“I will tell you if you let me come with you.”
“Let you come with me?” He stared still more. “What does the girl
mean?”
“Her presence,” struck in Mr. Colegate, “may be useful for purposes of
recognition. She won’t be in the way; you can do no harm by letting
her come.”
“If you don’t promise to let me come I shan’t tell you.”
The big man laughed. He seemed to find me amusing; I do not know why.
If he had only understood my feeling on the subject of my hair, and
how I yearned to be even with the man who had wrought me what seemed
to me such an irreparable injury. I dare say it sounds as if I were
very revengeful. I do not think it was a question of vengeance only; I
wanted justice. The detective took out a fat note-book.
“Very well; it’s a bargain. Tell me what you saw him whisper, and you
shall come.” So I told him again, and he wrote it down. “‘Bantock, 13
Harwood Street, Oxford Street.’ I know Harwood Street, though I don’t
know Mr. Bantock. But he seems to be residing at what is generally
understood to be an unlucky number. Let me get a message through to
the Yard--we may want assistance. Then we’ll pay a visit to Mr.
Bantock--if there is such a person. It sounds like a very tall story
to me.”
I believe that even then he doubted if I had seen what I said I saw.
When we did start I was feeling pretty nervous, because I realized
that if we were going on a fool’s errand, and there did turn out to be
no Bantock, that London detective would doubt me more than ever. And,
of course, I could not be sure that there was such a person, though it
was some comfort to know that there was a Harwood Street. We went four
in a cab--the two detectives, Mr. Colegate and I. We had gone some
distance before the cab stopped. The London detective said:
“This is Harwood Street; I told the driver to stop at the corner--we
will walk the rest of the way. A cab might arouse suspicion; you never
know.”
It was a street full of shops. No. 13 proved to be a sort of curiosity
shop and jeweller’s combined; quite a respectable-looking place, and
sure enough over the top of the window was the name “Bantock.”
“That looks as if, at any rate, there were a Bantock,” the big man
said; it was quite a weight off my own mind when I saw the name.
Just as we reached the shop a cab drew up and five men got out, whom
the London detective seemed to recognize with mingled feelings.
“That’s queered the show,” he exclaimed. I did not know what he meant.
“They rouse suspicion, if they do nothing else--so in we go.”
And in we went--the detective first, and I close on his heels. There
were two young men standing close together behind the counter. The
instant we appeared I saw one whisper to the other:
“Give them the office--ring the alarm-bell--they’re ’tecs!”
I did not quite know what he meant either, but I guessed enough to
make me cry out:
“Don’t let him move--he’s going to ring the alarm-bell and give them
the office.”
Those young men were so startled--they must have been quite sure that
I could not have heard--that they both stood still and stared; before
they had got over their surprise a detective--they were detectives who
had come in the second cab--had each by the shoulder.
There was a door at the end of the shop, which the London detective
opened.
“There’s a staircase here; we’d better go up and see who’s above. You
chaps keep yourselves handy, you may be wanted--when I call you come.”
He mounted the stairs--as before, I was as close to him as I could
very well get. On the top of the staircase was a landing, on to which
two doors opened. We paused to listen; I could distinctly hear voices
coming through one of them.
“I think this is ours,” the London detective said.
He opened the one through which the voices were coming. He marched
in--I was still as close to him as I could get. In it were several
men, I did not know how many, and I did not care; I had eyes for only
one. I walked right past the detective up to the table round which
some of them were sitting, some standing, and stretching out an
accusatory arm I pointed at one.
“That’s the man who cut off my hair!”
It was, and well he knew it. His conscience must have smitten him; I
should not have thought that a grown man could be so frightened at the
sight of a child. He caught hold, with both hands, of the side of the
table; he glared at me as if I were some dreadful apparition--and no
doubt to him I was. It was only with an effort that he seemed able to
use his voice.
“Good night!” he exclaimed, “it’s that infernal kid!”
On the table, right in front of me, I saw something with which I was
only too familiar. I snatched it up.
“And this is the knife,” I cried, “with which he did it!”
It was; the historical blade, which had once belonged to the
sanguinary and, I sincerely trust, more or less apocryphal MacGregor.
I held it out towards the gaping man.
“You know that this is the knife with which you cut off my hair,” I
said. “You know it is.”
I dare say I looked a nice young termagant with my short hair, rage in
my eyes, and that frightful weapon in my hand. Apparently I did not
impress him quite as I had intended--at least, his demeanour did not
suggest it.
“By the living Jingo!” he shouted, “I wish I had cut her throat with
it as well!”
It was fortunate for him that he did not. Probably, in the long run,
he would have suffered for it more than he did--though he suffered
pretty badly as it was. It was his cutting my hair that did it. Had he
not done that I have little doubt that I should have been too
conscious of the pains caused me by my bonds--the marks caused by the
cord were on my skin for weeks after--to pay such close attention to
their proceedings as I did under the spur of anger. Quite possibly
that tell-tale whisper would have gone unnoticed. Absorbed by my own
suffering, I should have paid very little heed to the cryptic sentence
which really proved to be their undoing. It was the outrage to my
locks which caused me to strain every faculty of observation I had. He
had much better have left them alone.
That was the greatest capture the police had made for years. In one
haul they captured practically every member of a gang of cosmopolitan
thieves who were wanted by the police all over the world. The robbery
of Mr. Colegate’s collection of old silver shrank into insignificance
before the rest of their misdeeds. And not only were the thieves taken
themselves, but the proceeds of no end of robberies.
It seemed that they had met there for a sort of annual division of the
common spoil. There was an immense quantity of valuable property
before them on the table, and lots more about the house. Those jewels
which were in the bag which had been deposited at the cloak-room at
Victoria Station were to have been added to the common fund--to say
nothing of Mr. Colegate’s collection of old silver.
The man who called himself Bantock, and who owned the premises at 13
Harwood Street, proved to be a well-known dealer in precious stones
and jewellery and bric-à-brac and all sorts of valuables. He was
immensely rich; it was shown that a great deal of his money had been
made by buying and selling valuable stolen property of every sort and
kind. Before the police had done with him it was made abundantly clear
that, under various _aliases_, in half the countries of the world, he
had been a wholesale dealer in stolen goods. He was sentenced to a
long term of penal servitude. I am not quite sure, but I believe that
he died in jail.
All the men who were in that room were sent to prison for different
terms, including the man who cut my hair--to say nothing of his
companion. So far as the proceedings at the court were concerned, I
never appeared at all. Compared to some of the crimes of which they
had been guilty, the robbery of Mr. Colegate’s silver was held to be a
mere nothing. They were not charged with it at all, so my evidence was
not required. But every time I looked at my scanty locks, which took
years to grow to anything like a decent length--they had reached to my
knees, but they never did that again--each time I stood before a
looking-glass and saw what a curious spectacle I presented with my
closely clipped poll, something of that old rage came back to me which
had been during that first moment in my heart, and I felt--what I felt
when I was tied to that chair in Myrtle Cottage. I endeavoured to
console myself, in the spirit of the Old World rather than the New,
that, owing to the gift which was mine, I had been able to cry
something like quits with the man who, in a moment of mere wanton
savagery, had deprived me of what ought to be the glory of a woman.
II.
EAVESDROPPING AT INTERLAKEN
I have sometimes thought that this gift of mine for reading words as
they issue from people’s lips places me, with or without my will, in
the position of the eavesdropper. There have been occasions on which,
before I knew it, I have been made cognisant of conversations, of
confidences, which were meant to be sacred; and, though such knowledge
has been acquired through no fault of mine, I have felt ashamed, just
as if I had been listening at a keyhole, and I have almost wished that
the power which nature gave me, and which years of practice have made
perfect, was not mine at all. On the other hand, there have been times
when I was very glad indeed that I was able to play the part of
eavesdropper. As, to very strict purists, this may not sound a
pleasant confession to make, I will give an instance of the kind of
thing I mean.
I suppose I was about seventeen; I know I had just put my hair
up, which had grown to something like a decent length since
it had come in contact with the edge of that doughty Scottish
chieftain’s--MacGregor’s--knife. My mother was not very well. My father
was reluctant to leave her. It looked as if the summer holiday which
had been promised me was in peril, when two acquaintances, Mr. and Mrs.
Travers, rather than that I should lose it altogether, offered to take
me under their wing.
They were going for a little tour in Switzerland, proposing to spend
most of their time at Interlaken, and my parents, feeling that I
should be perfectly safe with them, accepted their proffered
chaperonage. Everything went well until we got to Interlaken. There
they met some friends who were going on a climbing expedition, and, as
Mr. and Mrs. Travers were both keen mountaineers, they were very eager
to join them. I was the only difficulty in their way. They could not
say exactly how long they would be absent, but probably a week; and
what was to become of me in that great hotel there all alone? They
protested that it would be quite impossible to leave me; they would
have to give up that climb; and I believe they would have done so if
what seemed to be a solution of the difficulty had not turned up.
The people in the hotel were for the most part very sociable folk, as
people in such places are apt to be. Among other persons whose
acquaintance we had made was a middle-aged widow, a Mrs. Hawthorne.
When she heard of what Mr. and Mrs. Travers wanted to do, and how they
could not do it because of me, she volunteered, during their absence,
to occupy their place as my chaperon, assuring them that every
possible care should be taken of me.
