“But, my dear Annie, what do you mean by you’re not your own
mistress?”
“I’m--I’m a nursery governess. Didn’t you know I was a nursery
governess?”
“A nursery governess?” The speaker’s surprise was so marked that she
gave a little bound on her seat. “You!--Annie!--A nursery governess!
But I thought that George Ryder----”
The other put her hand upon her arm, glancing about her as if in
sudden terror.
“Hush!--I’m not Mrs. Ryder now--at least I don’t call myself that.
I--I call myself Mrs. Brown.”
“You call yourself Mrs. Brown!--Annie--I understand you less and less.
Are you ashamed of your husband’s name?”
“Indeed no. But when I told people that I was Mrs. Ryder they began to
ask me questions; and when they found out that I was Mrs. George
Ryder, and--and that it was my husband who was--murdered, they didn’t
want to have anything to do with me.”
“But why ever not? It wasn’t you who murdered him.”
“I don’t know that, exactly, they thought it was.”
“Exactly? But, my dear girl, I never heard anything so monstrous. Do
you mean to say that anybody ever dared to let such an idea enter
their heads?”
“Laura, I don’t mean to say anything at all, but I have to live. And
when people found out who I was, they wouldn’t give me a chance, so--I
call myself Mrs. Brown. If they found out, in my present situation,
that I--I wasn’t Mrs. Brown, they’d turn me off at a moment’s notice.”
“But what do you mean by you’ve got to live? Didn’t your husband leave
you plenty of money?”
“Not a penny, or, at least, only a few pounds. And shortly after, my
mother died, and she left nothing. So there was I, with my child to
keep, with nothing to live on.--Laura, you don’t know what I’ve been
through.”
“But I thought that your husband not only had money of his own, but
that he had excellent expectations.”
“He did; but nobody seems to have understood, and that has made it
seem so much harder. His aunt, Mrs. Dawson, told him herself that she
had left him all her money; and so she had, but her will was rather
oddly worded. She left all her money to her nephew George Ryder, but
if he died before she did, then all her property was to go to her
other nephew, Athelstan Ward. The will was an old one; it had been
made before George and I were married, or, I think, in case of
George’s dying first, she might have left something to me, to say
nothing of his child. We were great friends, she and I. She was always
very fond of me, and I am sure she would have altered her will to that
effect if she had ever dreamt that matters would turn out as they did.
She was ill when George was--killed. Some one, stupidly enough, went
blundering into her bedroom, crying out that George had been murdered.
The shock had such an effect on her that it brought on a paralytic
seizure, from which she never recovered. In less than a month
afterwards she was dead. By her will, as I have explained, she left
nothing to George, who was dead, and nothing to me, or to Daisy
either. Everything went to Mr. Ward.”
“What a very unfortunate state of affairs for you. Did Mr. Ward do
nothing? He must have seen the iniquity of such an arrangement.”
“Athelstan Ward had never expected to inherit anything. He and his
aunt did not get on at all; he had offended her in all sorts of ways.
At the last upset they had she had told him that she would leave him
nothing. He knew that everything was left to George, who was her
favourite nephew. When she died he was a clerk in the city, at a
salary of something over a hundred a year. The news that he was the
heir almost turned his head; at least I hope that was the explanation
of his conduct to me. He told me to my face--gratuitously--that I
would never get a farthing out of him. He said that George would have
stuck to the lot, and he meant to do the same. I had--I had to keep
Daisy and myself as best I could.”
“But what has become of the man? What a dreadful creature he must be!”
“He’s married, that’s all I know about him. He married Miss Lisle.”
“What, Lily Lisle? The girl with the dreadful eyes, who acted as Mrs.
Dawson’s companion? I never could stand her; I never could make out
why Mrs. Dawson kept her in the house. I could have told her some
tales about her.”
“Mrs. Dawson liked her well enough, I believe; though, in the end, in
a sense, she was the actual cause of the old lady’s death, because it
was she who rushed into her bedroom screaming out that George Ryder
was murdered. However she could have done such a thing, considering
that the doctor had warned her to allow nothing to disturb or agitate
the old lady, was beyond me altogether. It turned out that she and Mr.
Ward had been engaged, under the rose, for ages. After the will was
read they were married--within a week or two. Everyone believed that
the old lady was well off, but no one guessed how well off until
things were gone into. She had not been living on a quarter of her
income, and had been investing the other three-quarters as it came in.
I’m told that she left over two hundred thousand pounds. Think what
even a little of it would have meant to Daisy and me. I’m getting
twenty-five pounds a year, and out of that I have to clothe myself and
keep my child. They give me lodging, and my food, such as it is, but
if I could only manage to earn a little more money.”
