Although many days passed, no word of apology came from my mysterious
correspondent for not having kept the appointment. I watched every post
for nearly a fortnight, and as I received no explanation, my suspicion
regarding Mabel's connexion with the strange affair became, of course,
strengthened.
With heart-sinking I had taken leave of her on the kerb in Kensington
High Street on that well-remembered evening, feeling that the likelihood
of our frequent meeting was very remote, especially now that she
apparently held me in suspicion. In this case, however, I was mistaken,
for within a week we met again quite accidentally in Bond Street, and,
finding her disposed to accept my companionship, I accompanied her
shopping, and spent an extremely pleasant afternoon. Her mother was
rather unwell, she explained, and that accounted for her being alone.
She was dressed entirely in black, but with a quiet elegance that was
surprising. I had never known before that day how smart and _chic_ a
woman could appear in a gown of almost funereal aspect. Her manner
towards me retained nothing of its previous suspicion; she was bright
and merry, without that cloud of unhappiness that had so strangely
overshadowed her on the last occasion we had been together. She
possessed a clever wit, and gossiped and joked amusingly as we went from
shop to shop, ordering fruit for dessert, and flowers for
table-decoration. That her mother was wealthy appeared certain from the
extravagant prices which she gave for fruits out of season and choice
hothouse flowers. She bought the best she could procure, and seemed
utterly regardless of expense.
I remarked how dear were some grapes which she had ordered, but she only
smiled and gave her shoulders a little shrug.
This recklessness was not done to impress me, for I was quick to detect
that the shopkeepers knew her as a good customer, and brought forward
their most expensive wares as a matter of course.
Although at first she declined my invitation, as though she considered
it a breach of the _convenances_, I at length persuaded her to take some
tea with me at Blanchard's, and we continued our gossip as we sat
together at one of the little tables surrounded by other ladies out
shopping with their male encumbrances.
I had, rather unwisely, perhaps, passed a critical remark regarding a
lady who had entered in an unusually striking toilette, in which she
looked very hot and extremely uncomfortable, and laughing at what I had
said, she replied--
"You are certainly right. We women always overweigh ourselves in our
garments, to say nothing of other and more fatiguing things. Half of
life's little worries accrue from our clothes. From tight collar to
tight shoe, and not forgetting a needlessly befeathered hat, we take
unto ourselves burdens that we should be much happier without."
"I agree entirely," I said, smiling at her philosophy. "Some blatant
crank bent on self-advertisement might do worse than found an
Anti-ornamental Dress League. Just think how much of life's trials
would at once slip off a man if he wore neither collar nor tie--
especially the dress-tie!"
"And off a woman, if she wore neither belt, gloves, nor neck
arrangement!"
"Exactly. It would be actually making us a present for life of nearly
an hour a day. That would be seven hours a week, or nearly a fortnight
a year," I said. "It's worth consideration."
"Do you remember the derision heaped upon that time-saving arrangement
of our ancestors, the elastic-side boot?" she observed, with a merry
smile. "But just fancy the trouble they must have saved in lacing and
buttoning! Sewing on shoe-buttons ought always to be done by criminals
condemned to hard labour. Button-sewing tries the conscientiousness and
thoroughness of the work more than anything else, and I'm certain
oakum-picking can't be worse. It also tries the quality of the thread
more than anything else; and as to cottons, well, it treats them as
Samson did the withs."
The carriage met her outside the Stores in the Haymarket at five
o'clock, and before she took leave of me she mischievously asked--
"Well, and how do you find me when I wear my mask?"
"Charming," I responded with enthusiasm. "Mask or no mask, you are
always the same to me, the most charming friend I have ever had."
"No, no," she laughed. "It isn't good form to flatter. Good-bye."
And she stretched forth her small hand, which I pressed warmly, with
deep regret at parting. A moment later the footman in his brown livery
assisted her into the carriage. Then she smiled merrily, and bowed as I
raised my hat, and she was borne away westward in the stream of fine
equipages, hers the smartest of them all.
A week later, having seen nothing further of her, I wrote and received a
prompt response. Then in the happy autumn days that followed we
contrived to meet often, and on each occasion I grew deeper and deeper
in love with her. Since that evening when we had stood together beneath
the street lamp in Kensington, she had made no mention of the
pencil-case or of its owner. Indeed, it seemed that her sudden
identification of it had betrayed her into acknowledging that its owner
had been her lover, and that now she was trying to do all she could to
remove any suspicion from my mind.
