HEROLD caught his train. He had accomplished his mission; Stella had
spoken. In a few words he had enlightened Stella's unhappy guardians.
“Be gentle with her,” he had recommended. “Don't try to force her
confidence. Don't let Ransome feel her pulse too often or give her
physic. Talk about the tropics, and try to stimulate her interest and
make her think she would like to go on a sea-voyage. Or, if you can get
hold of a lost baby, stick it in the garden where she can find it.”
He had talked bravely to the old people, who would have cut off each
other's heads--and their own, for the matter of that--to bring back the
Stellamaris of a year ago. They clung to him pathetically. If he had
counselled them to shut Stella in a room and read the minor prophets
aloud to her, they would have obeyed him with unquestioning meekness.
With a smile on his lips, he had put heart into them. Lady Blount had
kissed him, and Sir Oliver, watery-eyed, had wrung his hand.
In the empty carriage of the train he gave way, as your highly strung,
sensitive man must do, if he would avoid disaster. He did not think.
To think implies an active process. But thoughts came tumultuous, and
without a struggle he let them assail him. He felt that if he attempted
to put into logical order the intricacies of passionate emotion in which
he and John and Stella and Unity were involved, if he attempted to
gage the effect on all their lives of this new horror brought therein
by the murderous devil-woman, if he allowed himself to think of Stella's
challenge, “You say you love me like that?” he would go mad. Let the
burning thoughts sear his brain as they listed; his sanity demanded
passive surrender.
At Victoria Station he collected his wits so as to deal with
the commonplace routine of life. He looked at the clock, rapidly
calculating. He would have time to go home, bolt some food and drink,
and go off to keep his appointment with the men of money. He drove to
his house in Kensington in a taxicab, and, telling the driver to wait,
let himself in with his latchkey. His man met him in the hall.
“A lady waiting to see you, sir.”
“I have no time to see ladies. Tell her I'm very sorry, and bring me a
sandwich and a whisky and soda.”
He thought she was some persistent actress in search of an engagement.
Such phenomena are not infrequent in the overcrowded theatrical world.
“It 's a Miss Blake, sir, Mr. Risca's ward. She telephoned this morning,
and asked when you would be likely to be in--”
“Miss Blake?”
He stood amazed. What was Unity doing in his house? It was only
yesterday that he had seen her. What had happened?
“Where is she?”
“In the library, sir.”
He ran up the stairs. As he entered the room, Unity rose from the
straight-backed chair in which she had been sitting and rushed to meet
him. She was an eager and anxious Unity, still wearing the tartan
blouse, but not the gorgeous hat of yesterday. A purple tam-o'-shanter
hastily secured by a glass-headed pin, had taken the place of that
extravagant creation.
“Oh, Mr. Herold, do you know anything about guardian?”
The eagerness faded from her face as she saw the perplexity on his.
“What do you mean, dear?”
“He went out last night about seven o'clock, and has n't come back
since.” She wrung her hands. “I thought you might be able to tell me
something.”
He could only look at her in blank dismay, and question her as to John's
latest known movements. There was very little to tell.
“He had an appointment in town after lunch, which was the last time I
saw him. I heard him come in about a quarter to seven and go straight
into his study--”
“He left me about half-past five--at the club,” said Herold. “He was all
nerves and crazy-headedness. He almost quarrelled with me. He said he
had n't slept for weeks.”
“He has n't,” said Unity. “That's what makes me so frightened.”
“Well, go on.”
“I heard him come in. I was in the kitchen helping Phoebe. A few minutes
afterward I heard him walk down the passage--you know his quick, heavy
tread--and go out again, slamming the street door. We waited dinner for
ever so long, and he did n't come. And then it was bedtime. Aunt Gladys
was n't anxious, because nothing that guardian did now would surprise
her. She's like that, you know. And I did n't think very much about it
at first, because he's always irregular. But when it came to two and
three and four o'clock in the morning--I can never go to sleep till I
hear him come in, you know,” she explained simply--“then I was terribly
anxious--”
“Why did n't you ring me up during the night?” Herold asked.
“I thought of it; but I did n't like to disturb you. I did early this
morning, but your servant said you had already gone down to Southcliff.
Oh, I was so hoping,” she sighed, “that he had gone to Southcliff, too!
There was a letter waiting for him--”
“Good Lord!” cried Herold, with a flash of memory, “so there was! From
Lady Blount.”
“Do you know what was in it?” she asked quickly.
“Lady Blount told me. She said that Stellamaris was very ill, going to
die,--an alarming letter,--and begged him to go down at once.”
“And he went out, but he did n't go down,” said Unity.
Their eyes met, and the same fear froze them. “Did you look--”
“No; how could I? The drawer was locked.”
“It must be broken open,” said Herold.
The man-servant came in to ask whether he should pay and dismiss the
waiting driver of the taxi.