In the hotel were stopping a brother and sister, a Mr. and Miss
Sterndale. With them I had grown quite friendly. Mr. Sterndale I
should have set down as twenty-five or twenty-six, and his sister as a
year or two younger. From the day on which I had first seen them they
had shown an inclination for my society; and, to speak quite frankly,
on different occasions Mr. Sterndale had paid me what seemed to me to
be delicate little attentions which were very dear to my maiden heart.
I had some difficulty in inducing people to treat me as if I were
grown up. After a few minutes’ conversation even perfect strangers
would ask me how old I was, and when I told them they were apt to
assume an attitude towards me as if I were the merest child, of which
I disapproved.
What attracted me to Mr. Sterndale was that, from the very first, he
treated me with deference, as if I were at least as old as he was.
On the third day after Mr. and Mrs. Travers had left Mrs. Hawthorne
came to me with a long face and a letter in her hand.
“My dear, I cannot tell you how annoyed I am, but I shall have to go
to England at once--to-day. And whatever will become of you?”
It seemed that her only sister was dangerously ill, and that she was
implored to go to her as soon as she could. Of course, she would have
to go. I told her that it did not matter in the least about me; Mr.
and Mrs. Travers would be back in a day or two, and now that I knew so
many people in the hotel, who were all of them disposed to be
friendly, I should be perfectly all right until they came. She must
not allow any consideration for me to keep her for a moment from
obeying her sister’s call. She left for London that afternoon; but, so
far from everything being perfectly all right with me after she had
gone, the very next day my troubles began.
They began in the morning. I was sitting on the terrace with a book.
Mr. Sterndale had been talking to me. Presently his sister came
through an open French window from the lounge. Her brother went up to
her; I sat still. She was at the other end of the terrace, and when
she saw me she nodded and smiled. When her brother came up to her, he
said something which, as his back was towards me, of course I did not
catch; but her answer to him, which was very gently uttered, I saw
quite distinctly; all the while she was speaking she was smiling at
me.
“She has a red morocco jewel-case sort of a thing on the corner of her
mantelshelf; I put it under the bottom tray. With the exception of
that gold locket which she is always wearing it’s the only decent
thing in it; it’s full of childish trumpery.”
That was what Miss Sterndale said to her brother, and I saw her say it
with rather curious feelings. What had he asked her? To what could she
be referring? I had “a red morocco jewel-case sort of a thing,” and it
stood on a corner of my mantelshelf. I also had a gold locket, which,
if I was not, as she put it, always wearing, I did wear pretty often.
Certainly it was the only article in my jewel-case which was worth
very much; and with a horrid sort of qualm I owned to myself that the
rest of the contents might come under the definition of “childish
trumpery.” She said she had put something under the bottom tray. What
bottom tray? Whose bottom tray? There were trays in my jewel-case; she
could not possibly have meant that she had put anything under one of
them. The idea was too preposterous. And yet, if we had not been going
to St. Beatenberg I think I should have gone straight up to my bedroom
to see. I do not know how it was; the moment before I had been
perfectly happy; there was not a grain of suspicion in the air, nor in
my mind; then all of a sudden I felt quite curious. Could there be two
persons in the house possessed of “a red morocco jewel-case sort of a
thing,” which stood on a corner of the mantelshelf, in which was a
gold locket and a rather mixed collection of childish trumpery? I
wondered.
The evening before we had arranged to make an excursion to St.
Beatenberg on the Lake of Thun--five or six of us. I was dressed ready
to start when Miss Sterndale came through that French window. She also
was ready, and her brother. Presently the others appeared. I was
feeling a little confused; I could not think of an excuse which would
give me an opportunity of examining my jewel-case. Anyhow, I kept
trying to tell myself it was absurd. I wished I could not see what
people were saying merely by watching their lips.
My day at St. Beatenberg was spoilt, though I kept telling myself that
it was all my own fault, and nobody else’s. Every one was gay, and
full of fun and laughter--every one but me. My mood was so obviously
out of tune with theirs that they commented on it.
“What is the matter with you, Miss Lee?” asked Mrs. Dalton. “You look
as if you were not enjoying yourself one little bit.”
I did not like to say that I was not; as a matter of fact, when they
rallied me I said that I was--but it was not true.
When I got back to the hotel and was in my bedroom, I went straight up
to that “red morocco jewel-case sort of a thing” and looked at it. It
was locked, just as I had left it. Clearly I had been worrying myself
all day long about nothing at all. Still, I got my keys and opened it;
there was nothing to show that the contents had been touched. I lifted
the two trays--and I gasped. I do not know how else to describe
it--something seemed all at once to be choking me, so that it was with
an effort that I breathed. In the jewel-case, under the bottom tray,
was a pendant--a beautiful circular diamond pendant, of the size,
perhaps, of a five-shilling piece. It was not mine; I never had
anything so beautiful in my life. Where did it come from? Could Miss
Sterndale have put it there? Was that the meaning of her words?
I took the pendant out. It was a beauty; it could not be a present
from the Sterndales, from either the sister or the brother. They must
have known that I could not accept such a gift as that from strangers.
And then, what a queer way of making a present--and such a present!
As I looked at it I began to have a very uncomfortable feeling that I
had seen it before, or one very like it, on some one in the house. My
head, or my brain, or something seemed to be so muddled that at the
moment I could not think who that some one was. I had washed and
tidied myself before I decided that I would go down with the pendant
in my hand and, at the risk of no matter what misunderstanding, ask
Miss Sterndale what she meant by putting it there. So, when I had got
my unruly hair into something like order, downstairs I went, and
rushed into the lounge with so much impetuosity that I all but
cannoned against Miss Goodridge, who was coming out.
“Good gracious, child!” she exclaimed. “Do look where you are going.
You almost knocked me over.”
The instant I saw her, and she said that, I remembered--I knew whom I
had seen wearing that diamond pendant which I was holding tightly
clasped in the palm of my hand. It was the person whom I had almost
knocked over, Miss Goodridge herself--of course! One of the persons in
the hotel whom, so far as I knew anything of them, I liked least. Miss
Goodridge was a tall, angular person of perhaps quite thirty-five, who
dressed and carried herself as if she were still a girl. She had been
most unpleasant to me. I had no idea what I had done or said to cause
her annoyance, but I had a feeling that she disliked me, and was at no
pains to conceal the fact. The sight of her, and the thought that I
had nearly knocked her over, quite drove the sense out of my head.
“Oh, Miss Goodridge!” I exclaimed, rather fatuously. “You look as if
something had happened.”
“Something has happened,” she replied. “There’s a thief in the house.
I have been robbed. Some one has stolen my pendant--my diamond
pendant.”
Some one had stolen her diamond pendant! I do not know if the
temperature changed all at once, but I do know that a chill went all
over me. Was that the explanation? Could it possibly be---- I did not
care to carry even my thought to a logical finish. I stood there as if
I were moonstruck, with Miss Goodridge looking at me with angry eyes.
“What is the matter with the child?” she asked. “I did not know you
dark-skinned girls could blush, but I declare you’ve gone as red as a
lobster.”
I do not know if she thought that lobsters were red before they were
boiled. I tried to explain, to say what I wanted to say, but I
appeared to be tongue-tied.
“Can’t you speak?” she demanded. “Don’t glare at me as if you’d
committed a murder. Anyone would think that you had been robbed
instead of me. I suppose you haven’t stolen my pendant?”
She drew her bow at a venture, but her arrow hit the mark.
“Oh, Miss Goodridge!” I repeated. It seemed to be all I could say.
She put her hand upon my shoulder.
“What is the matter with the girl? You young wretch! Have you been
playing any tricks with that pendant of mine?”
“I--I found it,” I stammered. I held out to her my open hand with the
pendant on the palm.
“You--you found it? Found what?” She looked at me and then at my
outstretched hand. “My pendant! She’s got my pendant!” She snatched it
from me. “You--you young--thief! And you have the insolence to pretend
you found it!”
“I did find it--I found it in my bedroom.”
“Did you really? Of all the assurance! I’ve always felt that you were
the kind of creature with whom the less one had to do the better, but
I never credited you with a taste for this sort of thing. Get out of
my way! Don’t you ever dare to speak to me again.”
She did not wait for me to get out of her way; she gave me a violent
push and rushed right past me. It was a polished floor; if I had not
come in contact with a big arm-chair I should have tumbled on to it.
My feelings when I was left alone in the lounge were not enviable. At
seventeen, even if one thinks oneself grown up, one is still only a
child, and I was a stranger in a strange land, without a friend in all
that great hotel, without a soul to advise me. Still, as I knew that I
was absolutely and entirely innocent, I did not intend to behave as if
I were guilty. I went up to my room again and dressed for dinner. I
told myself over and over again as I performed my simple toilette that
I would make Miss Goodridge eat her words before she had done, though
at that moment I had not the faintest notion how I was going to do it.
That was a horrid dinner--not from the culinary, but from my point of
view. If the dinner was horrid, in the lounge afterwards it was worse.
Miss Sterndale actually had the audacity to come up to me and pretend
to play the part of sympathetic friend.
“You seem to be all alone,” she began. I was all alone; I had never
thought that anyone could feel so utterly alone as I did in that
crowded lounge. “Miss Lee, why do you look at me like that?” I was
looking at her as if I wished her to understand that I was looking
into her very soul--if she had one. Her smiling serenity of
countenance was incredible to me, knowing what I knew. “Have you had
bad news from home, or from Mr. and Mrs. Travers, or are you unhappy
because Mrs. Hawthorne has gone? You seem so different. What has been
the matter with you the whole of the day?”
I was on the point of giving an explanation which I think might have
startled her when I happened to glance across the room. At a table
near the open window Mr. Sterndale was sitting with Miss Goodridge.
