WHAT MRS. CARRUTH SAW.
All sorts of things have happened--past all belief. Tommy Tennant has
been arrested for murder--for the murder of me! Those wise police! And
Reginald Townsend is coming to dine.
But let us proceed in order. Each thing in its place, and one at a
time.
To take two or three things to begin with. The muddle they have made
about what happened at Three Bridges is, really, in its way, quite
marvellous. And it all pans out so clean--or seems to--to those who are
looking on. No one is talking of anything else, and some of them talk
of it to me. It only wants Mr. Townsend to favour me with a few
remarks, and Tommy to add a postscript, to make me begin to think that
I must be dreaming.
They have found the porter who saw me into the train at Brighton, and
he has declared that the corpse is me! What a sweet creature that
porter man must be! And they have found the porter who saw Tommy get
out of the empty, blood-stained carriage at Victoria. But how they have
found Tommy himself I don't, as yet, altogether understand. I know they
have not found me.
I have had another sight of Tommy since the one on that first
night--or, rather, so early in the morning. And, again, the manner of
it was curious.
I have been in rather a predicament since I realised that Tommy and I
were neighbours. There has been a certain delicacy about the situation.
I might tell tales of him--he is married! I have seen his wife--such a
pretty woman; but, unless I am mistaken, she wears the breeches! But
they would not do him a tithe of the injury his tales would do me. And
we women are so handicapped. The justice of the world is so unjust. A
man may steal the horse, while we may not look over the hedge.
Primitive civilisations are, after all, in certain respects, the best;
but then they lack the very things we want!
I'm a widow--_bonâ fide_. I could put down as much hard cash, dollar
for dollar, as many women who are famed for riches. I want to begin
again. I have ambitions. I want to ruffle it among the best of them.
Why shouldn't I? I have the qualities. So I have taken this highly
respectable house in this highly respectable street, and furnished it
in a highly respectable manner. I wanted to look about me--to find out
where I am. I did not want to start with a splash, or folks would want
to know who I was. And there are people who could tell them. For
instance, Tommy for one. I want some one to launch me; some one fully
equipped with the necessary equipment to give me a good send-off.
Tommy, if he liked, could spoil me. On the thin ice of my perfect
respectability, at this stage of the game, I stand or fall; and, if I
do fall, I fall right in. If I had known that Tommy and I were
neighbours, I should have behaved in a very different fashion when I
discovered we were fellow-passengers. I should have shown a spirit of
Christian forgiveness; and, in excusing the past, I should have buried
the hatchet. Tommy is a good-hearted creature, in his way. I could have
easily induced him to hold his tongue, or even to assist me with a
helping hand.
Now that boat is burned!
My first impulse, when I discovered that we were neighbours, was to fly
before he made the same discovery on his own account. Had he chosen, he
might have made my position absolutely untenable. While this mood was
on me, I did my little best to conceal the fact. When I went out, I
took care not to pass his house, lest he should see me from the
windows. And the funny part of it was that the first time I did pass
his house, he saw me.
The papers were full of the Three Bridges tragedy. The hue-and-cry was
hot against the man who had travelled in that blood-stained carriage.
What amazed me was his continued silence. It showed not only abject
cowardice, but drivelling idiocy to boot. Anything was better--for
him!--than keeping still. It was the Friday night. I had some letters
to post. I had a headache. I felt that I must have some fresh air, or a
change of air if fresh air was not obtainable; so I took them myself to
the pillar-box at the end of the road. Doing so involved passing
Tommy's residence. But it was dark; there was more than the suspicion
of fog--the risk seemed small.
I went on the opposite side of the street. The fog was so thick that,
when I had despatched the letters, it seemed absurd to take
precautions.
"I'll stroll back past Tommy's. Why should I be afraid of him?"
