AT DEAD OF NIGHT
David Harcourt, meantime, had long since reached home after his
interview with Miss L'Estrange, whereupon Mrs. Grover had presented him
with her first specimen of housewifery in the shape of a lunch. But, as
if to prove that the fates were against literature that day, she also
presented him with a letter from the agent Dibbin, saying: "Herein
please find address of Sarah Gissing, servant of the late Miss
Gwendoline Barnes, as promised."
David's first impulse was to go straightway after the meal to interview
this Sarah Gissing. Then he set his lips, saying to himself: "The day's
work," and, after lighting his pipe, he walked up to his literary tools
with the grimness of a man about to throttle an enemy. Whereupon he sat
down and wrote something. When he came back to earth with a weary but
taut brain, Mrs. Grover was gone for the day. It was near seven in the
evening, and the prairie-wolf within was growling "Dinner-time."
His mental faculties being now on a tension, he thought to himself that
there was no reason why he should not be prompt, and call upon Miss
Gissing that evening. Though, after dinner, a mortal lethargy and
reaction seized upon him with the whisper, "To-morrow is better than
to-day," he proved true to his high-strung self, and went by bus to
Baker-St., where he took train for the station nearest the village of
Chalfont.
It was a sharp walk from station to village. There was no cab; and when
he arrived at the Peacock Inn, where Sarah Gissing was now a barmaid, he
learned that she was away on leave at a neighboring village. He strolled
about the silent street until Sarah came home at ten o'clock, a thin
girl, with projecting top teeth, and a chronic stare of wonderment in
her eyes.
"You are not to be alarmed," David said to her. "I only came to ask you
a few questions about your late mistress, Miss Gwendoline Barnes, in
whom I have an interest. No one will be harmed, as far as I am aware, by
your telling me all that you know, while you and I may profit by it."
They spoke in the tiny inn drawing-room, and Sarah in her coat, with her
hat on, sitting on the piano-stool, stared and answered shortly at
first. Little by little she was induced to utter herself.
"He was a tall man," she said, "rather thin, dark and pale--"
"Straight nose?" asked David.
"Yes, sir, straight nose; a handsome man."
"Black mustache, nicely turned out?"
"Yes, sir; he had a mustache."
"Well, but all that says nothing. Many people answer such a description.
Was there no photograph of him in the flat? Did you never see a
photograph?"
"Yes, there was a photograph on the mantelpiece of Miss Barnes's
bed-room. In a silver frame it was; but the day after her death the
silver frame was still there, and the photograph was gone, for I noticed
it myself."
"Do you realize that you are telling me a mighty odd thing," said David
with sudden interest. "How soon after the door was forced did you go
into the flat?"
"Wasn't I there when the door was forced? Didn't I go in at once?"
"And how soon afterward did you notice that the photograph was gone from
the silver frame?"
"How soon? Soon afterward."
"It was not one of the men who forced the door who removed the
photograph from the frame?"
"I don't think that, sir. I would have noticed it if that had been the
case."
"When you went in you found the body of your mistress lying dead; the
front door had been bolted inside; so there was no way for any one to
have come out of the flat. And when you left your mistress the previous
night the photograph was in its frame, but gone when the door was forced
the next day. Those are the facts, aren't they?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, that seems to say that it was Miss Barnes herself who removed
the photograph, doesn't it? And it follows that the photograph is still
in the flat?"
"P'raps she did it to screen him," suggested Sarah, indulging in the
vanity of thought. "I shouldn't wonder if that was it. No doubt she tore
up the photograph, or burnt it."
"But you didn't see any shreds or ashes of it anywhere?"
"Not of a photograph, although I did sweep out the place the same day,
too. Still, that's not to say she didn't tear it up because there was
no shreds of it, for there are ways and means."
"Were there shreds of any kind about?"
"Yes; she must have torn up a good few letters overnight before doing
what she did. There was no end of litter, for that matter."
"But suppose she did not burn or tear up the photograph," said David,
"where would she have hidden it? Can you suggest a place? Did you ever
know her to hide anything? For, if she hid one thing, she may have
hidden others, mayn't she?"
"I believe there's one letter she must have hidden," answered Sarah,
"unless she destroyed it--a letter that came from Paris four days before
she made away with herself. I saw the postmark and the handwriting, so
I know. It was from _him_, for he was in Paris at the time, and it was
that letter that was the death of her, I feel certain. It came about
eleven o'clock, soon after breakfast. She was at the piano in her
dressing-gown, singing, not ordinary singing, but a kind of moaning of
different notes, practising her voice like--it used to give me the blues
to hear her every morning, it was so doleful like, moan, moan, moan! So
I says, 'A letter for you, mum,' and she first stared at it in my hand,
then she jumped up sudden like, and kind of snatched it out of my hand.