They were having coffee. Although Miss Goodridge was sitting sideways,
she continually turned her head to watch me. Mr. Sterndale was sitting
directly facing me. He had a cigarette in one hand, and every now and
then he sipped his coffee, but most of the time he talked. But,
although I could not even hear the sound of his voice, I saw what he
said as distinctly as if he had been shouting in my ear. It was the
sentence he was uttering which caused me to defer the explanation
which I had it in my mind to give to his sister.
“Of course, the girl’s a thief--I’m afraid that goes without saying.”
It was that sentence which was issuing from his lips at the moment
when I chanced to glance in his direction which caused the explanation
I had been about to make to his sister to be deferred.
Miss Goodridge had her coffee-cup up to her mouth, so I could not see
what she said; but if I had been put to it I might have made a very
shrewd guess by the reply he made. He took his cigarette from his
lips, blew out a thin column of smoke, leaned back in his chair--and
all the time he was looking smilingly at me with what he meant me to
think were the eyes of a friend.
“It’s all very well for you to talk. I may have had my suspicions, but
it is only within the last hour or two that they have been confirmed.”
She said something which again I could not see; his reply suggested
that she must have asked a question.
“I’ll tell you what I mean by saying that my doubts have been
confirmed. A man was passing through this afternoon with whom I have
some acquaintance--the Rector of Leeds.” I wonder he did not say the
Bishop of London. “He saw--our friend----” He made a slight
inclination of his head towards me. “At sight of her he exclaimed:
‘Halloa, there’s that Burnett girl!’ For a parson he has rather a
free-and-easy way of speaking; he’s one of your modern kind.” I
believed him! “‘Burnett girl?’ I said. ‘But her name’s Lee--Judith
Lee.’ ‘Oh, she calls herself Lee now, does she? That settles it.’
‘Settles what?’ I asked, because I saw that there was something in his
tone. ‘My dear Reggie,’ he said (he always calls me Reggie; I’ve known
him for years), ‘at the beginning of the season that girl whom you
call Judith Lee was at Pontresina, staying in the same hotel as I was.
She called herself Burnett then. Robberies were going on all the time,
people were continually missing things. At last a Russian woman lost
a valuable lot of jewellery. That settled it--Miss Burnett went.’”
Miss Goodridge turned so that her face was hidden; but, as before, his
reply gave me a pretty good clue as to the question she had asked.
“Of course I mean it. Do you think I’d say a thing like that if I
didn’t mean it? I won’t tell you all he said--it wouldn’t be quite
fair. But it came to this. He said that the young lady whom we have
all thought so sweet and innocent----”
Miss Goodridge interposed with a remark which, in a guessing
competition, I think I could have come pretty near to.
He replied:
“Well, I’ve sometimes felt that you were rather hard on her, that
perhaps you were a trifle prejudiced.”
Miss Goodridge turned her face towards me, and then I saw her words.
“I’m a better judge of feminine human nature than you suppose. The
first moment I saw her I knew she was a young cat, though I admit I
didn’t take her to be as bad as she is. What did your clerical friend
say of her, of the Miss Burnett whom we know now as Miss Lee?”
I did not wait to learn his answer--I had learnt enough. What his
sister thought of my demeanour I did not care; I had been dimly
conscious that she had been talking to me all the while, but what she
was saying I do not know. My attention had been wholly taken up with
what I did not hear. Before he began his reply to Miss Goodridge’s
genial inquiry I got up from my chair and marched out of the lounge,
without saying a word to Miss Sterndale. When I had gone a little way
I remembered that I had left my handkerchief--my best lace
handkerchief--on the table by which I had been sitting. Even in the
midst of my agitation I was conscious that I could not afford to lose
it, so went back for it.
Miss Sterndale had joined her brother and Miss Goodridge. Two or three
other people were standing by them, evidently interested in what was
being said. I found my handkerchief. As I was going off with it Miss
Sterndale turned round in my direction, without, however, thinking it
worth her while to break off the remark she was making, taking it for
granted, of course, that it was inaudible to me. I came in, as it
were, for the tail end of it.
“… I am so disappointed in her; I have tried to like her, and now I
fear it is only too certain that she is one of those creatures of whom
the less said the better.”
That these words referred to me I had not the slightest doubt. Yet,
while they were still on her lips, presuming on her conviction that
they were hidden from me, she nodded and smiled as if she were wishing
me a friendly good night.
The treachery of it! Now that I am able to look back calmly, I think
it was that which galled me most. Her brother, with his gratuitous,
horrible lies, had actually been pretending to make love to me--I am
sure that was what he wished me to think he was doing. What a fool he
must have thought me!
That was a sleepless night. It was hours before I got between the
sheets, and when I did it was not to slumber. The feeling that I was
so entirely alone, and that there was not a soul within miles and
miles to whom I could turn for help, coupled with the consciousness
that I had scarcely enough money to pay the hotel bill, and, what was
even worse, that Mr. and Mrs. Travers had gone off with the
return-half of my ticket to London, so that I could not go back home
however much I might want to--these things were hard enough to bear;
but they seemed to be as nothing compared to that man and woman’s
treachery. What was their motive, what could have induced them, was
beyond my comprehension. It was a problem which I strove all night to
solve. But the solution came on the morrow.
I soon knew what had happened when I went downstairs. Miss Goodridge
had told her story of the pendant, and Mr. Sterndale had circulated
his lie about his clerical friend. Everybody shunned me. Some persons
had the grace to pretend not to see me; others looked me full in the
face and cut me dead. The only persons who were disposed to show any
perception of my presence were the Sterndales. As, entering the
breakfast-room, I passed their table, they both smiled and nodded, but
I showed no consciousness of them. As I took a seat at my own table, I
saw him say to his sister:
“Our young friend seems to have got her back up--little idiot!”
Little idiot, was I? Only yesterday he had called me something else.
The feeling that he was saying such things behind my back hurt me more
than if he had shouted them to my face. I averted my gaze, keeping my
eyes fixed on my plate. I would learn no more of what he said about
me, or of what anyone said. I was conscious that life might become
unendurable if I were made acquainted with the comments which people
were making on me then. Yet, as I sat there with downcast face, might
they not construe that as the bearing of a conscience-stricken and
guilty wretch? I felt sure that that was what they were doing. But I
could not help it; I would not see what they were saying.
Later in the morning matters turned out so that I did see, so that
practically I had to see what the Sterndales said to each other. And
perhaps, on the whole, it was fortunate for me that I did. I had spent
the morning out of doors. On the terrace the Sterndales were standing
close together, talking; so engrossed were they by what they were
saying that they did not notice me; while, though I did not wish to
look at them, something made me. That may seem to be an exaggeration.
It is not--it is the truth. My wish was to have nothing more to do
with them for ever and ever; but some instinct, which came I know not
whence, made me turn my eyes in their direction and see what they were
saying. And, as I have already said, it was well for me that I did.
They both seemed to be rather excited. He was speaking quickly and
with emphasis.
“I tell you,” he was saying, as I paused to watch, “we will do it
to-day.”
His sister said something which, as she was standing sideways, was
lost to me. He replied:
“The little idiot has cooked her own goose; there’s no need for us to
waste time in cooking it any more--she’s done. I tell you we can strip
the house of all it contains, and they’d lock her up for doing it.”
Again his sister spoke; without, because of her position, giving
herself away to me. He went on again:
“There are only two things in the house worth having--I could give you
a catalogue of what every one has got. Mrs. Anstruther’s diamonds--the
necklace is first-rate, and the rest of them aren’t bad; and that
American woman’s pearls. Those five ropes of pearls are worth--I hope
they’ll be worth a good deal to us. The rest of the things you may
make a present of to our young friend. The odium will fall on
her--you’ll see. We shall be able to depart with the only things worth
having, at our distinguished leisure, without a stain upon our
characters.”
He smiled--some people might have thought it a pleasant smile--to me
it seemed a horrid one. That smile finished me--it reminded me of the
traitor’s kiss. I passed into the house still unnoticed, though I do
not suppose that if I had been noticed it would have made any
difference to them.
What he meant by what he had said I did not clearly understand. The
only thing I quite realized was that he was still making sport of me.
I also gathered that that was an amusement which he proposed to
continue, though just how I did not see. Nor did I grasp the inner
meaning of his allusion to Mrs. Anstruther’s diamonds and Mrs.
Newball’s pearls--no doubt it was Mrs. Newball he meant when he spoke
of the American woman. The fine jewels of those two ladies, which they
aired at every opportunity, were, as I knew perfectly well, the talk
of the whole hotel. Probably that was what they meant they should be.
When Mrs. Anstruther had diamonds round her neck and on her bosom and
in her ears and hair and round her wrists and on her fingers--I myself
had seen her wear diamond rings on all the fingers of both hands and
two diamond bracelets on each wrist--she was a sight to be remembered;
while Mrs. Newball, with her five strings of splendid pearls, which
she sometimes wore all together as a necklace and sometimes twisted as
bracelets round her wrists, together with a heterogeneous collection
of ornaments of all sorts and kinds, made a pretty good second.
Not a person spoke to me the whole of that day. Every one avoided me
in a most ostentatious manner; and every one, or nearly every one, had
been so friendly. It was dreadful. If I had had enough money to pay
the hotel bill, as well as the return half of my ticket home, I
believe I should have left Interlaken there and then. But the choice
of whether I would go or stay, as it turned out, was not to be left to
me.