“How long are you free now? I’m staying at the Burlington Hotel. Can’t
you come and lunch with me?”
“I’m free for this afternoon. My mistress, Mrs. Levison, is out. The
children have gone to lunch with a friend. If--if I’m not too shabby,
I should like to come and lunch with you very much. It would be a
treat.”
The two got up from their seat and walked away. I remained where I
was, thinking. It did seem extraordinary that I should have been there
when such things were being talked about--things which brought back
such odd memories. The girl with the “dreadful eyes,” could she, by
any chance, have had any connection with the young woman whose
singular eyes had attracted my attention in the tea-shop in the
Brompton Road? And Mr. Athelstan Ward--was he red-headed? I wondered.
Suppose that those two chance encounters, in the tea-shop in the
Boscombe public gardens, had put into my hands the key to the unsolved
mystery, would that not be something very like a miracle? If I had had
anything tangible to go upon, I would have spoken to those two women
then and there. But what a figure I should have cut if my fashion of
putting two and two together had proved all wrong. I might never have
seen Mrs. Dawson’s companion in my life--if they had mentioned where
Mrs. Dawson had lived I might have got nearer to certainty--and Mr.
Athelstan Ward might be a bald-headed gentleman of portly presence. I
should have been regarded as a meddler. I have suffered in that
direction more than once in my time; I had no wish to suffer again. I
endeavoured to dismiss the whole subject from my mind, and went up to
Waterloo by the afternoon train.
That the third and last chapter of my connection with the Fulham
Mystery seemed to have been brought about by fortuitous circumstances
I am ready to agree; but that it was by accident only I am not so
sure. So strange a sequel to such singular beginnings, to my mind
suggests design.
Nearly another two years elapsed, and I was at Eastbourne, staying
with some friends at a big hotel on the front. My friends had gone up
to town for a day or two, and I was left in sole possession of their
apartments. One morning I was walking rapidly along the Parade. The
sky was blue, but the east wind, of which Eastbourne is perhaps rather
too fond, did not breathe warmth. One had to move quickly if one
wished to keep warm. As I was about to move over to what I hoped was
the warmer side of the road, I was accosted by a woman selling
flowers. I had already passed two or three, at whom, I am afraid, I
had not even glanced; but something about this one’s method of address
and manner caused me to look at her. Where, I asked myself, had I seen
her before? Her face seemed familiar. I had gone past her perhaps half
a dozen steps when it came back to me. The Boscombe public gardens,
the two women on the seat--surely this was Mrs. George Ryder. And yet
it was impossible. She would not be selling flowers in a public road.
I must have been mistaken, a chance resemblance had taken me in. I
thought I would go back and, while buying some of her flowers, have a
good look at her. Anyhow, I could always do with a few flowers.
It was Mrs. Ryder--or the resemblance was supernatural. Of course she
had altered: she had grown so thin; her cheeks were hollow; her eyes
cavernous, even hungry; her skin seemed to be all furrows; yet that
she was the woman whom I had seen sitting on the seat, telling her
friend the tragic story of the will which had passed her by, I was
certain. What to say to her, what to do--these were points on which I
could not make up my mind. I bought nearly all her flowers; her
gratitude was piteous. Then I gave an order for more, and directed her
to bring them to my hotel the next morning at a certain hour. I left
her there, standing in the bitter east wind, which I hoped she did not
feel to be quite so bitter as before, while I walked away, wondering
by what possible means she could have reached so dreadful a position.
She was a lady; such a short time ago a happy wife, with such
prospects of happiness in front of her--and now selling pennyworths of
flowers in the gutter. It was an object lesson on the mutability of
human affairs.
I kept thinking of her, even when I got back to the hotel. She was
with me all that day; when I was dressing for dinner, as I was going
down to the great meal of the day. What sort of dinner was she
having--there was much hunger in her eyes, she looked so hungry
altogether--and where?
In the absence of my friends I was the solitary occupant of their
table. I was down early, and watched the people coming in. I had just
finished my fish course when four or five persons came down the room,
at the sight of one of whom I almost jumped.
It was the girl of the tea-shop, she of the dreadful eyes. I was sure
it was she, though she was altered out of all conscience. To begin
with, she was beautifully dressed--rather too well dressed, in fact,
for such a place. Her hair was dressed in a way which was really an
exaggeration of the latest fashion; she held herself as if she were a
person of importance. She had filled out, grown plumper; in many
respects she had altered altogether. Yet it was she--surely no other
woman in the world could have such eyes as she had. They seemed to
have grown larger; they roved as much as ever. They passed all round
the room, resting, I should say, on every one in it, as she moved with
her party towards their own table.
