LOVE VS. HONOR
Here was a new and extraordinary complication.
Why was Stanley Audley, alias Philip Graydon, in possession of forged
notes from the notorious factory in South America? Why had he attempted
to destroy one of them, while leaving the others in a drawer?
In the hope, though it was but faint, of getting further information
about Audley, I telephoned to Marigold Day and asked her to dine with
me at the Piccadilly Hotel.
She promptly accepted, and during the meal I brought the talk round to
Audley, telling her of his remarkable disappearance from the room in
Seton’s Hotel in Lancaster Gate.
“But are you really certain it was Mr. Audley?” she asked.
“Quite,” I replied. “Seton’s description of him bears no possible room
for doubt. Besides, he had known Audley for a long time and there is no
possibility that he can have made a mistake.”
“It is an extraordinary thing if he has been in London that he did not
let me know,” she said, frowning and evidently puzzled.
“Yes, that is so, but we have to remember that for some unaccountable
reason he seems to have decided to completely efface himself.”
“Harold Ruthen believes that he is hiding in Paris,” she said.
“But from whom should he be hiding, and why?” I questioned. “Do you
think that he can possibly be hiding from the police?”
“I don’t know what to think,” she replied with a sigh, “but why do you
suggest the police.”
“Well,” I answered, “I think you ought to know that a very strange
thing happened at Lancaster Gate. When we searched the room we found in
the grate a half-burned Bank of England fifty-pound note. In a drawer
were three others. And all of them have been found to be forgeries.”
“Ah, then you know,” said the girl with a queer, hard look that I had
never seen in her eyes before.
“That is all I know,” I said, “and I wondered whether you could tell me
any more. Is it on account of these forged notes that he is hiding? It
certainly looks very like it, and I have no doubt whatever that that
will be the view of the police. What does Ruthen say?”
“He hasn’t told me anything, but I remember one queer incident. Once
when we were out together he paid for supper with a five-pound note
and we were about to go out when the manager of the restaurant came
back and declared it to be a forgery. Stanley apologized profusely,
and gave the man another in its place, explaining that he had cashed
a cheque at his club and they had given it to him with four others.
Apparently the others he had were genuine. I did not think much of it
at the time--such a thing, of course, might easily have happened--but
after what you have told me I don’t know what to believe.”
It was difficult to believe that the young fellow who had married
Thelma and for whom I had formed a genuine liking, could be the ally of
a gang of bank-note forgers, yet the evidence was becoming overwhelming.
“But I thought you told me Audley was well off,” I said. “Well-to-do
people don’t usually descend to dealing in forged notes.”
“He always appeared to be,” was Marigold’s reply, “but possibly that
was how he made his money. As a matter of fact I really did not know
very much about him. I met him through intimate friends and I suppose I
more or less took him for granted. He was quite obviously a gentleman
and one can’t enquire closely into the antecedents of every man one
meets.”
I wondered whether the girl had in some way stumbled upon the
truth. If this were the case, the shock of finding that the man she
undoubtedly was beginning to love was involved in such infamous
practices as the passing of forged notes would be quite sufficient to
explain the strange change Mrs. Powell had noticed and commented on. It
was quite clear, from what Mrs. Powell had said, that she had suffered
some blow which had utterly upset her. On the other hand, the knowledge
that Audley had married Thelma would have been an equally satisfactory
explanation.
In answer to a question, Marigold told me she had seen Ruthen at
Rector’s Club three nights before and had chatted with him. He had then
told her that he was still in search of Stanley and that he had been
looking for him in Paris. But, although she had questioned him, he
would not tell her his motives.
We went to a revue together and later I saw her into a taxi on her way
home. Though I questioned her as closely as I could, and she seemed
quite willing to help, she could not, or would not, tell me any more.
I walked home to Russell Square utterly bewildered and spent a
sleepless night racking my brain for a solution of the mystery. Here we
were in April and so far as I could tell I was as far off as ever from
finding the key to the enigma.
I decided next day to take my partner, Hensman, fully into my
confidence. He was five years older than I, and a keen, practical
business man for whose judgment I had considerable respect.
He heard me in silence. At first he was inclined to be amused but as I
went on his thin, clean-shaven face assumed a very serious expression.
“Well,” I asked when I had finished, “what do you think of it all?”
“Intensely interesting, Rex--but extremely complicated,” was my
partner’s reply, as he sat back in his chair. “On the face of it Audley
is a crook hiding from the police. Evidently he has not attempted to
get abroad, but is still somewhere in London. That’s my view.”
“But what causes his wife to tell me that he can never return to her?”
I asked. “What is your opinion of that?”
“I cannot tell that. But I believe she must hear from him and that
she knows his whereabouts from time to time. The telegram he received
calling him back from Mürren was, no doubt, a message of warning.”
“I quite agree,” I said. “But why did he escape so rapidly from
Lancaster Gate?”
“Probably he thought you were a detective.”
“But if he saw me enter the place he would have recognized me at once.”
“True. I never thought of that,” said Hensman. “No. He took fright at
something, and thought he’d destroy all the bank-notes. His escape, I
admit, was an ingenious one. He evidently slipped out while you had
gone downstairs to call Seton, and leaving the key on the inside of the
door, re-locked it.”