“Yes,” said Herold, after a moment's reflection. “And, Ripley, you might
telephone to Mr. Bowers of Temple Chambers and say that I'm detained;
that I don't know whether I 'll be able to come at all.”
It was impossible to transact business beneath this lowering cloud of
tragedy. The men of money could wait till John was found, dead or alive.
Suddenly he remembered that a taxicab was the one thing necessary. He
recalled Ripley.
“Let the cab wait.” He turned to Unity as soon as the man had closed the
door.
“It must be broken open, and at once. I 'll come with you and do it. I
'll take the responsibility.”
“Yes,” said Unity. “Let us know the worst.”
“I 'll go and fetch a couple of bunches of keys. We may find one to
fit.”
He went out and soon afterward returned, the keys jingling in his
pocket. Ripley was at the hall telephone as they passed.
“I 'm going up to Mr. Risca's,” said Herold.
In a few moments they were speeding across London. Unity sat very tense,
her red hands clenched together till the knuckles showed white.
“The house first, and then Scotland Yard,” he said.
“We must know first,” she assented.
He glanced at her admiringly.
“You 're one of the bravest girls I 've ever met.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “It is n't a time for playing the fool and
going into hysterics,” she said bluntly.
Many girls of her mongrel origin would have broken down under the
strain, shed wild tears, uttered incoherences of terror. Not so Unity.
“She is the kind that walks through fire,” thought Herold.
They spoke little. He grew sick with anxiety. Lady Blount's letter had
been the determining cause of John's flight from home. Of this there
could be no question. It had not been a sane man who raved at him
yesterday. He was primed for any act of madness. The letter was the
spark. Stella ill, fading away to a ghost and as silent as one, victim
to an obscure and wasting disease that baffled them all; Stella dying
before their eyes--the unhappy picture of the beloved was poignant in
its artlessness. It would have stirred to grief any friend of
Stellamaris. What emotions, then, had it not aroused in the breast of
the man who loved her desperately, and whose very love had brought her
to this pitch of suffering, to this imminence of dissolution? And the
appeal for help, for the immediate presence of the rock and tower of
strength of the household, with what ironic force had that battered at
the disordered brain? There were only three courses for a man situated
like Risca, and gifted or afflicted with Risca's headstrong and gloomy
temperament, to pursue: to surrender to the appeal, which he had not
done; to find his friend and bid him stand by while he cursed the day he
was born and the God who made him and the devil-ruled welter of infamy
which called itself a world, which likewise he had not done; or, in a
paroxysm of despair and remorse, to fling himself beyond reach of human
touch and seek a refuge for himself in the darkness. The conclusion that
he had taken this last course forced itself with diabolical logic on
Herold's mind. The very key to the door of darkness had lain ready to
his hand, hidden in the study drawer. Before the eyes of the imaginative
man, strung tight almost to breaking-point by the morning's emotions,
flashed vivid pictures of tragic happenings--so vivid that they could
not but be true: the reading of the letter; John standing by the study
table; the letter dropping from his hands, which, in familiar gesture,
went to the crisp, grizzly hair; the bloodshot eyes,--he had noted them
yesterday,--the heavy jaw momentarily hanging loose, then snapping tight
with a grating of the teeth; the unlocking of the drawer; the snatching
up of the evil, glittering thing; the exit along the passage, with “his
quick, heavy tread.”
Did he remember to lock the drawer again? The vision was elusive. The
question became insistent.
“Did you try the drawer?” he asked suddenly.
“No,” said Unity.
It was unlocked. He felt sure that it was unlocked. He recalled the
moving picture, bade it stay while he concentrated his soul on the
drawer. And one instant it was shut, and another it did not seem flush
with the framing-table and a crack, a sixteenth of an inch, was visible.
He strove to carry on the vision beyond the house-door; but in vain. He
saw John Risca going out grim into the soft and clouded summer evening,
and then the figure disappeared into lucent but impenetrable space.
Unity gripped his hand. Her common little face was like marble.
“Supposing he's dead!”
“I won't suppose such a thing,” said Herold.
“You must. Why not face things?”
“All right. Let us face them.”
“Supposing he's dead. Do you think he 's wicked?”
“Certainly not. Do you?”
“You know I don't,” said Unity.
“Of course I know,” said Herold.
“I could die for her myself, and I'm not a man,” said Unity.
“Is n't it best, however, to live for those one loves, even at the cost
of suffering?”
“Not if you can do them good by dying.”
“Supposing he 's dead,” asked Herold,--clean direct souls can ask each
other such questions,--“what will you do?”
Her grip grew fierce as she turned up to him her snub-nosed little
cockney face. “There 'll be no need for me to kill myself. I 'll die all
right. Don't make any mistake about that.”
“But supposing he is alive, and supposing the barrier were removed--I
mean, supposing the woman--you know whom--were no longer there, and he
married--what would you do?”
“What would you?”
“I?”
“You don't think you can fool me,” said Unity. “You love Miss Stella as
much as he does.”
“How do you know?”