I observed the other members of her party as they took their seats.
Remembering the quickness with which she had noticed my observation
when we met for the first time, I did it as furtively as possible. One
thing I saw at once--the red-headed youth was not there. This was by
way of being a surprise; somehow I had taken it for granted that he
would have been. There were three other men and two other women. One
of the other men was her husband. I was sure of it from the obvious
way in which he was acting as host. She was hostess, the others were
guests.
The man, who I was convinced was her husband, was the antipodes of
that red-headed youth. He was rather under-sized; his scanty brown
hair was parted in the centre and plastered down at the sides. He wore
glasses; his clothes did not seem to fit, his shirt front bulged;
altogether he appeared to me about as insignificant an individual as
one might expect to see. I could not believe that that woman had
married him for love. I was as sure as if she had told me so that he
was not the sort of man she admired, and that when she decided to
become his wife it was for very solid and sufficient reasons.
The head waiter was coming down the room. That was not the first time
I had stayed at that hotel; he and I were old acquaintances.
“Can you tell me who those people are who have just come in?”
His manner as he answered was most discreet. He smoothed an imaginary
crease out of the tablecloth.
“It’s a dinner party. The lady and gentleman who are giving it are Mr.
and Mrs. Athelstan Ward; they arrived this morning--old customers;
this is their fifth or sixth visit.--Have you everything you want?”
I assured him that I had. He departed, and my appetite went with him;
the feelings which came rushing over me left me no desire to eat.
So, actually, this was Mr. and Mrs. Athelstan Ward, and my wild
surmise had been right. The crooked blind in the top window of the
house in the street leading off the Fulham Road--the girl whom I had
seen demonstrating with her handkerchief how one may signal with a
blind had done it; it had been crooked because she had carefully
arranged it at the precise and proper angle. In that house Mrs. Dawson
had lived, the aunt of the man who had been murdered two hours after
I saw that crooked blind. At that time, if what Mrs. George Ryder had
told her friend in the public gardens at Boscombe was true, this girl
was engaged to the other nephew, who, in a certain eventuality, of
which he seemed to have been ignorant, was to benefit by his aunt’s
will; that eventuality, by which the girl was to benefit as much as
Mr. Ward occurred within two hours of that crooked blind having been
seen by that red-headed youth--with whom she had arranged that
particular signal. For what purpose?
A cold something stole up my spine as I groped about for an answer.
She knew the delicate state of Mrs. Dawson’s health, she was her
companion; the physicians had laid on her a special charge; yet the
moment the news of the tragedy reached her, well knowing that she
ought to do nothing of the kind, she rushed into the presence of the
aged invalid, who was really and truly at her mercy, and struck her
down by yelling out the news at her.
Things began to look very ugly. Was it by accident, or design, that I
was stumbling on these things? What I still had to understand was the
relation between the red-headed youth and the girl. That, when I saw
them together in the tea-shop, he was her lover I was convinced. Not
impossibly, he was so beside himself with love of her, that he was
ready to be guilty of any folly, or perhaps worse than folly, for her
dear sake; unless I erred, he was that sort of youth. Could she have
used him as a tool and then thrown him over? Unless I erred again, she
was that sort of girl; it was an action of which she was quite
capable. Apparently she had attained the object of her ambition; she
was prosperous, as happy, perhaps, as it was in her nature to be. What
had become of the red-headed youth? The widow of the murdered man was
selling flowers in the gutter.
A page came down the room with a telegram on a waiter. He handed it to
Mrs. Athelstan Ward. With a murmured apology to her guests, she tore
it open. I do not think I ever saw such a change take place on a
woman’s face in public as took place on hers as she read that
telegram. She appeared to be incapable of concealing the effect it had
upon her. What was the dominant expression on her countenance I could
not say; fear and rage were two. She seemed unconscious that the boy
was waiting, that her guests were looking at her--until her husband’s
voice recalled her to herself. He was facing me. As he pronounced his
words with a punctilious correctness which I should say was
characteristic of the man, I saw clearly what he said.
“My dear Lily, from whom is your telegram? It appears to be of
absorbing interest. Permit me to see it.”
He held out his hand across the table. Then she came back to herself,
after a fashion. She looked, or rather she glared, at him. When she
saw his outstretched hand, and caught his meaning, she crushed the
telegram up into a ball, thrust it into the bosom of her dress, and
turned to the page, who instantly departed. She was sitting sideways
to me, so that it was not easy for me to read the reply which she made
to her husband; but I am quite sure that it was not an expression of
her willingness to let him see that telegram.