Nevertheless, the remembrance of that crime and of all the events of
that midnight adventure was ever within my mind, and I had long ago
determined to make its elucidation the chief object of my life. I had
placed myself beneath the thrall of some person unknown, and meant to
extricate myself and become again a free agent at all costs.
On several occasions I had seen the cabman West on the rank at Hyde Park
Corner, but although he had constantly kept his eyes open in search of
Edna, his efforts had all been in vain. I had seen also the old
cab-driver who bore the nickname "Doughy," but it turned out that it had
not been his cab which my mysterious protectress had taken after parting
from me. One point, however, I settled satisfactorily. On one of our
walks together I contrived that, the man West should see Mabel, but he
afterwards declared that the woman of whom he was in search did not in
the least resemble her. Therefore, it was certain that Mabel and Edna
were not, as I had once vaguely suspected, one and the same person.
Sometimes I would meet my idol after her studies at the Royal Academy of
Music, and accompany her across the park; at others we would stroll
together in the unfrequented part of Kensington Gardens, or I would walk
with her shopping and carry her parcels, all our meetings being, of
course, clandestine ones.
One morning in the middle of November I was overfed at receiving an
invitation from Mrs Anson to dine at The Boltons, and a couple of days
later the sum of my happiness was rendered complete by finding myself
seated beside Mabel in her own home.
The house possessed an air of magnificence and luxury which I scarcely
expected. It was furnished with great elegance and taste, while the
servants were of an even more superior character than the house itself.
Among the homes of my many friends in the West End this was certainly
the most luxurious, for money seemed to have been literally squandered
upon its appointments, and yet withal there was nothing whatever garish
nor any trace of a plebeian taste. There was a combined richness and
quietness about the whole place which impressed one with an air of
severity, while the footman who ushered me in was tall, almost a giant
in stature, and solemn as a funeral mute.
Mrs Anson rose and greeted me pleasantly, while Mabel, in a pretty gown
of coral-pink, also shook my hand and raised her fine dark eyes to mine
with a glance of pleasure and triumph. It was, no doubt, due to her
that I had been bidden there as guest. A red-headed, ugly-faced man
named Hickman, and a thin, angular, irritating woman, introduced to me
as Miss Wells, were my only fellow-guests. The man regarded me with
some suspicion as I entered, and from the first I took a violent dislike
to him. It may have been his forbidding personal appearance which
caused my distrust. Now that I reflect, I think it was. His face was
bloated and deeply furrowed, his eyes large, his lips thick and flabby,
his reddish beard was ill-trimmed and scanty. He was thick-necked; his
face was further disfigured by a curious dark-blue scar upon the left
jaw, and I could not help remarking within myself, that if some faces
resembled those of animals, his was closely allied to that of a savage
bulldog. Indeed, I had never before seen such an eminently ugly face as
his.
Yet he spoke with the air and perfect manner of a gentleman. He bowed
with refined dignity as I was introduced, although I thought his smile
seemed supercilious, while I was almost certain that he exchanged a
curious, contemptuous look with Mabel, who stood behind me.
Was he aware of our little exchanges of confidences? Had he secretly
watched us in our walks along the leafy byways of Kensington Gardens,
and detected that I loved her? It seemed very much as though he had,
and that he had endeavoured to disparage me in her eyes.
At Mrs Anson's invitation, I took Mabel in to dinner, and sat next her,
while opposite us sat the dog-faced man with the irritating spinster.