Unity flung her hand to the outer air. “How do I know that's an
omnibus?”
“You 're right, my dear, I do love her. You 're one of the few human
beings in this world who know what love means, and I 've told you what
I 've told to no one living. But if she married John to-morrow, I would
strangle everything wrong in me and devote my life to watching over
their happiness.”
“Don't you think I'd do the same?”
“I know you would.”
“Then what 's the good of asking me what I 'd do?” said Unity.
“Talk like this helps.”
Unity sought his hand again.
“It does,” she said gently.
There was silence for a while. The white, wall-inclosed houses of Maida
Vale, gay in the sunshine, flashed by them. She gripped his hand harder.
“But supposing he 's dead, supposing he 's dead.”
“Let us suppose nothing, my dear,” said Herold.
The cab stopped at Fairmont, Ossington Road. Herold gave Unity his hand
to alight, and together they went through the tiny front garden, now
bright with geraniums and petunias and pansies, into the house.
Miss Lindon, who had been watching all day for John by the drawing-room
window, greeted them in the passage, her eyes red, and her cap askew on
her white hair.
“Oh, Mr. Herold, have you found him? Where is he? I 'm sure he 's been
run over by a motor-omnibus,” she continued, on learning that Herold
brought no news. “The way they whizz upon you when you 're not looking
is so bewildering. The old days of horses were bad enough, although I do
remember his poor father being upset out of a rowing-boat at Ramsgate.”
“You may be quite sure, dear Miss Lindon,” said Herold, gently, “that
John has n't met with a street accident. The police would have told us
long ago.”
“But what could have happened to him? I know I 've thought of
everything.”
“Very likely he went down to spend the night in the East End, so as to
write a descriptive article for the review,” said Herold. “You have n't
thought of that.”
Miss Lindon admitted she had not, but tearfully held to the
motor-omnibus theory. He tried to reassure her. Unity clenched her
teeth, half mad with anxiety to get to the fateful drawer. At last
Herold led the dear but delaying lady into the drawing-room.
“I am going to examine John's papers. Very likely I shall find something
to put me on the track. You don't mind if I go in alone--with Unity to
tell me where things are?”
“I'm sure, if you really try, you 'll find him. You are so clever,” she
replied.
He kissed her hand and left her sitting by the window, the tears running
down her cheeks. In the passage Unity caught him by the hand.
“Come along!”
They ran down the passage into the study and locked the door.
“Which is the drawer?”
“The writing-table--the one to the right.”
Herold flew to it and tried it. His vision had been false: it was
locked. He sat down in John's worn leather writing-chair and pulled out
his bunches of keys. One after another he tried them. Some were too
large, others too small. Now and then one fitted into the keyhole and
turned slightly in the wards.
“It 's coming.”
“Yes--no.”
“Let me try; it won't do.”
The perspiration streamed upon their faces, and their fingers shook.
Sometimes the tried keys slid back into the bunch, and all had to be
tried over again. A piano organ which had been playing maddeningly in
front of the house ceased suddenly, and there was the silence of
death in the room, broken only by the rattle of the keys and the tense
breathing of the two.
At last they assured themselves that none of the keys would fit. They
tried to wrench the drawer open by the handles, but the workmanship
was stout. It was clattering discord. They searched the room for some
instrument to pick or break open the lock. They rummaged among unlocked
drawers filled with papers, old letters, bits of sealing-wax, forgotten
pipes thrown together haphazard after the fashion of an untidy man. They
found many rusty keys, which they tried in vain.
“We must break it open,” said Herold.
He sent Unity for a screw-driver, and during her short absence looked
through the papers in the baskets on the table; but they gave no clue.
Unity returned, and locked the door again behind her. Once more they
wrenched and jerked the drawer, and this time it gave sufficiently for
the edge of the screw-driver to be inserted. And at last the woodwork
broke away from the lock and the drawer flew open, and there lay the
bright revolver on the sealed envelope just as Unity had described.
Herold sank into the writing-chair, and Unity steadied herself, her
hands behind her, against the table.
They regarded each other for a while, pale, panting, breathless.
“Thank God!” he whispered.
“Yes, thank God!”
So they remained, recovering from their almost intolerable relief. John
Risca had not killed himself. It was a conclusion logical enough. The
probability was that he was alive. But where? What had become of him?
With what frenzied intention had he fled from the house?
Presently Unity drew up her squat little figure and closed the mutilated
drawer.
“Can she have anything to do with it?” she asked, looking at him
steadily.
“She?”
“Yes.”
There was no need of explanation. “She” was the incarnation in woman of
all evil. He rose from the chair, putting his hand to his forehead. He
had not thought of her in connection with John's disappearance; judged
in the light of the morning's revelation, the connection was more than
possible. Of no ingenuity of fiendishness was the woman incapable.
“What made you think of her?”
“How can I help thinking of her?” said Unity.
“It is the she-devil,” he cried excitedly. “She has been at work
already. My God! I have it!” He smote his palm with the fist of the
other hand. “She has told him.”