I resolved to keep my eye on Mrs. Athelstan Ward. By way of a
beginning, I thought it might be just as well to see if she would
recognize me. To reach the private sitting-room which my friends had
at the other end of the building it was necessary for me to pass her
table, which I presently did, with something like ostentation. As I
approached she looked at me, and I at her. I could see that she
recognized me, and was aware that I did the same to her. Her face
changed again, and a look came into her eyes which haunted me long
after I had quitted the room. The hungry look in the eyes of the
murdered man’s widow, and now that dreadful look in hers--they were
with me that night even in my dreams.
The next morning I got up early; I could not sleep, and I hate lying
between the sheets with my eyes wide open. My window looked out across
the garden. As I peeped to see what sort of weather it was, I saw Mrs.
Athelstan Ward come through the great front door of the hotel. She was
dressed for walking. Crossing the garden to the street, turning to the
right, she moved quickly in the direction of Beachy Head. I had one of
those intuitions to which I am subject. I felt sure that the purpose
which had taken her out at that extremely matutinal hour was of
interest to me. It was not only chance which had taken me to the
window at just that moment. I dashed into the bath, rushed into my
clothes--I do not believe anything feminine can dress quicker than I
can--and was out in the street in I am afraid to say how few minutes.
Mrs. Ward was out of sight, but I knew the direction in which she was
going, and off I tore.
Presently I saw her. She was walking almost as quickly as I was, and
was nearly at the point where one begins to ascend the grassy slopes
towards Beachy Head. That some special attraction was drawing her to
Beachy Head at seven o’clock in the morning I felt convinced. She went
round to the right--evidently she knew the shortest way. When I
reached the grass I went straight on; I did not wish to keep too
closely in her footsteps, lest she should look round and see that she
was followed. The ascent at the part at which I took it was pretty
steep. I was a little short of breath when I gained the ridge, and was
sufficiently on the level to enable me to see what was ahead. There
was Mrs. Ward some distance in front, striding rapidly along what I
knew to be the better path. She was nearly out of sight when I gained
the point from which one can see the top of the Head. A minute or two
later some one came out of the little hotel which lies in the hollow
on one side, and crossed to her. So this was it--she had an
appointment with something masculine; it was a man who had joined her,
on the top of Beachy Head, at an hour when they were likely to have it
all to themselves.
I had with me a pair of those folding opera-glasses which lie down
flat, so that they occupy scarcely any space at all. I focussed them
on to the pair in front. I was anxious to see who the man might be.
Something within me gave quite a little jump--I never have been able
to get quite the better of that sort of thing--as I recognized the
red-headed youth of the tea-shop and the signalling blind. Their backs
were towards me, so of course I could not see what they were saying,
but one had only to observe the man’s gestures to be able to form a
very shrewd guess that the subject under discussion was of paramount
interest to him. He was talking both with heat and volubility. The
woman, on the other hand, was stiff and rigid--suggesting no desire to
hear him, and disapprobation of whatever he might be saying.
They passed the signal station, passed the lighthouse, moved on
towards Birling Gap, he still talking nineteen to the dozen, she
listening with what I would have been willing to bet was contempt.
Presently they stopped on a little knoll which was just on the other
side of the lighthouse. Down I dropped in a little grassy dell which
was just large enough to contain me as I lay full-length, face
downwards, and raised myself just sufficiently on my elbows to permit
me to have a view of the knoll in front.
I was particularly anxious that they should not see me. That the
Fulham Mystery was going to be solved at last some instinct told me,
and by that pair ahead. I did not intend to run any risk of losing
what I had so long sought. They might, if they looked closely, have
seen the top of my hat, but they would have been no wiser if they had.
With the aid of that pair of folding glasses I watched their faces.
They were good glasses, the definition was excellent, the morning was
clear; they were at a distance, as the crow flies, of perhaps under a
hundred yards. When they turned my way I could see even the slightest
movement of their lips as well as if they had been within a dozen
feet.
It was some seconds, however, before they did turn my way. She had
placed herself upon a sort of natural seat, formed by a ridge of
earth, with her face at not quite the proper angle to allow of my
seeing her mouth; he stood close up to her, saying something which--as
he said it--needed a great deal of gesticulation. Suddenly, however,
she stood up, fronting him, and also me, and I saw her say, as
distinctly as if she had been speaking within reach of my hand:
“It’s no use your ranting. What I’ve said I’ve said, and as I’ve no
more to add, there’s an end of it.”