Depressed, miserable, homesick, devoutly wishing that I had never left
home, almost resolved that I would never leave it again, I was about
to go up to my room to dress for what I very well knew would only be
the ghastly farce of dinner, when, as I reached the lift, a waiter
came up to me and said that the manager wished to see me in his
office. I did not like the man’s manner; it is quite easy for a Swiss
waiter to be rude, and I was on the point of telling him that at the
moment I was engaged and that the manager would have to wait, when
something which I thought I saw in his eye caused me to change my
mind, and, with an indefinable sense of discomfort, I allowed him to
show me to the managerial sanctum. I never had liked the look of that
manager; I liked it less than ever when I found myself alone in his
room with him. He was a youngish man, with a moustache, and hair
parted mathematically in the centre. In general his bearing was too
saccharine to be pleasant; he did not err in that respect just
then--it was most offensive. He looked me up and down as if I were one
of his employés who had done something wrong, and, without waiting
for me to speak, he said:
“You are Miss Judith Lee--or you pretend that is your name?”
He spoke English very well, as most of the Swiss one meets in hotels
seem to do. Nothing could have been more impertinent than his tone,
unless it was the look which accompanied it. I stared at him.
“I am Miss Lee. I do not pretend that is my name; it is.”
“Very well--that is your affair, not mine. You will no longer be
allowed to occupy a room in this hotel. You can go at once.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. The man was incredible.
“You know very well what I mean. Don’t you try that sort of thing with
me. You have stolen an article of jewellery belonging to a guest in my
hotel. She is a very kind-hearted lady, and she is not willing to hand
you over to the police. You owe me some money; here’s your bill. Are
you going to pay it?”
He handed me a long strip of paper which was covered with figures. One
glance at the total was enough to tell me that I had not enough money.
Mrs. Travers was acting as my banker. She had left me with ample funds
to serve as pocket-money till she returned, but with nothing like
enough money to pay that bill.
“Mrs. Travers will pay you when she comes back, either to-morrow or
the day after.”
“Will she?” The sneer with which he said it! “How am I to know that
you’re not at the same game together?”
“The same game! What do you mean? How dare you look at me like that,
and talk to me as if I were one of your servants!”
“I’m not going to talk to you at all, my girl; I’m going to do. I’m
not going to allow a person who robs my guests to remain in my house
under any pretext whatever. Your luggage, such as it is, will remain
here until my bill is paid.” He rang a bell which was on the table by
which he was standing. The waiter entered who had showed me there. He
was a big man, with a square, dark face. “This young woman must go at
once. If she won’t leave of her own accord we must put her out, by the
back door. Now, my girl--out you go!”
The waiter approached me. He spoke to me as he might have done to a
dog.
“Now, then, come along.”
He actually put his hand upon my shoulder. Another second, and I
believe he would have swung me round and out of the room. But just as
he touched me the door was opened and some one came rushing in--Mrs.
Anstruther, in a state of the greatest excitement.
“My diamonds have been stolen!” she cried. “Some one has stolen my
diamonds!”
“Your diamonds?” The manager looked at her and then at me. “I trust,
madam, you are mistaken?”
“I’m not mistaken.” She sank on to a chair. She was a big woman of
about fifty, and, at the best of times, was scant of breath. Such was
her agitation that just then she could scarcely breathe at all. “As if
I could be mistaken about a thing like that! I went up to my
bedroom--to dress for dinner--and I unlocked my trunk--I always keep
it locked; I took out my jewel-case--and unlocked that--and my
diamonds were gone. They’ve been stolen!--stolen!--stolen!”
She repeated the word “stolen” three times over, as if the heinousness
of the fact required to be emphasized by repetition. The manager was
evidently uneasy, which even I felt was not to be wondered at.
“This is a very serious matter, Mrs. Anstruther----”
She cut him short.
“Serious? Do you think I need you to tell me that it’s serious? You
don’t know how serious. Those diamonds are worth thousands and
thousands of pounds--more than the whole of your twopenny-halfpenny
hotel--and they’ve been stolen. From my trunk, in my bedroom, in your
hotel, they’ve been stolen!”
The way she hurled the words at him! He looked at me, and he asked:
“What do you know about this?”
What did I know? In the midst of my confusion and distress I was
asking myself what I did know. Before I could speak the door was
opened again and Mrs. Newball came in. And not Mrs. Newball only, but
six or seven other women, some of them accompanied by men--their
husbands and their brothers. And they all told the same tale.
Something had been stolen from each: from Mrs. Newball her five
strings of pearls, from Mrs. This and Miss That the article of
jewellery which was valued most. I am convinced that that manager, or
his room, or probably his hotel, had never witnessed such a scene
before. They were all as excited as could be, and they were all
talking at once, and every second or two some one else kept coming in
with some fresh tale of a dreadful loss. How that man kept his head at
all was, and is, a mystery to me. At last he reduced them to something
like silence, and in the presence of them all he said to me--pointing
at me with his finger, as if I were a thing to be pointed at:
“It is you who have done this! You!”
Some one exclaimed in the crowd: “I saw her coming out of Mrs.
Anstruther’s room.”
The manager demanded: “Who spoke? Who was it said that?”
A slight, faded, fair-haired woman came out into the public gaze.
“I am Mrs. Anstruther’s maid. I was going along to her room when I saw
this young lady come out of the door. Whether she saw me or not I
can’t say; she might have done, because she ran off as fast as ever
she could. I wondered what she was doing there, and when my mistress
came I told her what I had seen, and that’s what made her open her
trunk.”
“What Perkins says is quite true,” corroborated Mrs. Anstruther. “She
did tell me, and that made me uneasy; I had heard something about a
diamond pendant having been stolen last night, so I opened my
jewel-case, and my diamonds were gone.”
“Mine was the diamond pendant which was stolen by this creature last
night,” interposed Miss Goodridge. “She came to my room and took it
out of my trunk. Since she did that it seems not impossible that she
has played the same trick on other people to-day. If she has, she must
have had a pretty good haul, because I don’t believe there is a person
in the hotel who hasn’t lost something.”
The manager spoke to an under-strapper.
“Have this young woman’s luggage searched at once, in the presence of
witnesses, and let me know the result as soon as you possibly can.”
As the under-strapper went out I noticed for the first time that Mr.
Sterndale was present with the rest, and almost at the same instant
his sister came in. She looked about her as if wondering what was the
cause of all the fuss. Then she went up to her brother, and he
whispered something to her, and she whispered something to him. Only
three or four words in each case, but my heart gave a leap in my
bosom--I mean that, really, because it did feel as if it actually had
jumped--courage came into me, and strength, and something better than
hope: certainty; because they had delivered themselves into my hands.
I was never more thankful that I had the power of eavesdropping--you
can call it eavesdropping, if you like!--than I was at that moment.
Only a second before I had been fearing that I was in a tight place,
from which there was no way out; which would mean something for me
from which my very soul seemed to shrink. But God had given me a gift,
a talent, which I had striven with all my might to improve ten, twenty
fold, and that would deliver me from the wiles of those two people,
even when hope of deliverance there seemed none. I feel confident that
I held myself straighter, that trouble went from my face as it had
done from my heart, and that, though each moment the case against me
seemed to be growing blacker and blacker, I grew calmer and more
self-possessed. I knew I had only to wait till the proper moment came,
and the toils in which they thought they had caught me would prove to
be mere nothings; they would be caught, and I should be free.
All the same, until that moment for which I was waiting came, it was
not nice for me--standing there amidst all those excited people,
between two porters, who kept close to either side of me, as if I were
a prisoner and they had me in charge; though I dare say it was as well
that they did keep as close to me as they did, because I fancy that
some of the injured guests at that hotel would have liked to give me a
practical demonstration of what their feelings towards me were.
That under-strapper came back in a surprisingly short space of time
with a hand-bag--a brown bag, which I recognized to be my own.
The agitated guests crowded round him like a swarm of bees. He had
difficulty in forcing his way through them. The manager did his best
to keep them in something like order--first with a show of mildness.
“Ladies, gentlemen--gently, gently, if you please.” Then, with a
sudden ferocity: “Stand back, there! If you will not stand back, if
you will not make room, how can anything be done? Keep these people
back!”
To whom this order was addressed was not quite clear. Thus admonished,
the people kept themselves back--at least, sufficiently to enable that
under-strapper to pass with my bag to the table. The manager said to
him:
“Go to the other side; what have you in that bag?” When, as he said
this, his guests evinced an inclination to press forward, he threw out
his arms on either side of him and positively shouted:
“Will you not keep back? If you will keep back, everything shall be
done in order before you all. I ask you only to be a little sensible.
If there is so much confusion, we shall not know what we are doing. I
beg of you that you will be calm.”
If they were not precisely calm, the people did show some slight
inclination to behave with an approach to common sense. They permitted
the bag to be placed on the table, and the manager to open it, having
first put some questions to the young man who brought it in.
“Where did you find this bag?”
“In her room.” I was the “her,” which he made clear by pointing his
finger straight at me.
“Was anyone else present in the room at the time you found it? Did you
find anything else?”
“There were three other persons present in the room. That bag was the
first thing I touched. When I opened it and saw what was inside, I
thought that, for the present, that would be enough. I think you also
will be of my opinion when you see what it contains.”
Then the manager opened the bag. He looked inside, then he turned it
upside down and allowed the whole contents to fall out on to the
table. Of all the extraordinary collections! I believe there were
articles belonging to every person in the hotel. When you came to
think of it, it was amazing how they had been gathered together--in
what could only have been a short space of time--without the gatherer
being detected. As for the behaviour of the guests of the hotel, it
was like Bedlam broken loose. They pressed forward all together,
ejaculating, exclaiming, snatching at this and that, as each saw some
personal belonging.