“What?”
“She went down to Southcliff and saw Stellamaris. She poisoned her ears
with hideous things. She was going to throw her over the cliff.”
Unity, a queer light behind her patient eyes, crept up close to him, and
an ugly look accentuated the coarseness of her features.
“She dared? She dared to speak to my precious one? What did she say?
Tell me.”
“She told her she was John's deserted wife, and that you--” he hesitated
for a moment, and saw that he was not dealing with a young girl, but
with a tragic woman--“and that you were his mistress.”
Unity closed her eyes for a moment and swallowed the horror. Then she
looked at him again.
“And what else?”
“She gave to her innocent soul to understand what a mistress was. She
taunted her and jeered at her. She had her at her mercy.”
“When did you learn this?”
“This morning, from Stellamaris herself. I told her the whole truth from
beginning to end, but, God help her! her soul is so poisoned that she
does n't know whether to believe the woman or me.”
“If he knew that--if he knew that,” said Unity, slowly, “he would murder
her.”
“Would to God she were murdered!” cried Herold in a shrill voice. “Would
to God she were dead! She should be killed outright like a wild beast.
But not by him, oh, not by him! It would be whirling catastrophe and
chaos.” He walked wildly and uttered senseless things. Then he halted.
“But why should he know? Why should she tell him? Why should she invite
her own destruction? No, she can't have told him.” He took her by her
shoulders. “Unity, he must never know. He would kill her. It's a hanging
matter. It's unthinkable. Swear you will never tell him.”
“I 'll never tell him,” said Unity.
“He must be saved,” continued Herold, on the same note, his sensitive
face pinched and his eyes eager. “And she must be saved. All this is
killing them both--both of those who matter all the world to you and me.
This thing of infamy is standing between them and blasting their lives.
She will live, and they will be destroyed.”
“If she were dead, would they come together?” asked Unity.
“Why not? What's to prevent them? Time and love would clear up clouds.
But she--the unutterable--she will live. She will work in the dark, as
she did that night when she stabbed you.”
“I'm not thinking of that,” said Unity.
“But I am.” He waved her disclaimer aside, not appreciating for the
moment how immeasurably was she lifted above the plane of personal
desire for vengeance. “I am,” he repeated. “She is walking murder. She
meant to murder you. She meant to murder Stellamaris. Think of it!” He
threw out his arms in a wide gesture. “There's a path down there--round
the face of the cliff--”
“I know it,” said Unity. “There 's a bench. I used to sit there.”
“She lured her there. You know--it's sheer above and sheer below and
rocks beneath. She played with her, cat and mouse, would have thrown her
over, dashed her down, Unity--dashed that precious, beautiful body down
on to the rocks! But she did n't. God sent somebody to save her--to save
her life that time. But she failed. She will try again. She will work
her devilishness against her--against him--against you.”
“I tell you, I don't care what she does to me,” she interrupted
roughly. “What the hell does it matter what she does to me?”--It was the
aboriginal gutter transcendentalized that spoke--'“Leave me and her out
of it. I 've nothing against her. I 'm not a silly fool. If it had n't
been for her, I should n't be here living like a lady. I ain't a
lady, but I'm supposed to be one. And I should n't have known him, and
I should n't have loved him. And I should n't have known my precious
one--and I should n't have known you. I should have scrubbed floors and
washed up plates in a lodging-house--all I was fit for. I 've nothing
against her--nothing. She can do what she likes with me; but with him
and her--” She broke off on the up-note.
“Yes, you and I don't matter. We can put our foot on the neck of our own
little devils, can't we?”
Somehow he found his hands round Unity's cheeks and his eyes looking
into hers; she suffered the nervous clasp gladly, knowing, in her pure
girl's heart, that he was a good man, that he loved Stellamaris as she
loved John, and that he loved John as she loved Stellamaris. Brother
and sister, in a spiritual relation singularly perfect in this imperfect
world, they stood, the gentleman of birth and breeding, the artist, the
finely fibred man of wide culture, and Unity Blake, whose mother had
died of drink in a slum in Notting Hill Gate a year after her father had
died in prison, and of whom Miss Lindon despaired of ever making a lady.
There came a twisting of the door handle. They fell apart. Then came a
tapping at the door. Herold turned the key and opened. It was Phoebe,
elderly and gaunt. She clasped her hands tight in front of her.
“Oh, sir! oh, sir!” she said.
“What's the matter?”
“Master--he's found. Your servant has just telephoned. Mr. Risca 's met
with an accident and is at your house, and will you please go there at
once?”
THEY found him lying on the sofa, a pitiable object, the whole of his
head from the back of his neck to his eyebrows swathed in bandages. His
clothes were mere limp and discoloured wrappings. They looked as though
they had been wet through, for the red of his tie had run into his
shirt-front and collar. The coarse black sprouts on pallid cheek and
upper lip gave him an appearance of indescribable grime. His eyes were
sunken and feverish.
