"I must really go. I shall be late for dinner, and my mother hates to
wait for me. Good-bye."
Our hands clasped, our eyes met, and I saw in hers a look of deep
mystery, as though she held me in suspicion. Her manner and her
identification of that object extracted from the pocket of the dead man
were very puzzling.
"Good-bye," I said. "I hope soon to have the pleasure of meeting you
again. I have enjoyed this walk of ours immensely."
"When we meet--if ever we do," she answered with a mischievous smile,
"remember that I have promised to wear the mask. Good-bye." And she
twisted her skirts gracefully, entered the cab, and a moment later was
driven off, leaving me alone on the kerb.
I hesitated whether to return home by 'bus or Underground Railway, but,
deciding on the latter, continued along the High Street to the station,
and journeyed to the Temple by that sulphurous region of dirt and
darkness known as the "Inner Circle."
The reader may readily imagine how filled with conflicting thoughts was
my mind on that homeward journey. Although I adored Mabel Anson with a
love beyond all bounds, and would on that evening have declared my
passion for her had I dared, yet I could not disguise from myself that
sight of the pencil-case I had taken from the dead unknown had wrought
an instant and extraordinary change in her.
She had identified it. Of that fact there was no doubt. Her lame
explanation that it bore a resemblance to the one she had given to her
friend was too palpably an afterthought. I was vexed that she should
have thus attempted a deception. It was certainly true that one gold
pencil-case is very like another, and that a Birmingham maker may turn
out a thousand of similar pattern, yet the intricate cypher engraved on
the one in question was sufficient by which to identify it. It was
these very initials which had caused her to deny that it was really the
one she had purchased and presented; yet I felt convinced that what she
had told me was untrue, and that those very initials had been placed
upon it by her order.
Again, had she not spoken of its owner in the past tense? This, in
itself, was a very suspicious circumstance, and led me to the belief
that she was aware of his death. If he were dead, then certainly he
would no longer be her friend.
Her sudden and abject amazement at seeing the pencil in my hand; her
exclamation of surprise; her eagerness to examine it; all were facts
which showed plainly that she knew that it remained no longer in his
possession, and was yet dumbfounded to find it in my hand. Had she not
also regarded me with evident suspicion? Perhaps, having identified her
present, she suspected me of foul play?
The thought held me petrified. For aught I knew she might be well aware
of that man's tragic end, and the discovery of part of his property in
my possession was to her evidence that I had committed murder.
My position was certainly growing serious. I detected in the rather
formal manner in which she took leave of me a disinclination to shake my
hand. Perhaps she believed it to be the hand of the murderer. Indeed,
my declaration that I had found that incriminating object was in itself
sufficient to strengthen her suspicion if, as seemed quite probable, she
was aware of her friend's tragic end. Yet I had really found it. It
was no lie. I had found it in his pocket, and taken it as a clue by
which afterwards to identify him.
Now, if it were true that the man who had been struck dead at my side
was actually Mabel's friend, then I was within measurable distance of
elucidating the mystery of that fateful night and ascertaining the
identity of the mysterious Edna, and also of that ruler of my destiny,
who corresponded with me under the pseudonym of "Avel."
This thought caused me to revert to that hour when I had sat upon the
seat in the Park, keeping a tryst with some person unknown. Seated in
the corner of the railway-carriage I calmly reflected. More than a
coincidence it seemed that at the moment my patience became exhausted,
and I rose to leave the spot my mysterious correspondent had appointed
for the meeting, I should have come face to face with the woman whose
grace and beauty held me beneath their spell. For some purpose--what I
knew not--I had been sent to that particular seat to wait. I had
remained there in vain, smoking a dozen cigarettes, reading through my
paper even to the advertisements, or impatiently watching every person
who approached, yet the moment I rose I encountered the very person for
whom I had for days past been in active search.
Had Mabel's presence there any connexion with the mysterious order which
I had obeyed? Upon this point I was filled with indecision. First,
what possible connecting link could there be between her natural
movements and the letter from that unknown hand? As far as I could
discern there was absolutely none, I tried to form theories, but failed.
I knew that Mabel attended at the Royal Academy of Music, and what was
more natural than that she should cross the Park on her way home? Her
way did not lie along the path where I had kept such a watchful vigil,
and had I not risen and passed towards Grosvenor Gate at that moment we
should not have met. There, indeed, seemed no possible combination
between the request I had received from my unknown correspondent and her
presence there. In my wild imaginings I wondered whether she were
actually the woman whom in my blindness I had known as Edna, but next
instant flouted the idea.