“Keep back! Keep back!” shouted the manager. “Will you not keep back?”
As he positively roared at them they did shrink back as if a trifle
startled. “If you will only have a little patience each lady shall
have what belongs to her--if it is here.”
Mrs. Anstruther’s voice was heard above the hubbub:
“Are my diamonds there?” Then Mrs. Newball’s “And my pearls?”
The under-strapper was examining the miscellaneous collection which my
bag had contained with all those women breaking into continual
exclamations, watching him with hungry eyes. He announced the result
of his examination.
“No; Mrs. Anstruther’s diamonds do not appear to be here, nor Mrs.
Newball’s pearls; there is nothing here which at all resembles them.”
The manager held out towards me a minatory finger; every one seemed to
have developed a sudden mania for pointing, particularly at me.
“You! Where have you put Mrs. Newball’s pearls and Mrs. Anstruther’s
diamonds? Better make a clean breast of it, and no longer play the
hypocrite. We will find them, if you do not tell us where they are, be
sure of it. Now tell us at once.”
How he thundered at me! It was most embarrassing, or it would have
been if I had not been conscious that I held the key of the situation
in my hand. As it was, I minded his thunder scarcely a little bit,
though I always have hated being shouted at. I was very
calm--certainly the calmest person there--which, of course, was not
saying very much.
“I can tell you where they are, if that is what you mean.”
“You know that is what I mean. Tell us at once! at once!”
He banged his fist upon the table so that that miscellaneous
collection trembled. I did not tremble, though perhaps it was his
intention that I should. I was growing calmer and calmer.
“In the first place, let me inform you that if you suppose I put those
things in my bag--the bag is certainly mine--or had anything to do
with their getting there, you are mistaken.”
My words, and perhaps my manner, created a small diversion. “What
impudence!” “What assurance!” “Did you ever see anything like it?” “So
young and so brazen!” “The impudent baggage!” Those were some of the
things which they said, which were very nice for me to have to listen
to. But I was sure, from a glimpse I had caught of Mr. and Miss
Sterndale, that they were not quite at their ease, and that was such a
comfort.
“No lies!” thundered the manager, whose English became a little
vulgar. “No foolery! No stuck-up rubbish! Tell us the truth--where are
these ladies’ jewels?”
“I propose to tell you the truth, if you will have a little patience.”
I returned him look for look; I was not the least afraid of him. “I am
going to give you a little surprise.” I was so conscious of that that
I was beginning to feel almost amused. “I have a power of which I
think none of you have any conception, especially two of you. I know
what people are saying although I do not hear them; like the deaf and
dumb, who know what a person is saying by merely watching his lips.”
There were some very rude interruptions, to which I paid no notice
whatever. An elderly man whom I had never seen before, and who spoke
with an air of authority, advised them to give me a hearing. They did
let me go on.
I told them what I had seen Miss Sterndale say to her brother on the
balcony the morning before. It was some satisfaction to see the
startled look which came upon the faces of both the brother and the
sister. They made some very noisy and uncivil comments, but, as I
could see how uncomfortable they were feeling, I let them make them. I
went on. I told how unhappy I had been all day, and how, when I
returned, I found under the bottom tray of my jewel-case the diamond
pendant. How, astounded, I went down to ask Miss Sterndale why she had
put it there, and how, encountering Miss Goodridge bewailing her loss,
utterly taken aback, I held out to her her pendant in a manner which,
I admitted, might very easily have seemed suspicious.
By this time the manager’s room was in a delightful state of din. Mr.
and Miss Sterndale were both of them shouting together, declaring that
it was shocking that such a creature as I was should be allowed to
make such monstrous insinuations. I believe, if it had not been for
that grey-haired man who had suddenly assumed a position of authority,
that Miss Sterndale would have made a personal assault on me. She
seemed half beside herself with rage--and, I was quite sure, with
something else as well.
I continued--in spite of the Sterndales. I could see that I was
creating a state of perplexity in the minds of my hearers which might
very shortly induce them to take up an entirely different attitude
towards me. I told of the brief dialogue which had taken place between
the sister and brother that very morning. And then you should have
seen how the Sterndales stormed and raged.
“It seems to me,” observed the grey-haired man to Mr. Sterndale, “that
you protest too much, sir. If this young lady is all the things you
say she is, presently you will have every opportunity of proving it.
Since she is one young girl among all us grown-ups, it is only right
and decent that we should hear what she has to say for herself. We can
condemn her afterwards--that part will be easy.”
So I went on again. There was very little to add. They knew almost as
much of the rest as I did. Some one had effected a wholesale clearance
of pretty nearly every valuable which the house contained. I did not
pretend to be certain, but I thought it extremely probable that it was
Miss Sterndale who had done this, while her brother kept the owners
occupied in other directions. At this point glances were exchanged. I
afterwards learned that Mr. Sterndale had organized a party for an
excursion on the Lake of Brienz, which had been joined by nearly every
one in the place with the exception of Miss Sterndale, who was
supposed to have gone for a solitary expedition up the Schynnige
Platte. When Miss Sterndale saw those glances, as I have no doubt she
did, she commenced to storm and rage again, and continued to the end.
I do not think, even then, she guessed what was coming; but she was
already more uncomfortable than she had expected to be, and I could
see that her brother felt the same. His face was white and set; he
looked like a man who was trying to think of the best way in which to
confront a desperate situation.
I went on to explain, quite calmly, that as, owing to the machinations
of Mr. Sterndale and his sister, every one in the house had come to
look upon me as a thief, their evident intention was to allow
suspicion to be centred on me, and that that was why they put those
things in my bag.
“But what were they going to gain by that?” asked the grey-haired man,
rather pertinently. His question was echoed in a chorus by the
rest--particularly, I noticed, by the Sterndales, who laid emphasis on
the transparent absurdity of what I was saying.
“If you will allow me to continue, I will soon make it perfectly clear
to you what they were going to gain. If you remember, when Mr.
Sterndale was talking to his sister on the balcony this morning, I saw
him say to her that there were only two things in the house worth
having----”
Here Mr. Sterndale burst into a very hurricane of adjectives. The
grey-haired man addressed him with rather unlooked-for vigour.
“Silence, sir! Allow Miss Lee to continue.”
Mr. Sterndale was silent. I fancy he was rather cowed by what he saw
in the speaker’s eyes. I did continue.
“The only two things which, according to Mr. Sterndale, were worth
having were Mrs. Anstruther’s diamonds and Mrs. Newball’s pearls. If
they put the whole of the rest of the stolen things into my bag it
would be taken for granted that I was the thief, and they would be
able to continue in unsuspected possession of the two things which
were worth much more than all the rest put together.”
The moment I stopped the clamour began again.
“And where do you suggest, young lady,” asked the grey-haired man,
“that those two articles are?”
“I will tell you.” I looked at Miss Sterndale and then at her brother.
I believe they would both have liked to have killed and eaten me. They
can scarcely have been sure, even then, of what I was going to say,
but I could see that they were devoured by anxiety and fear. “I have
told you that I can see what people are saying by merely watching
their lips. When Miss Sterndale came into the room she whispered
something to her brother, in so faint a whisper that her words could
have been scarcely audible even to themselves; but I saw their faces,
and I knew what they had said as plainly as if they had shouted it. He
told her that he had Mrs. Anstruther’s diamonds in the pocket of the
jacket he has on.”
I paused. The first expression on Mr. Sterndale’s face was one of
blank astonishment. Then he broke into Billingsgate abuse of me.
“You infernal liar! You two-faced cat! You dirty little witch! I’m not
going to stay in this room to be insulted by a miserable creature----”
He made for the door. “Stop him!” I cried. As he reached the door it
was thrown back almost in his face, and who should come into the room
but Mr. and Mrs. Travers. How glad I was to see them! “Stop him!” I
cried to Mr. Travers. “Stop that man!” And Mr. Travers stopped him.
“Put your hand into the pocket of his jacket and take out what he has
there.”
Mr. Travers, knowing nothing of what had been taking place, must have
been rather at a loss as to what I might mean by such a request; but
he did as I told him, all the same. Mr. Sterndale struggled; he did
his best to protect himself and his pocket; but he was rather a small
man, and Mr. Travers was a giant, both in stature and in strength. In
a very few seconds he was staring at the contents of his hand.
“From the look of things, this gentleman’s pocket seems to be stuffed
with diamonds. Here’s a diamond necklace.”
He held one up in the air. Heavy weight though she was, I believe that
Mrs. Anstruther sprang several inches from the floor.
“It’s my necklace!” she screamed.
“And where are my pearls?” demanded Mrs. Newball.
“Miss Sterndale whispered to her brother that your pearls were inside
the bodice of her dress.”
The words were scarcely out of my lips before Mrs. Newball sprang at
Miss Sterndale, and there ensued a really painful scene. Had she not
been restrained, I dare say she would have torn Miss Sterndale’s
clothes right off her. As it was, some one opened her bodice, and the
pearls were produced.
The scene which followed was like pandemonium on a small scale. It
seemed as if every one had gone stark, staring mad. Guests, manager,
and staff were all shouting together. I know that Mrs. Travers had her
arm round me, and I was happier than--only a few minutes before--I
thought that I should ever feel again.