He was silent for an instant. I was sure that he was silent from the
way in which he stood motionless. Then he also turned slightly,
occupying such a position that, while he looked across the sea, his
mouth was as visible as if he had looked at me. I followed his answer
through the glasses. He did not gesticulate that time; he spoke rather
with what struck me as being an air of profound conviction.
“Lily, if ever there was a heartless devil in the shape of a woman,
you are she.”
She replied, with a little flick of the cane she was carrying:
“You’ve told me so before. The remark is not in the least novel. Have
you brought me here to make it again?”
“You have lied, and lied, and lied to me.” His gesticulations
recommenced. “You have fooled me practically my whole lifelong. I have
stolen for you--you know how often you have induced me to steal for
you----”
“You didn’t need much inducement.” Her air was contemptuous.
“I did not; you are right. There was nothing I would not have done for
you at a word from you; at last, at a word from you, I committed
murder.”
“Put it that way if you like. From my point of view you made a mess of
the whole thing; I never wanted you to actually kill the man.”
“No, you wanted me to play him some infernally clever trick which
would result in his killing himself--as you afterwards killed that old
woman. That was as much a murder as mine was. But I was not born with
the instinct of killing, as you were, so I blundered, and had to do
the poor wretch out of his life with an actual blow. And then you
denied me my reward.”
“I never promised you anything.”
“Not in so many words; you were much too clever. But you know what you
wished me to understand that you had promised me, and how, afterwards,
you robbed me of the price which you had made me believe I was to
receive.”
“Listen to me.” Her attitude became all at once that of a person who
was giving utterance to a final decision. “You have been to me a
continual nuisance--not practically all your life, but actually all
your life. There was a time when I tried to put up with you, though it
wasn’t easy. You’ve always been a penniless beggar, so that if you
wanted to make me a present you had to steal it; now you throw it in
my face. Afterwards--you know when--I explained that if a certain
person were to die before a certain time it might be an advantage both
to you and to me.”
“Especially to you.”
“Yes--especially to me; that is obvious.” The air of scorn with which
she said it! “I took the greatest pains in explaining to you how, if
certain things were done, other things would necessarily follow. You
offered to do them. If you had done them as I had explained no crime
would have been committed.”
“No legal crime, you mean; it would still have been murder.”
“Murder for which you can’t be punished doesn’t count. Do you suppose
that if I had known you were going to do what you did I would have
allowed you to do it?”
“I’m not so sure; I have my doubts. You were very keen, you know.”
“Yes, but not keen like that; I’m not such a fool.--Well, anyhow you
did do it--the wrong way. And I had to bear the brunt.”
“You had to!--You beautiful creature!--You miserable thing!”
The marked variety of emphasis with which he delivered himself of
these two remarks was most perceptible through the glasses.
“It is easy enough for you to speak in that cock-a-doodle sort of
tone, but the fact remains that it is as I said. To begin with,
haven’t I kept you ever since?”
“Kept me!--My God!--Kept me! When I think of how and why you’ve kept
me, how often I wish that he had killed me instead of I him.”
“He didn’t. If you really wished it, you made a mess even of
that.--Now you have the assurance to send me that telegram.--It came
to me last night, in the middle of a dinner party, ordering me to come
and meet you here. And now that I’ve come, what is it you want me to
do? You want me to desert my husband, to throw away everything for
which I’ve worked and struggled, and--think of it!--to come and live
with you. Let me tell you this--I wouldn’t live with you if there
wasn’t another man in the world; I wouldn’t willingly stay in the same
house in which you were, or even in the same town. I’ve grown to hate
you--if you only knew how I hate you as I see you standing there, and
how willingly I’d see you tumble dead at my feet.” She drew a great
breath--the glasses made it perfectly plain. “I believe I should go
back to Eastbourne almost a happy woman again if I knew that you were
dead.”
“You mean that?”
“I never meant anything half so much.”
“Then--you shall go back a happy woman.”
They were standing within a few feet of the edge. The turf sloped
downward. He ran down this little slope; when he had run as far as he
could, he gave a sort of jump and sprang into space more than five
hundred feet above the rocks below. The woman was left alone on the
knoll. I was so taken aback by the horror of the thing that my joints
seemed to have got locked; my limbs seemed rigid.