I strolled. The fog appeared to be thicker every moment. The houses in
the street, externally, were as like as two peas. I really found it
difficult to find out exactly whereabouts I was. I was thinking of
Tommy, and of how eagerly he was being hunted, and of what a sensation
I might make by sending his address to Scotland Yard--when there he was
in front of me!
Right close in front of me!
He was standing at the bottom of a flight of steps--his own
steps--hatless, his hands in his trousers' pockets, as if, like me, he
had come out to get a change of air. Suddenly he became conscious of my
presence. He turned my way, and stared. The encounter was more than I
had bargained for. It made me feel a trifle awkward. But the effect
which it had on him was most astounding. The look which came upon his
face actually frightened me--it's a fact! I had not thought that a
human countenance could have been capable of an expression of such
awful horror. To look at him--and I had to look!--made me go all cold.
As I advanced, he went--automatically, I am sure--backwards up the
steps, never removing his eyes from off me, the awful something that
was on his face intensifying every second. At the bottom of the steps I
paused--I had to; something made me. I don't know what he thought; but,
as he saw me standing there, he made a convulsive movement backwards,
went into the house, and banged the door.
I am cool enough as a rule. It takes something to put me off my
balance. But I was off my balance then. The whole thing was so unlooked
for, and seemed so strange; it unnerved me. When Tommy had gone I found
that I was trembling.
But the incident was not by any means concluded.
When I had gone a few steps further on, I all but cannoned into what
seemed to be a crowd of men, who, of malice prepense, were blocking up
the pavement. What with the fog and my state of fluster, I did not
perceive what they were till I was right upon them.
They were policemen.
My nerves were in such a condition of tension that, when I realised
that fact, it was all I could do to prevent myself from screaming.
"I beg your pardon," I mumbled. "I did not see you."
"It's all right, miss," said a voice. "Pass on."
I passed on. But I had not passed on another dozen yards when, it
seemed to me, by a sort of inspiration, I guessed what might have
brought them there. What _might_ have brought them there? What had?
Be the consequences what they might, I felt that I must stay and see
what was about to happen. Turning, I went back a little way; and,
keeping as much in the shadow as I could, I stood and watched.
A man, who was dressed in ordinary private clothes, went on in front.
The policemen divided in two sections. Two of them followed closely on
this man's heels. The rest went out into the road.
Just as I expected, the man in plain clothes passed up Tommy's steps.
He hammered with the knocker at Tommy's door. The door was opened. He
went in. The two policemen went in with him.
I knew that, even while I was standing watching there, Tommy was being
arrested for the murder of me!
The confusion of my ideas filled me with panic terror. He had seen me
not a minute back. He had only to tell the policemen so. They would
come and find me there. There would be an end to all my dreams.
I rushed home. For the first time in my life I could not sleep. Indeed,
I scarcely tried to sleep. All night I lay in agony. A thousand
thoughts came crowding on my brain. I lost my self-control. I was half
stupefied with fear. I wished that there were a hundred miles between
my house and Tommy's. More than once, even in the middle of the night,
I nearly made a bolt of it. I was so oppressed by the consciousness
that he had only to send these policemen five doors along the street,
and there was I.
But I did not lose every fragment of common sense. I did not become an
utter fool. When the morning came, I was still there to see it out.
Next day I never moved outside the door. I bought all the evening
papers. They were selling them in the streets all day. Tommy filled
them all. "Arrest of the Three Bridges Murderer!" "Examination before
the Magistrates!" They were shouting the words in the streets all day.
It seemed that they had taken him to East Grinstead, wherever that
might be, early in the morning, and brought him before the magistrates
directly they got him there. To me the whole business was amazing. Why
had he not told them at once that he had seen me, and put the police on
my track? I was close at hand. They could scarcely have failed to find
me. So far as he was concerned, there would have been an end of the
affair upon the spot.
But Tommy's ways always were beyond my finding out.
What the newspapers called his examination was of the most perfunctory
kind. The police simply said that they had arrested him, and he was
remanded for a week.
And on Thursday Mr. Townsend was coming to dine.