Unity uttered a little cry as she saw him, but checked it quickly, and
threw herself on her knees by his side.
“Thank God you 're alive!”
He put his hand on her head.
“I 'm all right,” he said faintly; “but you should n't have come. That
's why I did n't go straight home. I did n't want to frighten you. I 'm
a ghastly sight, and I should have scared your aunt out of her wits.”
“But how, in Heaven's name, man,” said Herold, “did you get into this
state?”
“Something hit me over the head, and I spent the night in rain and
sea-water on the rocks.”
“On the rocks? Where? At Southcliff?”
“Yes,” said John, “at Southcliff. I was a fool to go down, but I 've
been a fool all my life, so a bit more folly does n't matter.” He closed
his eyes. “Give me a drink, Wallie--some brandy.”
Herold went into the dining-room, which adjoined the library, and
returned with decanter, syphon, and glasses. He poured out a brandy and
soda for John and watched him drink it; then he realized that he, too,
would be the better for stimulant. With an abstemious man's idea of
taking brandy as medicine, he poured out for himself an extravagant
dose, mixed a little soda-water with it, and gulped it down.
“That 'll do me good,” said John; but on saying it he fell to shivering,
despite the heat of the summer afternoon.
“You 've caught a chill,” cried Unity. She counselled home and bed at
once.
“Not yet,” he murmured. “It was all I could do to get here. Let me rest
for a couple of hours. I shall be all right. I'm not going to bed,”
he declared with sudden irritability; “I 've never gone to bed in the
daytime in my life. I've never been ill, and I'm not going to be ill
now. I'm only stiff and tired.”
“You 'll go to bed here right away,” said Herold.
John protested. Herold insisted.
“Those infernal clothes--you must get them off at once,” said he. John
being physically weak, his natural obstinacy gave way. Unity saw the
sense of the suggestion; but it was giving trouble.
“Not a bit,” said Herold. “There 's a spare bedroom. John can have mine,
which is aired. Mrs. Ripley will see to it.”
He went out to give the necessary orders. Unity busied herself with
unlacing and taking off the stiffened boots. Herold returned, beckoned
to Unity, and whispered that he had telephoned for a doctor. Then he
said to John:
“How are you feeling, dear old man?”
“My head's queer, devilish queer. Something fell on it last night and
knocked me out of time. It was raining, and I was sheltering under the
cliff on the beach, the other side of the path, where you can see the
lights of the house, when down came the thing. I must have recovered
just before dawn, for I remember staggering about in a dazed way. I must
have taken the road round the cliff, thinking it the upper road, and
missed my footing and fallen down. I came to about nine this morning, on
the rocks, the tide washing over my legs. I 'm black and blue all over.
Wonder I did n't break my neck. But I 'm tough.”
“Thank God you 're alive!” said Unity again.
He passed his hands over his eyes. “Yes. You must have thought all
manner of things, dear. I did n't realize till Ripley told me that I
had n't let you know. I went out, meaning to catch the 7:15 and come
back by the last train. But this thing knocked all memory out of me. I'm
sorry.”
Herold looked in bewilderment at the stricken giant. Even now he had not
accounted for the lunatic and almost tragic adventure. What was he doing
on the beach in the rain? What were the happenings subsequent to his
recovering consciousness at nine o'clock?
“Does it worry you to talk?” he asked.
“No. It did at first--I mean this morning. But I'm all right now--nearly
all right. I'd like to tell you. I picked myself up, all over blood,
a devil of a mess, and crawled to the doctor's--not Ransome; the other
chap, Theed. He 's the nearest; and, besides, I did n't want to go to
Ransome. I don't think any one saw me. Theed took me in and fixed me up
and dried my clothes. Of course he wanted to drag me to the Channel
House, but I would n't let him. I made him swear not to tell them. I
don't want them to know. Neither of you must say anything. He also tried
to fit me out. But, you know, he 's about five foot nothing; it was
absurd. As soon as I could manage it, he stuck me in a train, much
against his will, and I came on here. That 's all.”
“If only I had known!” said Herold. “I was down there all the morning.”
“You?”
“I had a letter from Julia, summoning me.”
“So had I.” He closed his eyes again for a moment. Then he asked, “How
is Stella?”
“I had a long talk with her. I may have straightened things out a bit.
She 'll come round. There's no cause for worry for the present. Julia
is a good soul, but she has no sense of proportion, and where Stella is
concerned she exaggerates.”
When a man has had rocks fall on his head, and again has fallen on his
head upon rocks, it is best to soothe what is left of his mind. And
after Walter had partly soothed it,--a very difficult matter, first,
because it was in a troubled and despairing state, and, secondly,
because, John, never having taken Unity into his confidence, references
had to be veiled,--he satisfied the need of another brandy and soda.
Then Ripley came in to announce that the room was ready.
“Ripley and I will see to him,” said Herold to Unity. “You had better go
and fetch him a change of clothes and things he may want.”