The voice, the touch, the hand, all were different. Again, her personal
appearance was not at all that of the woman described by West, the
cabman who had driven me home after my strange adventures.
No; she could not be Edna.
As the train roared through the stifling tunnels City-wards, I strove to
arrive at some decision. Puzzled and perplexed at the various phases
presented by the enigma which ever grew more and more complicated, I
found any decision an extremely difficult matter. I am not a man given
to forming theories upon insufficient evidence, nor jumping to immature
conclusions, therefore I calmly and carefully considered each fact in
its sequence as related in this narrative. The absence of motives in
several instances prevented any logical deduction. Nevertheless, I
could not somehow prevent a suspicion arising within me that the
appointment made by my anonymous correspondent had some remote connexion
with my meeting with the woman who had so suddenly come into my life--a
mere suspicion, it is true, but the fact that no one had appeared to
keep the appointment strengthened it considerably.
Whenever I thought of Mabel, recollections of Channing's strange
admonition arose within me. Why had he uttered that warning ere I had
been acquainted with her a few hours? To say the least, it was
extraordinary. And more especially so as he refused to give any
explanation of his reasons.
The one dark spot in my life, now that I had recovered my sight, was the
ever-present recollection of that midnight tragedy. Its remembrance
held me appalled when I thought of it. And when I reflected upon my own
culpability in not giving information to the police, and that in all
probability this neglect of mine had allowed the assassin to escape scot
free, I was beside myself with vexation and regret. My thoughts for
ever tortured me, being rendered the more bitter by the reflection that
I had placed myself in the power of one who had remained concealed, and
whose identity was inviolable.
As I declared in the opening of the narrative, it seems almost
incredible that in these end-of-the-century-days a man could find
himself in such a plight, surrounded by mysterious enemies, and held in
bondage by one unknown and unrevealed. Laboriously I tried to unravel
the tangled skein of events and so extricate myself, but, tired with the
overtask, I found that the mystery grew only more inscrutable.
The woman I loved--the woman to whom I had fondly hoped some day ere
long to make the declaration of the secret of my heart--had discovered
in my possession an object which might well be viewed as evidence of a
foul and cowardly crime. I feared--indeed, I felt assured--that her
sweet sympathy had, in an instant, been turned to hatred.
I loved her. I adored her with all the strength of my being, and I knew
that without her my life, in the future must only be an aimless blank.
In the sweetest natures there can be no completeness and consistency
without moral energy, and that Mabel possessed it was plainly shown. In
her confidences with me as we traversed the Park and Kensington Gardens
she had shown, with the most perfect artfulness, that she had that
instinctive unconscious address of her sex which always renders a woman
doubly charming. Persons who unite great sensibility and lively fancy
possess unconsciously the power of placing themselves in the position of
another and imagining rather than perceiving what is in their hearts. A
few women possess this faculty, but men never. It is not inconsistent
with extreme simplicity of character, and quite distinct from that kind
of art which is the result of natural acuteness and habits of
observation--quick to perceive the foibles of others, and as quick to
turn them to its own purpose; which is always conscious of itself, and
if united with strong intellect, seldom perceptible to others.
In her chat with me she had no design formed or conclusion previously
drawn, but her intuitive quickness of feeling, added to her imagination,
caused her to half-confide in me her deep sorrow. Her compassionate
disposition, her exceeding gentleness, which gave the prevailing tone to
her character, her modesty, her tenderness, her grace, her almost
ethereal refinement and delicacy, all showed a true poetic nature
within, while her dark, fathomless eyes betrayed that energy of passion
which gave her character its concentrated power.
Was it any wonder, even though she might have been betrayed into a
momentary tergiversation, that I bowed down and worshipped her? She was
my ideal; her personal beauty and the tender sweetness of her character
were alike perfect. Therefore my love for her was a passion--that
headlong vehemence, that fluttering and hope, fear and transport, that
giddy intoxication of heart and sense which belongs to the novelty of
true love which we feel once, and but once, in our lives.
Yet I was held perplexed and powerless by her unexpected and
unacknowledged identification of that clue to the unknown dead.