“How could he?”
“If the end of the key protruded, as it does in many cases, it would be
quite easy to turn with a pair of pincers,” Hensman replied. “If he is
a crook he most probably carries a pair, for by that means locked doors
are frequently opened by thieves.”
This explanation, simple though it was, appeared perfectly adequate and
I was chagrined that neither Seton nor myself had hit upon it. Later,
when I again examined the door, I had no doubt at all about it. The end
of the key projected beyond the surface of the door and as the lock was
well-oiled and went very easily, it was easy, I found, to turn the key
from the outside with a pair of pliers.
It was clear that Audley had been alarmed by something, whether it
was my knock at his door that had disturbed him, we could not tell.
Whatever it was, he had evidently slipped out when he heard me walk
away from the door, locked the door behind him and hidden in one of the
other rooms. Then his movements, masked by the noise made in breaking
open the door, he had calmly walked out and disappeared.
“My advice, Rex, is to have nothing further to do with the affair,”
my partner argued. “Leave it all severely alone. There is no sort
of reason why you should allow yourself to be dragged into any
police-court business. Suppose Audley is arrested, as no doubt he will
be eventually, then you’ll be called for the prosecution. And you don’t
want that.”
I demurred. It was the same advice that old Feng had given me. And
yet, try how I could, I could not bring myself to desert Thelma in her
distress.
Three days later I received a note from her from the Hotel Reubens, in
Buckingham Palace Road, saying that her mother and she were staying
there for a few days and asking whether I could see her.
I called that evening, and was invited to stay to dinner. She was very
charming, but I saw she was pale and anxious. She seemed overwrought
and nervous, her slim fingers ever fidgeting with her wedding ring.
After dinner we were taking coffee in the lounge when Thelma, seeing a
girl she knew, rose and left us to speak to her.
“Well, Mrs. Shaylor,” I asked quickly, “has Thelma had any further news
of her husband?”
“Not a word,” was the reply. “But several times a man, a stranger to
me, has been to see her, and they have gone out together. His name, I
believe, is Ruthen or Ruthven.”
“Harold Ruthen! He was at Mürren.”
“So I believe. But he seems to pester her to death,” replied her
mother. “Each time he comes she seems very upset, and I know she cries
bitterly after he has gone. He seems to hold some extraordinary hold
over her, but she will not say anything about it.”
“She does not like him?”
“I don’t know. She always receives him gladly. But she may not feel
what she pretends.”
“Curious if that fellow really has some hold over her,” I said,
recollecting that strange conversation in the night at Mürren. “My
opinion is that Thelma is in fear of him, and in order to cloak her
fear from you she pretends to welcome him, whereas his presence is
really hateful to her.”
“You think so?” asked the widow, stirring her coffee and looking
straight into my face. “All she has told me is that the man is a friend
of her husband’s.”
“I believe that is true,” was my reply.
“And he is in search of Stanley, just as you are, Mr. Yelverton,” she
added.
I drew a long breath, but made no reply, for at that instant Thelma
rejoined us, exclaiming:
“Only fancy, mother, I haven’t seen Sybil Deighton since I left school.
And now she’s married. That’s her husband she’s with. Rather a nice
boy, isn’t he?”
And she threw herself into the lounge-chair next to me.
Not until an hour later when Mrs. Shaylor had bidden us good-night and
we had retired into one of the cosy corners that I ventured to speak of
Stanley.
“No, Mr. Yelverton,” she said shaking her beautiful head sadly, and
raising her big gray eyes to mine. “I have heard nothing--not a word.
If Stanley is still alive he would surely send me a reassuring word.
I--I begin to think that he must be dead!”
Stanley Audley dead! If that were so I should be free to love her
and to win her if I could. The very thought caused my heart to leap.
I even found myself cherishing the wish that it might be true. Yet
a moment later I began to despise myself for entertaining such an
unworthy thought. It was not “playing the game” according to the right
traditions of the school in which I had been brought up. And so far,
at any rate, I had tried to conform to the code of personal honor that,
with many men, is a far more powerful rule of conduct than most forms
of religious belief.
Though I led the conversation several times in the direction of Harold
Ruthen, Thelma said nothing of his visits to Bexhill. I was irritated
because she would not be frank with me. At length I thought it would be
best to speak plainly and told her of my adventure in Lancaster Gate,
of course without mentioning the discovery of the forged bank-notes.
“But, surely it could not have been Stanley!” she exclaimed excitedly.
“Why should he want to avoid you, of all men? He could not imagine you
as anything else but a friend!”
“Equally so, why does he not let you know his whereabouts?” I asked in
turn.
She shook her head in dismay.
Then suddenly, with an expression of despair in her eyes, she put out
her thin white hand with the wedding ring upon it, and pointing to it,
said in a low voice--
“Think what--what a mockery this is to me!”