“May n't I wait till the doctor comes?” she pleaded.
“Of course, my dear. There 's no hurry,” said Herold.
The two men helped Risca to his feet, and, taking him to the bedroom,
undressed him, clothed him in warm pyjamas, and put him into the bed,
where a hot-water bottle diffused grateful heat. Herold had seen the
livid bruises on his great, muscular limbs.
“Any one but you,” said he, with forced cheeriness, “would have been
smashed to bits, like an egg.”
“I tell you I'm tough,” John growled. “It's only to please you that I
submit to this silly foolery of going to bed.”
As soon as Ripley was dismissed, he called Herold to his side.
“I would like to tell you everything, Wallie. I could n't in the other
room. Unity, poor child, knows nothing at all about things. Naturally.
I had been worried all the afternoon. I thought I saw her--you
know--hanging about outside the office. It was just before I met you at
the club. I did n't tell you,--perhaps I ought to,--but that was why
I was so upset. But you 'll forgive me. You 've always forgiven me.
Anyway, I thought I saw her. It was just a flash, for she, if it was
she, was swallowed up in the traffic of Fleet Street. After leaving the
club, I went back to the office--verification in proofs of something
in Baxter's article. I found odds and ends to do. Then I went home, and
Julia's letter lay on my table. I've been off my head of late, Wallie.
For the matter of that, I'm still off it. I've hardly slept for weeks. I
found Julia's letter. I looked at my watch. There was just time to catch
the 7:15. I ran out, jumped into a taxi, and caught it just as it
was starting. But as I passed by a third-class carriage,--in fact, I
realized it only after I had gone several yards beyond; one rushes, you
know,--I seemed to see her face--those thin lips and cold eyes--framed
in the window. The guard pitched me into a carriage. I looked out for
her at all the stations. At Tring Bay the usual crowd got out. I did
n't see her. No one like her got out at Southcliff. What 's the matter,
Wallie?” He broke off suddenly.
“Nothing, man; nothing,” said Herold, turning away and fumbling for his
cigarette-case.
“You looked as if you had seen a ghost. It was I who saw the ghost.”
He laughed. And the laugh, coming from the haggard face below the
brow-reaching white bandage, was horrible.
“Your brain was playing you tricks,” said Herold. “You got to
Southcliff. What happened?”
“I felt a fool,” said John. “Can't you see what a fool a man feels when
he knows he has played the fool?”
Bit by bit he revealed himself. At the gate of the Channel House he
reflected. He had not the courage to enter. Stella would be up and
about. He resolved to wait until she went to bed. He wandered down
to the beach. The rain began to fall, fine, almost imperceptible.
The beacon-light in the west window threw a vanishing shaft into the
darkness.
“We saw it once--don't you remember?--years ago when you gave her the
name--Stellamaris. I sat like a fool and watched the window. How long I
don't know. My God! Wallie, you don't know what it is to be shaken and
racked by the want of a woman--”
“By love for a woman, you mean,” said Herold.
“It 's the same thing. At last I saw her. She stood defiant in the
light. She had changed. I cried out toward her like an idiot,”--the
rugged, grim half face visible beneath the bandage was grotesque, a
parody of passion,--“and I stayed there, watching, after she had gone
away. How long I don't know. It was impossible to ring at the door and
see Oliver and Julia.”
He laughed again. “You must have some sense of humour, my dear man.
Fancy Oliver and Julia! What could I have said to them? What could they
have said to me? I sat staring up at her window. The rain was falling.
Everything was still. It was night. You know how quiet everything is
there. Then I seemed to hear footsteps and I turned, and a kind of
shape--a woman's--disappeared. I know I was off my head, but I began to
think. I had a funny experience once--I 've never told you. It was the
day she came out of prison. I sat down in St. James's Park and fell half
asleep,--that sort of dog sleep one has when one's tired,--and I
thought I saw her going for Stella--Stella in her bed at the Channel
House--going to strangle her. This came into my mind, and then
something hit me,--a chunk of overhanging cliff loosened by the rain, I
suppose,--and, as I 've told you, it knocked me out. But it's devilish
odd that she should be mixed up in it.”
“As I said, your brain was playing you tricks,” said Herold, outwardly
calm; but within himself he shuddered. The woman was like a foul spirit
hovering unseen about those he loved.
Presently the doctor, a young man with a cheery face, came in and made
his examination. There was no serious damage done. The only thing
to fear was the chill. If the patient's temperature went down in the
morning, he could quite safely be moved to his own home. For the present
rest was imperative, immediate sleep desirable. He wrote a prescription,
and with pleasant words went away. Then Unity, summoned to the room,
heard the doctor's comforting opinion.
“I 'll be with you to-morrow,” said John.
“You don't mind leaving him to Mrs. Ripley and me just for one night?”
asked Herold.
“He 's always safe with you,” Unity replied, her eyes fixed not on him,
but on John Risca. “Good-bye, Guardian dear.”