The latter was a fitting companion for him, bony of countenance, her
back straight as a board, her age uncertain, and her voice loud,
high-pitched, and rasping. She wore a number of bangles on her left
wrist; one of them had pigs and elephants hanging on it, with hearts,
crosses, bells, and framed and glazed shamrock leaves mixed in. That
would not have mattered much had she not been eating, but as dinner
progressed the room grew a trifle warm, and she unfortunately had a fan
as well as those distressing bangles, which fan she rhythmically waved
to and fro, playing the orchestra softly when fanning herself, or loudly
as she plied her knife and fork "click-clack, jingle-jingle,
tinkle-tinkle, click-clack!" until the eternal music of those pigs,
elephants, crosses, hearts and bells prevented anything beyond a jerky
conversation. She turned and twisted and toyed with her _menu_,
tinkling and jingling the whole time like a coral consoler or an
infant's rattle. Little wonder, I thought, that she remained a
spinster. With such an irritating person to head his household, the
unfortunate husband would be a candidate for Colney Hatch within a
month. Yet she was evidently a very welcome guest at Mrs Anson's
table, for my hostess addressed her as "dear," and seemed to consider
whatever positive opinion she expressed as entirely beyond dispute.
I liked Mrs Anson. Although of that extremely frigid type of mother,
very formal and unbending, observing all the rules of society to the
letter, and practically making her life a burden by the
conventionalities, she possessed, nevertheless, a warm-hearted affection
for her child, and seemed constantly solicitous of her welfare. She
spoke with the very faintest accent with her "r's," and I had, on the
first evening we had met at the colonel's, wondered whether she were of
Scotch, or perhaps foreign, extraction. The general conversation in the
interval of the Irritating Woman's orchestra turned upon foreign travel,
and incidentally, in answer to an ingenious question I put to her, she
told me that her father had been German, but that she had nearly all her
life lived in England.
The Irritating Woman spoke of going to the Riviera in December,
whereupon Mabel remarked--
"I hope mother will go too. I'm trying to persuade her. London is so
dull and miserable in winter compared with Cannes or Nice."
"You know the Riviera well, I suppose?" I inquired of her.
"Oh, very well," she responded. "Mother and I have spent four winters
in the south. There's no place in Europe in winter like the Cote
d'Azur--as the French call it."
"I much prefer the Italian Riviera," chimed Miss Wells's high-pitched
voice. She made it a point of honour to differ with everybody. "At
Bordighera, Ospedaletti, San Remo, and Alassio you have much better air,
the same warmth, and at about half the price. The hotels in Nice and
Cannes are simply ruinous." Then, turning to Mrs Anson, she added,
"You know, dear, what you said last year."
"We go to the Grand, at Nice, always," answered Mrs Anson. "It is
dear, certainly, but not exaggeratedly so in comparison with the other
large hotels."
"There seems of late to have been a gradual rise in prices all along the
Riviera," remarked Hickman. "I've experienced it personally. Ten or
twelve years ago lived in Nice for the season for about half what it
costs me now."
"That exactly bears out my argument," exclaimed the Irritating Woman, in
triumph. "The fact is that the French Riviera has become far too dear,
and English people are, fortunately for themselves, beginning to see
that by continuing their journey an extra twenty miles beyond Nice they
can obtain just as good accommodation, live better, breathe purer air,
and not be eternally worried by those gaudy tinsel-shows called
Carnivals, or insane attempts at hilarity miscalled Battles of Flowers."
"Oh, come, Miss Wells," protested Mabel, "surely you won't condemn the
Battles of Flowers at Nice! Why, they're acknowledged to be amongst the
most picturesque spectacles in the world!"
"I consider, my dear, that they are mere rubbishy ruses on the part of
the Nicois to cause people to buy their flowers and throw them into the
roadway. It's only a trick to improve their trade."
We all laughed.
"And the Carnival?" inquired Hickman, much amused.
"Carnival!" she snorted. "A disgraceful exhibition of a town's
lawlessness. A miserable pageant got up merely to attract the
unsuspecting foreigner into the web spread for him by extortionate
hotel-keepers. All the so-called fun is performed by paid mountebanks;
the cars are not only inartistic, but there is always something
extremely offensive in their character, while the orgies which take
place at the masked balls at the Casino are absolutely disgraceful. The
whole thing is artificial, and deserves no support at all from winter
visitors."
Mrs Anson, for once, did not agree with this sweeping condemnation,
while Mabel declared that she always enjoyed the fun of the battles of
flowers and paper confetti, although she admitted that she had never had
the courage to go out on those days when the pellets of lime, or "harp
confetti," are permitted. Both Hickman and myself supported Mabel in
defence of the annual fetes at Nice as being unique in all the world.