What could I reply? Here was a girl not yet twenty, married only a few
days and then deserted. Her distress was very real and very pitiful. It
had been on the tip of my tongue to tax her with her concealment from
me of Ruthen’s visits, but in view of what she was suffering I could
not bring myself to pain her further. Either she loved her husband,
in spite of his apparently callous desertion of her, or, for some
inexplicable reason she was playing a part with a skill that many an
actress would envy.
More and more I was tortured by my growing love for her. Hitherto
I had kept it within bounds, and, so far as I knew, I had
never--intentionally, at any rate--given a hint of it to Thelma
herself. But as I look back, I can see now that such a restraint could
not be maintained. A crash was bound to come. It came, very swiftly and
very suddenly a few days later.
Thelma and her mother had promised to come and have tea with me in my
rooms at Russell Square. At the last moment Mrs. Shaylor was called
to Watford to see her sister who had been taken ill, and Thelma
came alone. She was in comparatively good spirits and after my old
housekeeper had served us with tea, we spent a couple of delightful
hours. Thelma, an accomplished musician, sang to me, accompanying
herself on my piano, and as I sat watching and listening to her I
realized more fully than ever how handsome and lovable she was and my
anger against Stanley Audley became almost unbearable.
“Poor mother!” she exclaimed presently as she re-seated herself by the
fire, after singing a gay song from one of the latest revues, “She’s
awfully worried. That’s why we are up in town. The securities which
my father left are depreciating in value, and one of the companies in
which he invested most of his money has now gone into liquidation. She
came up to see my uncle, who is her trustee. Yes, Mr. Yelverton, the
war spelt ruin to us, as it did to so many others, and yet the Stock
Exchange speculators made fortunes out of it--out of lives of men.”
It was sad news she had told me, but I had not been blind to the fact
that Mrs. Shaylor was, like so many other gentlewomen of today, keeping
up a brave appearance, with but small funds at her disposal.
I longed to mention Harold Ruthen, but did not dare to do so lest I
should betray what her mother had told me in confidence. But I was
angry that the fellow dared to seek her at Bexhill and cause her worry.
It, however, proved one fact, that he, at any rate, was not aware of
Stanley’s whereabouts, and, for the moment, could not do him the harm
that I believe he fully intended.
How one’s most momentous actions depend at times upon the merest
trivialities! I little guessed that a trifle was to rouse in me a
gust of emotion destined to sweep away the last vestige of the iron
self-control I had honestly tried to set upon myself.
Thelma was the wife of another man: that fact I had tried to keep
always before my mind. I was to learn now that there are, in each one
of us, forces too strong to be enchained by any man-made codes of
conduct.
Thelma had seated herself in a low chair and was gazing sadly into
the fire. Either her gaiety had been a pretense or the thought of her
unhappy position had again overcome her.
“It’s very hard lines on you, Thelma,” I said softly.
She made no reply, but her eyes filled suddenly with tears. She put out
her hand as if in acknowledgment of my sympathy and I took it in mine.
Its touch seemed to pour liquid fire through every pore of my being.
I forgot all my good resolutions, all my pride of tradition and, in a
second, I was kneeling beside her, pouring out a flood of impassioned
words. What I said I have not the faintest idea. I was beside myself in
a passion of love that broke all bounds and defied restraint.
Thelma rose quickly from her chair, crossed the room to the window and,
burying her face in her hands, burst into a torrent of tears.
That brought me to my senses. I saw, too late, how unutterably foolish
I had been. How utterly inexcusable was my conduct. Yet I had no
regrets; rather I was thrilled with a savage joy that she should know
the truth at last.
“Stanley had no right to leave you as he has done, without cause, or
explanation after a few days only of marriage!” I cried. “It is harsh
and cruel. It is not the act of a man of honor.”
But she held up her hand as though to stay my further words.
“I--I’m sorry I came here, Mr. Yelverton,” she said, suddenly, quite
earnest and calm. “I thank you for all your efforts on my behalf but I
think we must not meet in the future.”
“Then you still love the scoundrel who has deserted you!” I cried,
unable to restrain myself.
“I will have no word said against him,” she replied gently. “Perhaps,
after all, we have misjudged him. It is time I went back to the Hotel.
Mother is taking me to see some friends tonight, and--and we return to
Bexhill tomorrow.”
That last sentence was equivalent to telling me not to call again upon
her.
“Why, I thought you were here for some days,” I exclaimed in dismay.
“I think mother has decided to return tomorrow,” was her significant
reply.
I saw her home to Buckingham Palace Road and there bade her farewell,
cursing myself for my frantic outburst. I had acted like a fool. Yet
the regret I knew I ought to feel would not come.
Next morning among my letters on the breakfast table was one addressed
in typewriting, which I instantly recognized. It was from Hammersmith,
having been sent by express messenger instead of being posted as the
other had been.
I recognized the uneven typing--and tore it open. The words I read were:
“Will you never take warning! You yesterday entertained Stanley
Audley’s wife at your rooms. As you have disregarded the caution
already given you, the consequences will be upon your own head. If
you value your life, you will relinquish the search for a man who
is already dead. To continue is at your own peril. This is the last
warning----”
I had a new and insistent problem to face. Who was my mysterious
correspondent and why was he sufficiently interested to threaten me
with death in case I refused to abandon my search for Stanley Audley?