John drew an arm from beneath the bedclothes and put it round her thin
shoulders. “Good-by, dear. Forgive me for giving you such a fright, and
make my peace with auntie. You 'll be coming back with my things, won't
you?”
“Of course; but you 'll be asleep then.”
“I should n't wonder,” said John.
She made him cover up his arm again and tucked the bedclothes snugly
about him, her finger-tips lingering by his cheeks.
“I 'll leave you, too. Try and get to sleep,” said Herold.
They went together out of the room and back to the library.
“Has he said anything more?”
He stood before her trembling all over.
“What is the matter?”
He burst into an uncontrollable cry. “It 's that hellish woman again!
He saw her spying on him outside his office, he saw her in a railway
carriage on the train he took. Because she disappeared each time, he
thinks it was an hallucination; and somehow he was aware of her presence
just before the piece of rock came down.”
Unity's face beneath the skimpy hair and rubbishy tam-o'-shanter was
white and strained.
“She threw it. I knew she threw it.”
“So do I. He saw her. She disappeared as she did that night in the fog.
A woman like that is n't human. She has the power of disappearing at
will. You can't measure her cunning.”
“What did he go down for?”
He told her. Unity's lips twitched.
“And he sat there in the rain just looking at her window?”
She put out her hand. “Good-bye, Mr. Herold. When you see Miss
Stellamaris, you 'll tell her I'm a good girl--in that way, you
know--and that I love her. She has been a kind of beautiful angel
to me--has always been with me. It's funny; I can't explain. But you
understand. If you'd only let her see that, I'd be so happy--and perhaps
she'd be happier.”
“I 'll do my utmost,” said Herold.
He accompanied her down-stairs, and when she had gone, he returned to
the library and walked about. The horror of the woman was upon him.
He drank another brandy and soda. After a while Ripley came in with
a soiled card on a tray. He looked at it stupidly--“Mr. Edwin
Travers”--and nodded.
“Shall I show the gentleman up?”
He nodded again, thinking of the woman.
When the visitor came in he vaguely recognized him as a broken-down
actor, a colleague of early days. As in a dream he bade the man sit
down, and gave him cigarettes and drink, and heard with his outer ears
an interminable tale of misfortune. At the end of it he went to his desk
and wrote out a cheque, which he handed to his guest.
“I can't thank you, old man. I don't know how to. But as soon as I can
get an engagement--hello, old man,” he cried, glancing at the cheque,
“you've made a funny mistake--the name!”
Herold took the slip of paper, and saw that he had made the sum payable
not to Edwin Travers, but to Louisa Risca. It was a shock, causing
him to brace his faculties. He wrote out another cheque, and the man
departed.
He went softly into John's room and found him sleeping peacefully.
Soon afterward Ripley announced that dinner was ready. It was past six
o'clock.
“Great Heavens!” he cried aloud, “I've got to play to-night.”
After a hurried wash he went into the dining-room and sat down at the
table, but the sight and smell of food revolted him. He swallowed a few
mouthfuls of soup; the rest of the dinner he could not touch. The horror
of the woman had seized him again. He drank some wine, pushed back his
chair, and threw down his table-napkin.
“I don't want anything else. I 'm going for a walk. I 'll see you later
at the theatre.”
The old-fashioned Kensington street, with its double line of Queen Anne
houses slumbering in the afternoon sunshine, was a mellow blur before
his eyes. Whither he was going he knew: what he was going to do he knew
not. The rigid self-control of the day, relaxed at times, but always
kept within grip, had at last escaped him. Want of food and the
unaccustomed drink had brought about an abnormal state of mind. He was
aware of direction, aware, too, of the shadow-shapes of men and women
passing him by, of traffic in the roadway. He walked straight,
alert, his gait and general demeanour unaffected, his outer senses
automatically alive. He walked down the narrow, shady Church Street,
and paused for a moment or two by the summer greenery of Kensington
Churchyard until there was an opportunity of crossing the High Street,
now at the height of its traffic. He strode westward past the great
shops, a lithe man in the full vigour of his manhood. Here and there
a woman lingering in front of displays of millinery recognized the
well-known actor and nudged her companion.
The horror within him had grown to a consuming thing of flame. Instead
of the quiet thoroughfares down which he turned, he saw picture after
shuddering picture--the woman and Stellamaris, the woman and John
Risca. She attacked soul as well as body. The pictures took the forms of
horrible grotesques. Within, his mind worked amazingly, like a machine
escaped from human control and running with blind relentlessness. He had
said years ago that he would pass through his hell-fire. He was passing
through it now.
The destroyer must be kept from destroying or be destroyed. Which of
these should be accomplished through his agency? One or the other. Of
one thing he was certain, with an odd, undoubting certainty: that he
would find her, and finding her, that he would let loose upon her the
wrath of God. She should be chained up forever or he would strangle her.
Shivering thrills diabolically delicious ran through him at the thought.