There stood the woman, alone, and there I lay watching her through the
glasses. For several seconds we remained motionless, as if incapable
of movement. Then, with what seemed to me to be a violent effort, I
scrambled on to my feet and went rushing towards the woman across the
intervening grass. When she turned and saw me coming, she
staggered--she obviously staggered, and I thought she would have
fallen. But, recovering herself just as she seemed to have lost her
balance, she stood awaiting me. When I got to her I took her by the
arm; I was beside myself with a strange sort of passion--when I look
back I understand how people feel when they kill each other. At that
moment I certainly felt like killing her.
“You’ve murdered him,” I gasped. “I’ve a mind to send you after him.”
“Send me.” Her face was white; her great eyes glared at me; but she
never flinched. “I am perfectly willing that you should send me after
him. He’s better off than I am.”
The consciousness which came to me, even in that terrible moment, that
this might be so, gave my thoughts a new direction. Still gripping her
by the arm I turned and shouted: “Help! Help!” Two men came running
out of the coastguard station; they were followed by a third, and then
a fourth. When she saw them coming she asked me, as coolly as if it
were the most casual question:
“What are you going to tell them?--Lies?--He jumped over of his own
accord.”
I said nothing to her, but when they came within hail I called to
them:
“A man has just jumped over the cliff; he was with this lady.”
“I did not know he was going to jump,” she declared. “I believe he’s
mad.”
The coastguards took her address and mine, then began to search for
what was left of the man. People came out of the hotel; women and
children came out of the coastguards’ station; on that lonely cliff,
even at that hour of the morning, a small crowd began to assemble. I
took the woman back with me to Eastbourne, holding her by the arm all
the way.
“You needn’t hold me,” she said, when we were half-way down. “With you
holding me like this it is not easy to walk on this rough ground. I
shan’t run away. Besides, why should I run away? There’s no reason why
I should run.”
But she knew better. I kept my hold. My friends had a private
sitting-room at the hotel, on the ground-floor, to which admission was
gained by a separate entrance. I led her to that sitting-room.
“Where are you taking me?” she remonstrated. “You’ve no right to keep
hold of me like this; you are hurting my arm. I’m not your prisoner.”
I paid no heed. When I had got her into the sitting-room I rang the
bell.
“Send up to Mr. Stephens, in number one hundred and twenty, and tell
him that I shall be glad to see him here as soon as he can make it
convenient to come.”
“Who’s Mr. Stephens?” asked the woman, as soon as the waiter had gone.
“And what are you going to say to my husband? And who are you,
anyhow?--Who are you?--Let go of my arm.”
She spoke savagely, trying to shake herself loose. But she was weaker
than I, and she could not do it.
“I am Judith Lee,” I told her. “I am going to tell your husband
everything I know about you.”
“And what do you know? I only saw you once before in my life.”
“Only once.--You will presently hear what I know about you, if you
have not already guessed.”
I think she had; I saw it on her face. Almost immediately her husband
came hurriedly into the room. He seemed disturbed.
“I am told that Miss Lee wants to see me. Are you Miss Lee? What are
you doing here with my wife?”
I told him--she kept still. I told him everything; she never even
attempted to interrupt. As I pieced my story together I think she
began to have a feeling that I was something almost supernatural--that
she was afraid of me. I fancy that she recognized in me the pointing
finger which, though it sometimes seems to move so slowly, touches the
criminal on the spot at last, showing that from the very first, when
all seemed most secure, there was already starting in pursuit the
avenging hand of justice.
I told about that interview on which I had tumbled in the tea-shop;
about the experiment with the handkerchief illustrating the signals
which might be made with a blind--how her eyes seemed to distend as
she heard me! I spoke of the chance meeting with the red-headed youth,
who was staring at the crooked blind, and then of the murder which was
done two hours afterwards. I passed the next two years and came to the
interview which I had witnessed in the Boscombe gardens. When I
narrated what the dead man’s wife had said to her friend, Mr. as well
as Mrs. Athelstan Ward stood there like images of guilt stricken by
their own consciences. Then came the story of what had happened that
morning. When I repeated, word for word, the conversation which had
taken place between the guilty pair, the woman sank on to the floor,
and the man seemed dazed. Then came the horror of the suicide which
she had prompted.