We did not prosecute the Sterndales--which turned out not to be their
name, and they were proved not to be sister and brother. Law in
Switzerland does not move too quickly; the formalities to be observed
are numerous. I did not very much want to have to remain in
Switzerland for an indefinite period, at my own expense, to give
evidence in a case in which I was not in the faintest degree
interested. The others, the guests in the hotel, did not want to do
that any more than I did. Their property was restored to them--that
was what they wanted. They would have liked to punish the thieves, but
not at the cost of so much inconvenience to themselves. So far as we
were concerned, the criminals got off scot-free; but, none the less,
they did not escape the vengeance of the law. That night they were
arrested at Interlaken on another charge. It seemed that they were the
perpetrators of that robbery in the hotel at Pontresina which,
according to Mr. Sterndale, his apocryphal clerical friend had laid at
my door. They had passed there as Mr. and Mrs. Burnett, and were found
guilty and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. I have not seen
or heard anything of that pseudonymous brother and sister since. I
hope I never shall.
To find out what people are saying to each other in confidence, when
they suppose themselves to be out of the reach of curious ears, may be
very like eavesdropping. If it is, I am very glad that, on various
occasions in my life, I have been enabled to be an eavesdropper in
that sense. Had I not, at Interlaken, had the power which made of me
an eavesdropper, I might have been branded as a criminal, and my
happiness, my whole life, have been destroyed for ever.
III.
CONSCIENCE
I had been spending a few days at Brighton, and was sitting one
morning on the balcony of the West Pier pavilion, listening to the
fine band of the Gordon Highlanders. The weather was beautiful--the
kind one sometimes does get at Brighton--blue skies, a warm sun, and
just that touch in the soft breeze which serves as a pick-me-up. There
were crowds of people. I sat on one end of a bench. In a corner,
within a few feet of me, a man was standing, leaning with his back
against the railing--an odd-looking man, tall, slender, with something
almost Mongolian in his clean-shaven, round face. I had noticed him on
that particular spot each time I had been on the pier. He was well
tailored, and that morning, for the first time, he wore a flower in
his button-hole. As one sometimes does when one sees an
unusual-looking stranger, I wondered hazily what kind of person he
might be. I did not like the look of him.
Presently another man came along the balcony and paused close to him.
They took no notice of each other; the new-comer looked attentively at
the crowd promenading on the deck below, almost ostentatiously
disregarding the other’s neighbourhood. All the same, the man in the
corner whispered something which probably reached his ears alone--and
my perception--which seemed to be a few disconnected words:
“Mauve dress, big black velvet hat, ostrich plume; four-thirty train.”
That was all he said. I do not suppose that anyone there, except the
man who had paused and the lazy-looking girl whose eyes had chanced
for a moment to wander towards his lips, had any notion that he had
spoken at all. The new-comer remained for a few moments idly watching
the promenaders, then, turning, without vouchsafing the other the
slightest sign of recognition, strolled carelessly on.
It struck me as rather an odd little scene. I was constantly being
made an unintentional confidante of what were meant to be secrets; but
about that brief sentence which the one had whispered to the other
there was a piquant something which struck me as amusing--the more
especially as I believed I had seen the lady to whom the words
referred. As I came on the pier I had been struck by her gorgeous
appearance, as being a person who probably had more money than taste.
Some minutes passed. The Mongolian-looking man remained perfectly
quiescent in his corner. Then another man came strolling along--big
and burly, in a reddish brown suit, a green felt hat worn slightly on
one side of his head. He paused on the same spot on which the first
man had brought his stroll to a close, and he paid no attention to the
gentleman in the corner, who looked right away from him, even while I
could see his lips framing precisely the same sentence:
“Mauve dress, big black velvet hat, ostrich plume; four-thirty train.”
The big man showed by no sign that he had heard a sound. He continued
to do as his predecessor had done--stared at the promenaders, then
strolled carelessly on.
This second episode struck me as being rather odder than the first.
Why were such commonplace words uttered in so mysterious a manner?
Would a third man come along? I waited to see--and waited in vain. The
band played “God Save the King,” the people rose, but no third man had
appeared. I left the Mongolian-looking gentleman still in his corner
and went to the other side of the balcony to watch the people going
down the pier. I saw the gorgeous lady in the mauve dress and big
black picture-hat with a fine ostrich plume, and I wondered what
interest she might have for the round-faced man in the corner, and
what she had to do with the four-thirty train. She was with two or
three equally gorgeous ladies and one or two wonderfully attired men;
they seemed to be quite a party.
The next day I left Brighton by an early train. In the compartment I
was reading the _Sussex Daily News_, when a paragraph caught my eye.
“Tragic Occurrence on the Brighton Line.” Late the night before the
body of a woman had been found lying on the ballast, as if she might
have fallen out of a passing train. It described her costume--she was
attired in a pale mauve dress and a big black picture-hat in which was
an ostrich-feather plume. There were other details--plenty of
them--but that was enough for me.
When I read that and thought of the man leaning against the railing I
rather caught my breath. Two young men who were facing each other at
the other end of the compartment began to talk about the paragraph in
tones which were audible to all.
“Do you see that about the lady in the mauve dress who was found on
the line? Do you know, I shouldn’t wonder a bit if it was Mrs.
Farningham--that’s her rig-out to a T. And I know she was going up to
town yesterday afternoon.”
“She did go,” replied the other; “and I’m told that when she started
she’d had about enough cold tea.”
The other grinned--a grin of comprehension.
“If that’s so I shouldn’t wonder if the poor dear opened the carriage
door, thinking it was some other door, and stepped out on to the line.
From all I hear, it seems that she was quite capable of doing that
sort of thing when she was like that.”
“Oh, quite; not a doubt of it. And she was capable of some pretty
queer things when she wasn’t like that.”
I wondered; these young gentlemen might be right; still, the more I
thought the more I wondered.
I was very much occupied just then. It was because I had nearly broken
down in my work that I had gone for those few days to Brighton. I
doubt if I even glanced at a newspaper for some considerable time
after that. I cannot say that the episode wholly faded from my memory,
but I never heard what was the sequel of the lady who was found on the
line, or, indeed, anything more about her.
I accepted an engagement with a deaf and dumb girl who was about to
travel with her parents on a long voyage, pretty nearly round the
world. I was to meet them in Paris, and then go on with them to
Marseilles, where the real journey commenced. The night before I
started some friends gave me a sort of send-off dinner at the
Embankment Hotel. We were about half-way through the meal when a man
came in and sat by himself at a small round table, nearly facing me. I
could not think where I had seen him before. I was puzzling my brain
when a second man came across the room and strolled slowly by his
table. He did not pause, nor did either allow a sign to escape him to
show that they were acquaintances, yet I distinctly saw the lips of
the man who was seated at the table frame about a dozen words:
“White dress, star in her hair, pink roses over left breast;
to-night.”
The stroller went carelessly on, and for a moment my heart seemed to
stand still. It all came back to me--the pier, the band of the Gordon
Highlanders, the man with his back against the railings, the words
whispered to the two men who had paused beside him. The diner in front
of me was the Mongolian-looking man; I should have recognized him at
once had not evening dress wrought such a change in him. That
whispered sentence made assurance doubly sure. The party with whom I
was dining had themselves been struck by the appearance of the lady in
the white frock, with the diamond star in her hair, and the pink roses
arranged so daintily in the corsage of her dress. There had been a
laughing discussion about who was the nicest-looking person in the
room; more than one opinion had supported the claim of the lady with
the diamond star.
In the middle of that dinner I found myself all at once in a quandary,
owing to that very inconvenient gift of mine. I recalled the whisper
about the lady in the mauve dress, and how the very next day the body
of a lady so attired had been found on the Brighton line. Was the
whispered allusion to the lady in the white dress to have a similar
unpleasant sequel? If there was fear of anything of the kind, what was
I to do?
My friends, noticing my abstraction, rallied me on my inattention.
“May I point out to you,” observed my neighbour, “that the waiter is
offering you asparagus, and has been doing so for about five minutes?”
Looking round, I found that the waiter was standing patiently at my
side. I allowed him to help me. I was about to eat what he had given
me when I saw some one advancing across the room whom I knew at once,
in spite of the alteration which evening dress made in him--it was the
big, burly man in the red-brown suit.
The comedy--if it were a comedy--was repeated. The big man, not,
apparently, acknowledging the existence of the solitary diner, passed
his table, seemingly by the merest chance, in the course of his
passage towards another on the other side of the room. With a morsel
of food on his fork poised mid-way between the plate and his mouth,
the diner moved his lips to repeat his former words:
“White dress, star in her hair, pink roses over left breast;
to-night.”
The big man had passed, the morsel of food had entered the diner’s
mouth; nothing seemed to have happened, yet I was on the point of
springing to my feet and electrifying the gaily dressed crowd by
crying “Murder!”
More than once afterwards I wished I had done so. I do not know what
would have happened if I had; I have sometimes asked myself if I could
say what would _not_ have happened. As a matter of fact, I did nothing
at all. I do not say it to excuse myself, nor to blame anyone, but it
seemed to me, at the moment, that to do anything was impossible,
because those with whom I was dining made it so. I was their guest;
they took care to make me understand that I owed them something as my
hosts. They were in the merriest mood themselves; they seemed to
regard it as of the first importance that I should be merry too. To
the best of my ability I was outwardly as gay as the rest of them. The
lady in the white dress, with her party, left early. I should have
liked to give her some hint, some warning--I did neither; I just let
her go. As she went across the room one or two members of our party
toasted her under their breath. The solitary diner took no heed of her
whatever. I had been furtively watching him the whole time, and he
never once glanced in her direction. So far as I saw, he was so
absorbed in his meal that he scarcely raised his eyes from the table.