But she didn't read it. She went with it to the front window, looking
out, holding the letter behind her back with her two hands, trembling
from head to foot. So, not having any excuse to stay, I went out, but
didn't quite close the door. I loitered for a little while; but,
not hearing anything, I went about my work, till half an hour later
something seemed to say to me: 'Better have a look,' and when I peeped
into the drawing-room, there she was sitting on the floor with her
face on the sofa, and the letter in her hand. I thought she had the
neuralgia; she looked that much in pain, you never saw. I spoke to her,
but she looked at me, sick like, and didn't say nothing. I don't believe
she could have stood up, if she had tried, and it did go to my heart to
see her struck down and helpless like that."
David's close interest in her story pleased the girl. Such a nice young
man he was! Perhaps he might call again some evening.
"My missus wasn't quite right the rest of her time, I don't think," she
went on. "She wandered about the flat, restless as a strange kitten,
singing bits of songs, and she had a sweet soprano voice, I'm sure,
that pierced you through when she screamed out the high notes. She
didn't go to the theater any more, after the letter. The next day she
comes to me in the kitchen, singing and chuckling to herself, and she
says to me: 'What are you doing here?' says she. 'How do you mean, mum?'
says I. 'Listen, Sarah,' says she, putting her face quite close to mine,
'you shouldn't be here, this is not a place for a decent girl like you.
You are to understand that I am not married. I told you that I was; but
it was a lie. I have a child; but I am not married,' and she ran off,
laughing again to herself, as wild as a bird."
"No, not that!" interrupted David, for the outspoken revelation hurt
him. "It was not so much that which I wished to hear. Let us talk of the
letter and the man. You never saw the letter again? You can't think what
your mistress may have done with it?"
"No, I never saw it again," said Sarah, "nor I can't think where she may
have put it, unless she tore it up. There's only one queer thing which
I can call to mind, and that is, that during the afternoon of the day
before she died, I went out to buy some soda, and when I came back I
found her standing on a chair, hanging up one of the pictures in the
long corridor. I wondered at the time whether it had fallen down or
what, though I didn't say anything. But now I come to think of it--"
David thought to himself: "She was then hiding the marriage and birth
certificates which Miss L'Estrange afterward saw when the picture
fell. She was reluctant to destroy them, and yet wished to screen the
man, having in her mind the purpose to take her own life. The man's
photograph and the fatal letter from him were not hidden in the picture,
but somewhere else, perhaps. I must search every cranny."
"Of course," he said aloud, "you could easily identify her husband if he
was shown to you again?"
"Oh, rather, sir," Sarah answered, "I've seen him dozens of times. He
used to come to the flat anyway twice a week, though sometimes he would
be away for a goodish stretch, mostly in Paris."
"They were an affectionate pair--fond of each other?"
"They were that, indeed," said Sarah with a smile, as one who understood
that sort of thing. "He, I'm sure, worshiped the ground she walked on,
and she was just as bad. It came as a surprise to me that anything was
wrong, though latterly she did use to have red eyes sometimes after he
had been with her."
"What name did she call him by?" asked David. "His name was Johann
Strauss, wasn't it?"
"He was a Mr. Strauss, sir, yes, but not the other name you say. At
least, she always called him Harry."
"Henry is sometimes the English for Johann, you see," muttered David,
with a random guess that Sarah was none the wiser. "Henry, too, was the
name of the child, wasn't it? How about the child? Don't you know where
it is?"
"I only know that she used to go every Tuesday and Thursday by the
seventeen minutes past two train from Baker-St., and be back by six
o'clock, so it couldn't have been very far. 'Pon my word, sometimes
she'd go half crazy over that child. There was a little box of clothes
that she's many a time made me waste half a day over, showing me the
things, as if I'd never seen them afore, everything that was possible
embroidered with violets, and she'd always be making--"
"Fond of violets, was she?" broke in David, ready enough to catch at the
phrase.
"Oh, it was all violets with her,--violets in her hair, at her neck,
at her waist, and all about the place. She had a sister called Violet,
and I came to know the sister as well as I knew herself in a manner of
speaking, she was always telling me about her. For often she had nobody
to talk to, and then she'd make me sit down to hear about her mother and
this Miss Vi and the child, and what she meant to do when her marriage
could be made public, and that. She was a good, affectionate lady, was
Miss Gwen, sir. You couldn't help loving her, and it was a mortal hard
thing what happened."
It was just then that the mistress of the tavern looked in with an
unsympathetic face; so David rose and slipped a gold coin into the hand
of the staring Sarah. The talk had already lasted a long while, and the
inn-door had to be opened to let him out.
He walked the two miles back to the station, and there learned that the
last up-train for the night had just left. Even on the suburban lines
there is a limit to late hours.
This carelessness on his own part caused him to growl. It was now
a question either of knocking up some tavern, or of tramping to
London--about twenty-one miles. However, twenty-one miles made no
continent to him, and, after posting himself by questions as to the
route, he set out.
Throwing his overcoat over his left arm, he put his elbows to his ribs,
lifted his face skyward, and went away at a long, slow, swinging trot.