“I am aware,” I said, “that it would be difficult, Mr. Ward, to bring
home against your wife the full measure of her guilt to the
satisfaction of a criminal court. I admit the dexterity with which she
has eluded responsibility. On one condition I am willing to let her go
with you, to wherever you may choose to take her, and to hold my
tongue. She has done all these things to gain possession of the
fortune left by the late Mrs. Dawson. Render an account of the money
she left; resign all claim to it; transfer it in its entirety to the
woman to whom it rightfully belongs, and I will leave Mrs. Ward to her
conscience. I do not, at this moment, suggest on your part complicity
with your wife, though I cannot but feel that at some period you have
probably had some sort of guilty knowledge. But if you ask why you
should make this sacrifice to cover her, I will remark that I believe,
if the whole truth were to be made public, that it would be held that
you, at any rate, have no claim to the money which you pretend to have
inherited. That is a point for you to consider. I may add that I
communicated last night with the authorities at Scotland Yard, and
that a detective is coming to Eastbourne by the first train which
leaves London. If this matter is settled as I have suggested before he
appears--so far well; if not, the matter will pass out of my hands
into his. I have sent a message to a friend, who is staying in the
hotel, Mr. Arthur Stephens, a solicitor of high standing. He will
probably be here in a minute or two, ready to draw up a formal
assignment to Mrs. George Ryder of what ought to have been hers at the
beginning. I must ask you to give your answer, Mr. Ward, at once. How
is it to be?”
I could see that his lips were dry; with the tip of his tongue he
moistened them. His voice was husky.
“I--I’m willing to do what you wish, Miss Lee. I am willing to do
everything, and anything, if only you will say nothing to anyone else
of what you have just now been saying to us.”
Then I knew that my surmise had been correct, and that he had at least
some sort of guilty knowledge of his wife’s nefarious conduct. Arthur
Stephens entered.
“I’m very sorry to have disturbed you, Mr. Stephens, but I am in
pressing need of your services. This is Mr. Athelstan Ward. He is in
possession of certain property, to which he has no title; at any rate,
no moral title. Conscious of that fact, he wishes to assign it to the
rightful owner. I want you to draw up a short form which shall give
legal and valid expression to that wish of his. Afterwards, I may have
to request you to go with him into matters of account. That you will
be able to do later in the day. At present, all I ask you to do is to
draw up a brief form which shall have the effect I have
mentioned.--Here are pen, ink, and paper.”
Within a very few minutes that form was drawn up. As Mr. Ward was in
the act of affixing his signature the door opened, and some one else I
knew came in.
“This,” I explained, “is Inspector Ellis of Scotland Yard.--Inspector,
this is Mr. Athelstan Ward. He is about to sign a document; perhaps
you wouldn’t mind acting as one of the witnesses to his signature.”
The paper was signed and witnessed. Then I made certain other
explanations. I kept within the letter of my bond, and I gave Mr. and
Mrs. Athelstan Ward to understand that if they did not keep strictly
within the letter of theirs, their trouble was only just beginning.
After breakfast the Inspector and Mr. Stephens went up to London with
that undesirable husband and his still less desirable wife. In the
evening they returned to Eastbourne. They rendered their report: Mr.
and Mrs. Ward had been called to a strict account; in the course of
the day they had been stripped of every farthing of their ill-gotten
gains. Berths had been booked for them on a steamer which was leaving
the very next day for a South American port. They were informed that
a certain amount of money would be credited to their account when they
landed; with that they would have to begin the world afresh. Whether
they succeeded, or failed, they would return to England at their
peril. I do not think that either of them is ever likely to set foot
on English soil again.
Soon after the quartette quitted the hotel on their way to London I
kept an appointment which I had made the day before. A woman, who was
selling flowers, was shown into the sitting-room. I met her on the
threshold.
“Come in,” I said. “I am very glad to see you.”
She seemed alarmed, as if the way in which I tried to be friendly and
treat her as an equal was terrible--since decent treatment from any
quarter was a thing she was unused to.
“Please don’t look so frightened; there’s nothing to alarm you. I have
asked you here because I want the flowers I see you have brought, and
also because I wish to tell you something which I fancy you will think
very wonderful, and also, I hope, very pleasant. I believe you are
Mrs. George Ryder.”
At once she turned to flee, but I had her by the hand.
“Please--please don’t call me by that name--please don’t.”
“Why not, since it is your name? Is it not your name?”
“How do you know it’s my name? Who told you it was my name? Is it
written on my forehead?”
Her looks were so wild that she looked almost like a person who was
out of her senses. When I began to tell her, in her turn, my story,
the change that took place in her! Many times have I been thankful for
the gift which God gave me--never, I think, more thankful than I was
then. She has often told me since that she felt, more and more, as the
tale unfolded, that she was in the presence of a miracle--a miracle of
blessing. I doubt if she has ever quite rid herself of the notion
until this hour.
When I explained that she was to have the money which was meant for
her husband, after all, and laid before her Mr. Athelstan Ward’s
assignment, she broke into dry-eyed sobbing.