Supposing he strangled her as he would a mad cat? That were better.
She would be out of the world. He would be fulfilling his destiny of
sacrifice. For the woman he loved and for the man he loved why should
he not do this thing? What but a legal quibble could call it murder?
Stellamaris's words rang in his ears: “You say you love me like that?”
“Yes, I love you like that. I love you like that,” he cried below his
breath as he walked on.
He knew where she lived, the name by which she passed. John had told
him many times. There were few things in John's life he did not know. He
knew of the Bences, of Mrs. Oscraft, the fluffy-haired woman who lived
in the flat below. Amelia Mansions, he was aware, were in the Fulham
Road. But when he reached that thoroughfare, he stood dazed and
irresolute, realizing that he did not know which way to turn. A passing
postman gave him the necessary information. The trivial contact with
the commonplace restored in a measure his mental balance. He went on. By
Brompton Cemetery he felt sick and faint and clung for a minute or two
to the railings. He had eaten nothing since early morning, and then only
a scrap of bacon and toast; he had drunk brandy and wine, and he had
lived through the day in which the maddening stress of a lifetime had
been concentrated.
One or two passers-by stared at him, for he was as white as a sheet.
A comfortable, elderly woman, some small shop-keeper's wife, addressed
him. Was he ill? Could she do anything for him? The questioning was
a lash. He drew himself up, smiled, raised his hat, thanked her
courteously. It was nothing. He went on, loathing himself as men do when
the flesh fails beneath the whip of the spirit.
He was well now, his mind clear. He was going to the woman. He would
save those he loved. If it were necessary to kill her, he would kill
her. On that point his brain worked with startling clarity. If he did
not kill her, she would be eventually killed by John; for John, he
argued, could not remain in ignorance forever. If John killed her, he
would be hanged. Much better that he, Walter Herold, whom Stellamaris
did not love, should be hanged than John--much better. And what the
deuce did it matter to anybody whether he were hanged or not? He laughed
at the elementary logic of the proposition. The solution of all the
infernally intricate problems of life is, if people only dared face
it, one of childish simplicity. It was laughable. Walter Herold laughed
aloud in the Fulham Road.
It was so easy, so uncomplicated. He would see her. He would do what he
had to do. Then he would take a taxi-cab to the theatre. He must play
to-night. Of course he would. There was no reason why he should n't.
Only he hoped that Leonora Gurney would n't worry him. He would manage
to avoid her during that confounded wait in the first act, when she
always tried to get him to talk. He would play the part all right. He
was a man and not a stalk of wet straw. After the performance he would
give himself up. No one would be inconvenienced. He would ask the
authorities to hurry on matters and give him a short shrift and a long
rope; but the length of the rope did n't matter these days, when they
just broke your neck. There was no one dependent on him. His brothers
and sisters, many years his seniors,--he had not seen them since he was
a child,--had all gone after their father's death to an uncle in New
Zealand. They were there still. The mother, who had remained with him,
the Benjamin, in England, had died while he was at Cambridge. He was
free from family-ties. And women? He was free, too. There had only been
one woman in his life, the child of cloud and sea foam.
Stellamaris, star of the sea, now dragged through the mire of mortal
things! She should go back. She should go back to her firmament, shining
down upon, and worshipped by, the man she loved. And he, God!--he should
be spared the terrifying agony of it.
Thus worked the brain which Walter Herold told himself was crystal
clear.
It was clear enough, however, to follow the postman's directions. He
took the turning indicated and found the red-brick block, with the name
“Amelia Mansions” carved in stone over the entrance door. The by-street
seemed to be densely populated. He went into the entrance-hall and
mechanically looked at the list of names. Mrs. Rawlings's name was
followed by No. 7. He mounted the stairs. On the landing of No. 7 there
were a couple of policemen, and the flat door was open, and the length
of the passage was visible. Herold was about to enter when they stopped
him.
“You can't go in, sir.”
“I want Mrs. Rawlings.”
“No one can go in.”
He stood confused, bewildered. An elderly, buxom, woman, with a
horrified face, who just then happened to come out of a room near the
doorway, saw him and came forward.
“You are Mr. Herold,” she asked.
“Yes; I want to see Mrs. Rawlings.”
“It 's all right, constable,” she said in a curiously cracked voice.
“Let this gentleman pass. Come in, sir. I am Mrs. Bence.”
He entered the passage. She spoke words to him the import of which he
did not catch. His brain was perplexed by the guard of policemen and the
open flat. She led him a short distance down the passage. He stumbled
over a packed kit-bag. She threw open a door. He crossed the threshold
of a vulgarly furnished drawing-room, the electric lights turned on
despite the daylight of the July evening. There were four figures in
the room. Standing and scribbling in note-books were two men, one in the
uniform of a sergeant of police, the other in a frock-coat, obviously
a medical man. On the floor were two women, both dead. One was John
Risca's wife, and the other was Unity. And near by them lay a new,
bright revolver.