I knew, unfortunately, that I could not have mistaken the words which
I had seen his lips forming. I tried to comfort myself with the
reflection that they could not have referred to the vision of feminine
loveliness which had just passed from the room.
The following morning I travelled by the early boat-train to Dover.
When the train had left the station I looked at my _Telegraph_. I read
a good deal of it; then, at the top of a column on one of the inside
pages, I came upon a paragraph headed: “Mysterious Affair at the
Embankment Hotel.” Not very long after midnight--in time, it seemed,
to reach the paper before it went to press--the body of a young woman
had been found in the courtyard of the hotel. She was in her night
attire. She was recognized as one of the guests who had been staying
in the hotel; she had either fallen or been thrown out of her bedroom
window.
Something happened to my brain so that I was unconscious of the train,
in which I was a passenger, as it sped onwards.
What did that paragraph mean? Could the woman who had been found in
her night attire in the courtyard of the Embankment Hotel be the woman
who had worn the white dress and a diamond star in her pretty brown
hair? There was nothing to show that she was. There was nothing to
connect that lightly clothed body with the whispered words of the
solitary diner with a touch of the Mongol in his face; yet I wondered
if it were not my duty to return at once to London and tell my story.
But, after all, it was such a silly story; it amounted to nothing; it
proved nothing. Those people were waiting for me in Paris; I could not
desert them at the last moment, with all our passages booked, for what
might turn out to be something even more fantastic than a
will-o’-the-wisp.
So I went on to Paris, and, with them, nearly round the world; and I
can say, without exaggeration, that more than once that
curious-looking gentleman’s face seemed to have gone with me. Once, in
an English paper which I picked up after we had landed at Hong-Kong, I
read about the body of a woman which had been found on the Great
Western Railway line near Exeter station--and I wondered. When I went
out into the streets and saw on the faces of the people who thronged
them something which recalled the solitary diner at the Embankment
Hotel--I wondered still more.
More than two years elapsed. In the summer of the third I went to
Buxton, as I had gone to Brighton, for a rest. I was seated one
morning in the public gardens, with my thoughts on the other side of
the world--we had not long returned from the Sandwich Islands--and I
was comparing that land of perpetual summer with the crisp freshness
of the Buxton air. With my thoughts still far away, my eyes passed
idly from face to face of those around me, until presently I became
aware that under the shade of a tree on my left a man was sitting
alone. When I saw his face my thoughts came back with a rush; it was
the man who had been on the pier at Brighton, and at the Embankment
Hotel, and who had travelled with me round the world. The
consciousness of his near neighbourhood gave me a nasty jar; as at the
Embankment Hotel there was an impulsive moment when I felt like
jumping on to my feet and denouncing him to the assembled crowd. He
was dressed in a cool grey suit; as at Brighton, he had a flower in
his button-hole; he sat upright and impassive, glancing neither to the
left nor right, as if nothing was of interest to him.
Then the familiar comedy, which I believe I had rehearsed in my
dreams, began again. A man came down the path from behind me, passing
before I had seen his face, and under the shady tree paused for an
instant to light a cigarette, and I saw the lips of the man on the
chair forming words:
“Grey dress, lace scarf, Panama hat; five-five train.”
His lips framed those nine words only; then the man with the cigarette
passed on, and I really do believe that my heart stood still. Comedy?
I had an uncomfortable conviction that this was a tragedy which was
being played--in the midst of that light-hearted crowd, in that
pleasant garden, under those laughing skies. I waited for the action
to continue--not very long. In the distance I saw a big, burly person
threading his way among the people towards that shady tree, and I knew
what was coming. He did not pause even for a single instant, he just
went slowly by, within a foot of the chair, and the thin lips shaped
themselves into words:
“Grey dress, lace scarf, Panama hat; five-five train.”
The big man sauntered on, leaving me with the most uncomfortable
feeling that I had seen sentence of death pronounced on an innocent,
helpless fellow-creature. I did not propose to sit still this time and
allow those three uncanny beings, undisturbed, to work their evil
wills. As at the hotel, the question recurred to me--What was I to do?
Was I to go up and denounce this creature to his face? Suppose he
chose to regard me as some ill-conducted person, what evidence had I
to adduce that any statements I might make were true? I decided, in
the first place, to leave him severely alone; I had thought of another
plan.
Getting up from my chair I began to walk about the gardens. As had not
been the case on two previous occasions, there was no person in sight
who answered to the description--“Grey dress, lace scarf, Panama hat.”
I was just about to conclude that this time the victim was not in
plain view, when I saw a Panama hat in the crowd on the other side of
the band. I moved quickly forward; it was certainly on a woman’s head.
There was a lace scarf spread out upon her shoulders, a frock of a
very light shade in grey. Was this the woman whose doom had been
pronounced? I went more forward still, and, with an unpleasant sense
of shock, recognized the wearer.
I was staying at the Empire Hotel. On the previous afternoon, at
tea-time, the lounge had been very full. I saw a tall lady, who seemed
to be alone, glancing about as if looking for an empty table. As she
seemed to have some difficulty in finding one, and as I had a table
all to myself, I suggested, as she came near, that she should have a
seat at mine. The manner in which she received my suggestion took me
aback. I suppose there are no ruder, more ill-bred creatures in the
world than some English women. Whether she thought I wished to force
my company upon her and somehow scrape an acquaintance, I cannot say.
She could not have treated my suggestion with more contemptuous scorn
had I tried to pick her pocket. She just looked down at me, as if
wondering what kind of person I could be that I had dared to speak to
her at all, and then, without condescending to reply, went on. I
almost felt as if she had given me a slap across my face.
After dinner I saw her again in the lounge. She wore some very fine
jewellery--she was a very striking woman, beautifully gowned. A
diamond brooch was pinned to her bodice. As she approached I saw it
was unfastened; it fell within a foot of where I was sitting. I picked
it up and offered it to her, with the usual formula.
“I think this is your brooch--you have just dropped it.”
How do you think she thanked me? She hesitated a second to take the
brooch, as if she thought I might be playing her some trick. Then,
when she saw that it was hers, she took it and looked it carefully
over--and what do you suppose she said?
“You are very insistent.”
That was all, every word--in such ineffable tones! She was apparently
under the impression that I had engineered the dropping of that
diamond brooch as a further step in my nefarious scheme to force on
her the dishonour of my acquaintance.
This was the lady who in the public gardens was wearing a light grey
dress, a lace scarf, and a Panama hat. What would she say to me if I
told her about the man under the shady tree and his two friends? Yet,
if I did not tell her, should I not feel responsible for whatever
might ensue? That she went in danger of her life I was as sure as that
I was standing there. She might be a very unpleasant, a very foolish
woman, yet I could not stand by and allow her quite possibly to be
done to death, without at least warning her of the danger which she
ran. The sooner the warning was given the better. As she turned into a
side path I turned into another, meaning to meet her in the centre of
hers and warn her there and then.
The meeting took place, and, as I had more than half expected, I
entirely failed to do what I had intended. The glance she fixed on me
when she saw me coming and recognized who I was conveyed sufficient
information. It said, as plainly as if in so many words, that if I
dared to insult her by attempting to address her it would be at my own
proper peril. None the less, I did dare. I remembered the woman in the
mauve dress, and the woman in the white, and the feeling I had had
that by the utterance of a few words I might have saved their lives. I
was going to do my best to save hers, even though she tried to freeze
me while I was in the act of doing so.
We met. As if scenting my design, as we neared each other she
quickened her pace to stride right past. But I was too quick for her;
I barred the way. The expression with which, as she recognized my
intention, she regarded me! But I was not to be frightened into
dumbness.
“There is something I have to say to you which is important--of the
very first importance--which it is essential that I should say and you
should hear. I have not the least intention of forcing on you my
acquaintance, but with your sanction----”
I got as far as that, but I got no farther. As I still continued to
bar her path, she turned right round and marched in the other
direction. I might have gone after her, I might have stopped her--I
did move a step or two; but when I did she spoke to me over her
shoulder as she was moving:
“If you dare to speak to me again I shall claim the protection of the
police; so be advised.”
I was advised. Whether the woman suffered from some obscure form of
mental disease or not I could not say, or with what majesty she
supposed herself to be hedged around, which made it the height of
presumption for a mere outsider to venture to address her--that also
was a mystery to me. As I had no wish to have a scene in the public
gardens, and as it appeared that there would be a scene if I did any
more to try to help her, I let her go.
I saw her leave the gardens, and when I had seen that I strolled back.
There, under the shady tree, still sat the man with the touch of the
Mongol in his face.
After luncheon, which I took at the hotel, I had a surprise. There, in
the hall, was my gentleman, going through the front door. I spoke to
the hall porter.
“Is that gentleman staying in the house?” The porter intimated that he
was. “Can you tell me what his name is?” The porter answered promptly,
perhaps because it was such an unusual name:
“Mr. John Tung.” Then he added, with a smile, “I used to be in the
Navy. When we were on the China station I was always meeting people
with names like that--this gentleman is the first I’ve met since.”
An idea occurred to me. I felt responsible for that woman, in spite of
her stupidity. If anything happened to her it would lie at my door.
For my own sake I did not propose to run the risk. I went to the post
office and I sent a telegram to John Tung, Empire Hotel. The clerk on
the other side of the counter seemed rather surprised as he read the
words which I wished him to wire.
“I suppose this is all right?” he questioned, as if in doubt.