But the Irritating Woman was not to be convinced that her opinions were
either ill-formed or in the least distorted. She had never been present
at a Carnival ball, she admitted, but it had been described to her by
two estimable ladies who had, and that was, for her, sufficient. They
were a pair of pious souls, and would, of course, never exaggerate to
the length of a lie.
Dinner over, the ladies retired, and Hickman and myself were left to
smoke and gossip. He was certainly a very ugly man, and at times
asserted an overbearing superiority in conversation; but having watched
him very closely, I at length arrived at the conclusion that this was
his natural manner, and was not intended to be offensive. Indeed, ever
since that first moment when I had entered and been introduced, he had
shown himself to be very pleasant and affable towards me.
"Poor Miss Wells!" he laughed, after the door had closed. "She's so
infernally positive about everything. It would be as good as an
entertainment to induce her to expound her views upon religious
matters."
"Any argument seems utterly useless," I remarked.
"Do you know Nice well?" he inquired, after reflecting a moment.
"I've spent three winters there," I answered.
"And at Monte Carlo, I suppose?"
"Yes, of course," I responded, laughing. "I suppose scarcely any man
goes to Nice without going over to Monty and risking a few louis."
"Were you lucky?"
"So, so. One season I won five thousand francs. In fact, I've never
lost on the whole season. I've always left the Riviera with some of the
bank's money."
"Then you can heartily congratulate yourself," he said, "I'm the
reverse. I generally lose. Do you believe in any system at roulette?"
"No; they are all frauds," I answered promptly. "Except one," he
interposed. "There's one based on the law of averages, which must turn
up in your favour if you're only patient enough. The reason why it is
so difficult is because it's such a long and tedious affair."
"Explain it," I urged, for a new system that was infallible was, to me,
of greatest interest. I had, in the days before my blindness, made a
study of the chances at roulette, and had played carefully upon
principles which had, to me, appeared most natural. The result had been
that with care I had won--not much, it was true--but it was better than
leaving one's money to swell the company's dividends.
"The system," he said, tossing off his glass of curacoa at one gulp, "is
not at all a complicated one. If you study the permanences of any
table--you can get them from the _Gazette Rose_--you'll find that each
day the largest number of times either colour comes up in succession is
nine. Now, all you have to do is to go to a table at the opening of the
play, and taking one colour, red or black it makes no difference, stake
upon it, and allow your money to accumulate until it is swept away. If
the colour you stake upon comes up eight times in succession, and you
have originally staked twenty francs, your gains lying on the table will
amount to two thousand five hundred and sixty francs. Even then, don't
touch it. The colour must, in the law of averages, come up nine times
in succession each day, taking the week through. If it comes up, you'll
win five thousand and twenty francs for the louis you staked, and then
at once leave the table, for it will not come up nine times again that
day. Of course, this may occur almost at the opening of the play, or
not until the table is near closing, therefore it requires great
patience and constant attendance. To-day it may not come up nine times,
but it will probably come up nine times on two occasions to-morrow, and
so the average always rights itself."
His theory was certainly a novel one, and impressed me. There might, I
thought, be something in it. He had never had patience to try it, he
admitted, but he had gone through a whole year's "permanences," and
found that only on three or four occasions had it failed.
For half an hour or so he sat lucidly explaining the results of his
studies of the game with the air of a practised gambler. In these I
became at once interested--as every man is who believes he has found the
secret of how to get the right side of the bank; but we were at length
compelled to put down our cigars, and he led the way into the
drawing-room, where the ladies awaited us.
The room was a large, handsome one, elegantly furnished, and lit by two
great lamps, which shed a soft, subdued light from beneath their huge
shades of silk and lace. Mabel was sitting at the open grand piano, the
shaded candlelight causing the beautiful diamond star in the coils of
her dark-brown hair to flash with a dazzling iridescence, and as I
entered she turned and gave me a sweet smile of welcome.
A second time I glanced around that spacious apartment, then next
instant stood breathless--transfixed.
I could not believe my own eyes. It seemed absolutely incredible. Yet
the truth was beyond all doubt.
In the disposition of the furniture, and in the general appointments of
that handsome salon, the home of the woman I so dearly loved, I
recognised the very room which I had once explored with my keen sense of
touch--the room in which had been committed that ghastly, mysterious,
midnight crime!