to-morrow, I
understand?"
The Baroness sighed.
"Alas!" she declared, "I must not answer any questions. Louise has
forbidden it."
Wrayson took up his hat.
"In that case," he remarked, "there remains nothing for me but to wish
you good night!"
There was a cab on the rank opposite, and Wrayson, after a moment's
hesitation, entered it and was driven to the club. He scarcely expected
to find any one there, but he was in no mood for sleep, and the thought
of his own empty rooms chilled him. Somewhat to his surprise, however, he
found the smoking-room full. The central figure of the most important
group was the Colonel, his face beaming with good-nature, and his cheeks
just a little flushed. He welcomed Wrayson almost boisterously.
"Come along, Herbert," he cried. "Plenty of room. What'll you have to
drink, and have you heard the news?"
"Whisky and soda," Wrayson answered, sinking into an easy-chair, "and I
haven't heard any news."
The Colonel took his cigar from his mouth, and leaned forward in his
chair. He had the appearance of a man who was striving to appear more
grave than he felt.
"You remember the old chap we saw dining at Luigi's to-night--Bentham, I
think you said his name was?"
Wrayson nodded.
"Of course! What about him?"
"He's dead!" the Colonel declared.
Wrayson jumped out of his chair.
"Nonsense!" he exclaimed. "You don't mean it, Colonel!"
"Unfortunately, I do," the Colonel answered. "He was found dead on the
stairs leading to his office, about ten o'clock to-night. A most
interesting case. The murder, presuming it was a murder, appears to have
been committed--"
Wrayson was suddenly pale.
"Murder!" he repeated. "Colonel, do you mean this?"
The Colonel, who hated being interrupted, answered a little testily.
"My dear Wrayson," he expostulated, "is this the sort of thing a man
invents for fun? Do listen for a moment, if you can, in patience. It is a
deeply interesting case. If you remember, it was about nine o'clock when
we left Luigi's; Bentham must have gone almost straight to his office,
for he was found there dead a very few minutes after ten."
"Who killed him, and why?" Wrayson asked breathlessly.
"That, I suppose, we shall know later," the Colonel answered. "The
police will be on their mettle this time, but it isn't a particularly
easy case. He was found lying on his face, stabbed through the heart.
That is all anybody knows."
The thoughts went rushing through Wrayson's brain. He remembered the man
as he had seemed only a few hours ago, cold, stonily indifferent to
young Barnes' passionate questions, inflexibly silent, a man who might
easily kindle hatreds, to all appearance without a soft spot or any
human feeling. He remembered the close of their interview, and Sydney
Barnes' rash threat. The suggested idea clothed itself almost
unconsciously with words.
"I have just seen young Barnes," he said. "He has been at the Empire all
the evening."
The Colonel lit another cigar.
"It takes a man of nerve and deliberation," he remarked, "to commit a
murder. From what I have heard of him, I should not imagine your young
friend to be possessed of either. The lady whom he was entertaining, or
rather failing to entertain, at dinner--"
"I have seen h
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