One mile winded him. He stopped and walked for five minutes, then away
he went again at a steady jog-trot; and now, with this second wind, he
could have run in one heat to Bow Bells without any feeling but one of
joy and power. He had seen Indians run all day long with pauses. He had
learned the art from them, and London had scarce had time as yet to
enervate him. Up hill and down dale he went steadily away, like a
machine. It was dark at first, dismal in some places, the sky black,
crowded with stars, like diamond-seed far sown; but suddenly, while he
was trotting through the main street of Uxbridge, all this was changed,
the whole look and mood of things underwent transformation, as the full
moon floated like a balloon of light into the sky. It was then about
one-thirty in the morning. Thenceforth his way was almost as clearly lit
as by day.
Through dead villages he passed, through dead Ealing to Shepherd's Bush;
there were cats, and there were policemen, and one running man, little
else. Here or there a constable was half-drawn into giving chase, but
wisely forbore--he never would have caught David Harcourt. But at
Shepherd's Bush David came to the foot of a long hill, which he shirked,
and drew up. From that point he walked to Notting Hill, past Kensington
Gardens, toward Oxford Circus. It was near three A.M.
Walking on the south side of Oxford-St. eastward, he stopped to look at
some books behind a grille. The moonshine was so luminous, the sky so
clear, that he could see well enough to read their titles. This was the
only quiet hour of London. There was not a sound, save the echo of a
policeman's tread some way off down Regent-St. Not even a night cab
rattled in the distance. And then, on the other side of the street, his
quick ears caught the passing of swift-gliding feet--a woman's.
When David glanced round, already she was gone well past him, making
westward, most silently, with a steady haste. She gave him the
impression of having been overtaken by, of being shy at, the moonlight.
His heart leaped in a spasm of recognition, almost of fear. And he
followed, he could not help it; as water flows downward, as the needle
follows the magnet, he followed, with the stealthy pace of the stalker,
as silently as if he was tracking a deer, and as keenly.
His breathing, meantime, was as if suspended, his heart seemed to stand
still. That form and motion, his instincts would have recognized them in
midnight glimmer of dull lamps, and now they were before him in light.
Still he could not believe his wits. He doubted whether he was not
moonstruck, chasing a phantom made of the clair-obscure stuff of those
dead hours of the night when dreams are rife in the world, and ghosts
leer through the haunted chambers of the brain. That _she_ should be
walking the streets of London at three in the morning, alone, hastening
secretly homeward like some poor outcast foreconscious of the light of
dawn!--this savored somewhat of limbo and lunacy. For what good reason
could she be thus abroad? A swarm of doubts, half-doubts, queer bodings,
jostled in David's heart. She might, indeed, have come out to summon a
doctor, to obtain a drug in an emergency. But something in her air and
pace, something clandestine, desperate, illicit, seemed to belie this
hope. She turned north when she had gone so far west as Orchard-St.,
little thinking, apparently, that she was being shadowed, and thence
sped on west and north alternately through smaller streets, a region in
which the desolation of the sleeping city seemed even more confirmed.
And David followed, with this thought in his mind, that, though he
had not seen her face, he had a certain means of determining her
identity--for, if the flying figure before him went to 60A, Porchester
Gardens, the address which he had of Violet Mordaunt, then this must be
Violet.
Not that in the later part of his chase he had the slightest doubt. The
long black cloak, like those that nurses wear, inflated behind her, the
kind of toque above it, the carriage of her head, the slope of her
shoulders, all these were hers: and she sped direct, notwithstanding
turns and twists, to Porchester Gardens. David, from behind the corner
of a street, could see her go up the house-steps, bend over something
in her hand, open the door, and slip on what must have been rubber
overshoes. This secrecy revolted him, and again he almost doubted that
it was she. But when she had gone in, he hastened from his street-corner
to the door to read the house-number, and it was 60A.
She was gone now. It was too late to challenge and upbraid her. He
already regretted that he had not dared. He was bitter at it. Something
said within him: "Both sisters!" Some envenomed fang of anger, spite,
and jealousy plagued him, a feeling that he was wholly out of it, and
had no part nor lot in her life and acts; and then, also, like oil on
the waters, came pity. He must home to his haunted flat, where the scent
of the violets which he had bought greeted him on his entrance. It was
near four o'clock. After looking gloomily for some time at the head in
chalks, he read three letters which he had found in the letter-box. One
of them was from Miss L'Estrange, and in it she said:
"I have asked my girl, Jenny, about the marriage and birth certificates
which fell out of the picture, and there's something funny about her."
(A woman never means humor when she uses that word funny.) "She wants to
make out that she knows nothing about what became of them, but I believe
she does. Perhaps she has found out Strauss and sold them to him, or
perhaps she only means to do so, and you may get them from her if you be
quick and bid high. Anyway, I have done my best for you, and now it is
in your own hands. You can come here whenever you like."
But David was now suddenly not so devoted to the affairs of Violet and
Gwendoline Mordaunt as he had been. What he had seen within the past
hour made him bitter. He went foraging in the kitchen for something to
eat, then threw himself into bed in a vexed mood, as some gray of
morning mingled with the night.