“Perfectly all right,” I replied. “Please send that telegram at once.”
I quitted the office, leaving that telegraph clerk scanning my message
as if he were still in doubt if it was in order. In the course of the
afternoon I had another idea. I wrote what follows on a sheet of
paper.
“You threw the woman in the mauve dress on to the Brighton line; you
were responsible for the death of the woman in the white dress at the
Embankment Hotel; you killed the woman who was found on the Great
Western line near Exeter station; but you are going to do no mischief
to the woman in the grey dress and the lace scarf and the Panama hat,
who is going up to town by the five-five.
“Be sure of that.
“Also you may be sure that the day of reckoning is at hand, when you
and your two accomplices will be called to a strict account. In that
hour you will be shown no more mercy than you have shown.
“That is as certain as that, at the present moment, you are still
alive. But the messengers of justice are drawing near.”
There was no beginning and no ending, no date, no address--I just
wrote that and left it so. It was wild language, in which I took a
good deal for granted that I had no right to take; and it savoured a
good deal of melodrama and highfalutin. But then, my whole scheme was
a wild-cat scheme; if it succeeded it would be because of that, as it
were, very wild-cat property. I put my sheet of paper into an
envelope, and I wrote outside it in very large, plain letters, “Mr.
John Tung.” Then I went into the lounge of the hotel for tea--and I
waited.
And I kept on waiting for quite a considerable time. It was rather
early for tea, but as time passed and people began to gather together,
and there were still no signs of the persons whose presence I
particularly desired, I began to fidget. If none of them appeared I
should have to reconsider my plan of campaign. I was just on the point
of concluding that the moment had come when I had better think of
something else, when I saw Mr. John Tung standing in the doorway and
with him his two acquaintances. This was better than I had expected.
Their appearance together in the public room of the hotel suggested
all sorts of possibilities to my mind.
I had that missive prepared. I waited until I had some notion of the
quarter of the room in which they proposed to establish themselves,
then I rose from my chair and, crossing to the other side of the
lounge, left on a table close to that at which they were about to
sit--I hoped unnoticed--the envelope on which “Mr. John Tung” was so
plainly written. Then I watched for the march of events.
What I had hoped would occur did happen. A waiter, bustling towards
the new-comers, saw the envelope lying on a vacant table, picked it
up, perceived that it was addressed to Mr. John Tung, and bore it to
that gentleman. I could not hear, but I saw what was said. The waiter
began:
“Is this your letter, sir?”
Mr. Tung glanced, as if surprised, at the envelope which the man was
holding, then took it from between his fingers and stared at it hard.
“Where did you get this?” he asked.
“It was on that table, sir.”
“What table?”
“The one over there, sir.”
Mr. Tung looked in the direction in which the man was pointing, as if
not quite certain what he meant.
“How came it to be there? Who put it there?”
“Can’t say, sir. I saw an envelope lying on the table as I was coming
to you, and when I saw your name on it I thought it might be yours.
Tea, sir?”
“Tea for three, and bring some buttered toast.”
The waiter went. Mr. Tung remained staring at the envelope as if there
were something in its appearance which he found a little puzzling. One
of his companions spoke to him; but as his back was towards me I could
not see what he said--I could guess from the other’s answer.
“Some rubbish; a circular, I suppose--the sort of thing one does get
in hotels.”
Then he opened the envelope, and--I had rather a funny feeling. I was
perfectly conscious that from the point of view of a court of law I
had not the slightest right to pen a single one of the words which
were on the sheet of paper inside that envelope. For all I could
prove, Mr. Tung and his friends might be the most innocent of men. I
might find it pretty hard to prove that the Mongolian-looking
gentleman had whispered either of the brief, jerky sentences which I
had seen him whisper; and, even if I could get as far as that, there
still remained the difficulty of showing that they bore anything like
the construction which I had put upon them. If I had misjudged him, if
my deductions had been wrong, then Mr. Tung, when he found what was in
that envelope, would be more than justified in making a fine to-do. It
was quite possible, since I could not have eyes at the back of my
head, that some one had seen me leave that envelope on the table, in
which case my authorship might be traced, and I should be in a pretty
awkward situation. That woman in the grey dress would be shown to have
had right on her side when she declined, with such a show of scorn, to
allow me even to speak to her. So, while Mr. Tung was tearing open the
envelope and taking out the sheet of paper, I had some distinctly
uncomfortable moments. Suppose I had wronged him--what was I to do?
Own up, make a clean breast of it--or run away?
I had not yet found an answer when I became perfectly certain that
none was required. My chance shot had struck him like a bombshell; the
change which took place in his countenance when he began to read what
was written on that piece of paper was really curious. I should have
said he had a visage over whose muscles he exercised great
control--Mongols have as a rule. But those words of mine were so
wholly unexpected that when he first saw them his expression was, on
the instant, one of stunned amazement. He glanced at the opening
words, then, dropping his hands to his sides, gazed round the room, as
if he were wondering if there were anyone there who could have written
them. Then he raised the sheet of paper again and read farther. And,
as he read, his breath seemed to come quicker, his eyes dilated, the
colour left his cheeks, his jaw dropped open. He presented a unique
picture of the surprise which is born of terror.
His companions, looking at him, were affected as he was, without
knowing why. The big, burly man leaned towards him; I saw him mutter:
“You look as if you’d had a stroke. What’s the matter? What’s that
you’ve got there? Don’t look like that. Every one is staring at you.
What’s up?”
Mr. Tung did not reply; he looked at the speaker, then at the sheet of
paper--that time I am sure he did not see what was on it. Then he
crumpled the sheet of paper up in his hand, and without a word strode
across the lounge into the hall beyond. His two companions looked
after him in bewildered amazement; then they went also, not quite so
fast as he had done, but fast enough. And all the people in the lounge
looked at each other. The manner of the exit of these three gentlemen
had created a small sensation.
My little experiment had succeeded altogether beyond my anticipation.
It was plain that I had not misjudged this gentleman. It would be
difficult to find a more striking illustration than that presented by
Mr. John Tung of the awful accusing conscience which strikes terror
into a man’s soul. I could not afford to let my acquaintance with
these three interesting gentlemen cease at this moment; the woman in
the grey dress must still not be left to their tender mercies.
After what seemed to me to be a sufficient interval, I left my tea and
went after them into the hall. I was just in time. The three men were
in the act of leaving the hotel. As they were moving towards the door
a page came up, an official envelope in his hand.
“Mr. John Tung? A telegram for you, sir.”
Mr. Tung took it as if it were some dangerous thing, hesitated,
glanced at the men beside him, tore it open, read what was on the
flimsy sheet of pink paper, and walked so quickly out of the building
that his gait almost approached a run. His companions went after him
as if they were giving chase. My wire had finished what those few
plain words on the sheet of paper had begun.
I was lingering in the hall, rather at a loss as to what was the next
step that I had better take, when the woman in the grey dress came out
of the lift, which had just descended. A cab was at the door, on which
was luggage. Although she must have seen me very clearly, she did not
recognize my presence, but passed straight out to the cab. She was
going up to London by the five-five train.
I no longer hesitated what to do. I, too, quitted the hotel and got
into a cab. It still wanted ten minutes to five when I reached the
station. The train was standing by the platform; the grey-frocked lady
was superintending the labelling of her luggage--apparently she had no
maid. She was escorted by a porter, who had her luggage in charge, to
a first-class carriage. On the top of her luggage was the tell-tale
thing which has probably done more harm than good--the dressing-bag
which is so dear to the hearts of many women, which ostentatiously
proclaims the fact that it contains their jewels, probably their
money, all that they are travelling with which they value most. One
has only to get hold of the average travelling woman’s dressing-bag to
become possessed of all that she has--from the practical thief’s point
of view--worth taking--all contained in one portable and convenient
package.
At the open door of the compartment next to the one to which the
porter ushered her the big, burly man was standing--rather to my
surprise. I thought I had startled him more than that. Presently who
should come strolling up but his more slightly built acquaintance.
Apparently he did not know him now; he passed into the compartment at
whose door he was standing, without a nod or a sign of greeting. My
glance travelling down the platform, I saw that standing outside a
compartment only a few doors off was Mr. John Tung.
This did not suit me at all. I did not propose that those three
gentlemen should travel with the grey-frocked lady by the five-five
train to town. Rather than that I would have called in the aid of the
police, though it would have been a very queer tale that I should have
had to tell them. Perhaps fortunately, I hit upon what the old-time
cookery books used to call “another way.” I had done so well with one
unexpected message that I thought I would try another. There were ten
minutes before the train started--still time.
I rushed to the ladies’ waiting-room. I begged a sheet of paper and an
envelope from the attendant in charge. It was a queer sheet of paper
which she gave me--and on it I scribbled:
“You are watched. Your intentions are known.
“The police are travelling by the five-five train to London in
attendance on the lady in the grey dress. If they do not take you on
the road they will arrest you when you reach town.
“Then heigh-ho for the gallows!”
I was in doubt whether or not to add that last line. I dare say if I
had had a second or two to think I should not have added it; but I had
not. I just scrawled it off as fast as I could, folded the sheet of
paper, slipped it into the envelope, which I addressed in large, bold
letters to Mr. John Tung. The attendant had a little girl with her of,
perhaps, twelve or thirteen years old, who was acting as her
assistant. I took her to the waiting-room door, pointed out Mr. Tung,
and told her that if she would slip that envelope into the gentleman’s
hand and come back to me without having told him where she got it
from, I would give her a shilling.