“Do you know”--the words broke from her between her sobs--“my child is
dying for want of sufficient and proper nourishment--she is dying of
starvation, and now--thank God!--thank God!”
IX.
UNCLE JACK
Why are some men so silly--so many men--nearly all of them? I was
once almost prevented from doing a man a very signal service by the
very singular delusion he was under that I was in love with him. I was
staying at the Cliftonville Hotel at Margate with a Mr. and Mrs.
Hastings, and their daughter Netta, who was a pupil of mine. Netta,
although deaf and dumb, was an extremely intelligent young lady of
about eighteen, and by no means ill-looking. She and I were having tea
one afternoon in the gardens on the cliff. She could speak quite well
when she chose--although she had never heard a sound in her life, but
there were occasions on which, if only for convenience’ sake, she used
the sign language. She used it then. She said to me:
“Watch those two women who are having tea at the table under the
tent.”
I had noticed the pair. They were under the shade of a big umbrella
which rose from the centre of the table at which they were sitting,
and the top of which could be adjusted at any angle. As I glanced
round, induced to do so by Netta’s words, I saw one say to the other:
“What about John Finlayson?”
The other was smoking a cigarette as she stirred her tea. She withdrew
the cigarette, expelled the smoke, and I saw her say:
“I don’t know whether or not to marry him.”
“My dear,” rejoined the first speaker, “if you are ever likely to get
a chance of marrying him, take my advice and do.”
The smoker considered; then she smiled--rather as if she sneered.
“I’m not so sure. You can pay too dear even for a husband with money;
Finlayson would bore me stiff inside a week. What I want is ready
cash--you could do with a little.”
“You bet.” The reply was to the point, if not elegant. Then the
speaker added: “I could do with more than a little, I could do with a
lot--I fancy you could too.”
The smoker indulged in a whiff; she sipped her tea; then she asked, as
if she were putting a very serious question:
“Meg, what do you say to a thousand golden sovereigns--could you do
with them?” The other glanced sharply at the speaker--I never saw a
woman whose eyes were more flagrantly made up in the broad daylight.
She was made up altogether, but her eyes were the worst. I thought
they were dreadful. She answered, echoing the other’s words.
“Could I do with a thousand golden sovereigns?--Just couldn’t I?”
“You wouldn’t stick at a trifle to get them?”
“My love, I’d stick at nothing--I’d rob a bank.”
“I wouldn’t for anything suggest your doing that; besides, I think we
could get them easier out of Finlayson than out of a bank.” Then she
added something which rather startled me. “See how those two creatures
at the next table are watching us; they can’t possibly hear what we
are saying, but suppose we talk of something else.”
I dare say we had been rather more attentive to them than was good
manners--that chance shot of hers went home. Netta laughed
outright--she can read lips almost as well as I can; I taught her how
to do it--I could have shaken her. To be accused of eavesdropping was
not nice; especially as, although the speakers might not know it, we
had been caught in the very act. I did not look again in their
direction. A few minutes after I got up with Netta and walked away.
“Did you see what they were saying?” she asked me as we went. Of
course I had seen; I had an uncomfortable feeling that they knew that
I had seen. No consideration of the kind seemed to trouble Netta. She
continued: “It was of Uncle Jack that they were talking.”
That was precisely the point--it was because of that that I had
watched. Mr. John Finlayson was Mrs. Hastings’ brother--Netta’s uncle;
a bachelor of about forty years’ standing, with a good opinion both of
himself and of his money. There was a great deal of the latter; but so
far as I was able to judge, there was nothing of the former worth
considering. All the same, I did not like to feel that he was being
talked about in that fashion by those two striking-looking women who
were the talk of the place, and that in Margate is saying something.
Some persons--probably most of them of the masculine sex--might think
that the one who had been smoking was beautiful; and she certainly was
what I believe is called “a very fine young woman.” She was probably
nearly six feet high; she held herself very straight; her figure was
perfect; her features were regular; her hair wonderful; her clothes
expensive. How much she owed to nature and how much to art was a
problem I should not have cared to determine. What any decent man can
see in a person of that kind I suppose we women never will understand;
I had reason to suspect that Mr. Finlayson saw a good deal. He had
taken her and her companion out with him in his motor-car; he had
dined at their table; and, very much to his sister’s disgust, had
associated himself with them in more ways than one. All the same, I
had been startled to see the young woman hint that if she chose she
could marry him; I had no idea that matters had gone so far as that;
what his sister would say if she knew I really almost trembled to
think. Keen-witted Netta seemed to read my thoughts.
“Shall I tell mamma,” she asked, “what I saw them say?”