MRS. CARRUTH REMOVES HER VEIL.
After luncheon came the speeches.
Sir Haselton Jardine's was as deadly as it very well could have been.
He was not a bit of an orator. He reminded one of an automatic figure
as much as anything, as if he had been wound up to go. He went quietly
on, in the same placid, passionless sort of whisper, but as clear as a
bell. One never lost a syllable he uttered. He never faltered or
stumbled. The words, as they flowed from him, were exactly adapted to
the meaning they were intended to convey. He fitted them together with
the dexterity of an artist in mosaic.
One began almost to feel that one was listening to the voice of doom.
He recounted the story. He observed that it did not appear to be
disputed that the prisoner had travelled in the same compartment with
the woman who was dead. He did not know what the defence would be. But
if it was intended to suggest that death had been the result of
accident, he asked the attention of the jury to the medical evidence.
It was shown by that that death had not been caused by falling from the
train. The woman had been strangled--strangled by a man's two hands.
The degree of violence which had been used not only inevitably
suggested premeditation, but also great resolution in carrying out what
had been premeditated. The murderer had resolved to kill, and he did
kill.
They could not say with certainty what happened after the train left
Brighton. A feature of the case was that the efforts of the police had
failed in establishing the dead woman's identity. So far as they could
discover she was nameless. No one had come forward to claim her--to say
who she was. She seemed to have come from nowhere. No one seemed to
have missed her now that she had gone. It was a mystery. He could not
say if the prisoner had it in his power to supply them with the key to
that mystery. Men live double lives. The witness Taunton had told them
that what he had heard had caused him to conclude that the man and
woman in the next compartment were acquaintances. That might have been
the case. In that connection he would merely remark--that the prisoner
was a married man; that the woman was young and pretty; that she was
far advanced in pregnancy; that she wore no wedding-ring.
In these facts they might, possibly, find a motive for the crime.
A great crime had been committed. A young woman, scarcely more than a
girl, who would shortly have become a mother, had been done to death.
So far as one could perceive, there were no palliating circumstances.
It was the other way. The crime was the act of a coward, as well as of
a criminal. He did not desire to press the case unduly against the
prisoner. It was his duty to ask them, as jurymen, if the facts which
had been presented were not adequate to bring the crime home to him. If
they deemed them inadequate, then, without showing fear or favour, it
was their duty to say so.
Sir Haselton Jardine sat down.
And Mr. Bates got up.
Mr. Bates began by remarking that he did not propose to call any
witnesses for the defence.
Then, in that case, in view of the body of evidence which had been
called for the other side, Tommy's goose was cooked, and he was done
for. Mr. Bates might have as well kept still. A general movement which
took place in the court seemed to be a voiceless expression of this
consensus of opinion.
Mr. Bates said that, in taking this course, he was almost overwhelmed
by a sense of responsibility. That was chiefly owing to the fact that
the law of England was still in such a state that the prisoner could
not go into the box and testify. He was exceedingly anxious to give his
testimony, but it could not be received as evidence. If he had spoken
out at first he might not, and probably would not, have been in the
position which he was occupying now. But he had shrunk from the course
which a wiser man would have pursued--shrunk from it for reasons which
were natural enough, but which still, he was bound to say, were
insufficient. Now it was too late. His voice could not be heard.
It was his duty, as the prisoner's advocate, to lay before the jury the
prisoner's story.
Then Mr. Bates told what had really happened, and told it very well
indeed. His story was literally accurate. I did not detect a single
discrepancy. I think I should have done! He was frank almost to a
fault. He nothing extenuated, nothing set down in malice. Nothing was
omitted--even the dotting of the i's.
And yet I doubt if a soul in court, with the exception, perhaps, of
Tommy's wife, believed a word he said.
To me, listening up there, the thing was inconceivably funny.
The chief difficulty which Mr. Bates had to contend with, as he owned,
and as one perceived without his owning it, was the medical evidence.
He admitted that it was difficult to reconcile it with the prisoner's
story. The prisoner declared that he did not understand it; that it had
come upon him with the force of a surprise.
His theory was that the woman had been stunned by her fall from the
train. As she was unconscious, or before she had recovered, some
straggling vagabond had found her lying on the bank. He had robbed her.
To effect his purpose he had had to add murder to robbery. The
prosecution had not laid stress upon the point, but she evidently had
been robbed. There was not the slightest tittle of evidence to connect
the prisoner with the robbery, so counsel for the Crown had been wise
not to dwell upon it. On the other hand there was complete absence of
motive, and the fact that nothing of any sort could have belonged to
the dead woman had been found in the possession of the prisoner.
He admitted that the suggestion that murder had been committed after
the fall from the carriage was well worthy the attention of the jury.
The prisoner made a mistake--which however, he submitted, was the
mistake which we might naturally have expected from a constitutionally
nervous man--in not giving the alarm immediately the accident took
place. He ought to have spoken when they reached Victoria. He ought not
to have allowed himself to be frightened by the blackmailing Taunton.
But, after all, these were all mistakes which a perfectly innocent man,
of his constitution, in his position, might have made. We none of us
could absolutely rely upon having our wits about us when we most wanted
them.
The prisoner had made mistakes. He owned it. But he begged the jury to
consider that the law did not permit him to put the prisoner into the
witness-box, and that the prisoner was convinced that, if he only might
be suffered to tell his tale his innocence would be established. Above
all, he entreated them not to send a fellow-creature to an ignominious
death because he had yielded to the promptings of a timorous
constitution and had not played the man.
When Mr. Bates sat down the judge summed up.
And he did it very briefly.
He pooh-poohed Mr. Bates's story altogether. He told the jury that they
were at liberty to believe it, if they could. But it was not supported
by a shred of evidence. It was disproved in several essential
particulars, and it was his duty to inform them that it was contrary to
every principle of English law that an _ex parte_ statement which was
without any sort of corroboration should be allowed to weigh, for an
instant, against a large and authenticated body of evidence which had
been sworn to by credible and impartial witnesses. At the same time, if
there was any doubt in their minds, let the prisoner have the benefit
of it; though, so far as he was concerned, he had not the least doubt
in his own mind that the man was guilty, and, if they did their duty,
they would say so.
Of course this was not exactly what he did say, and of course he said a
good deal more than this, but this is the gist of what his saying
amounted to. Certainly the judge's summing-up was every whit as damning
as Sir Haselton's speech had been. Mr. Justice Hunter had evidently
himself no doubt upon the matter, and, by inference, he took it for
granted that no one else could have any either.
The jury followed the judge's lead. They never left their places. They
whispered together for a few moments. Then one of them announced that
they were prepared with their verdict.
"Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?"
"Guilty."
Some one told the prisoner to stand up. He stood up.
"Have you anything to say, prisoner, why sentence should not be
pronounced against you?"
The prisoner had something to say--just a word or two.
He was very white. He was clinging to the rail in front of him. His
throat seemed parched. It seemed all that he could do to speak.
I noticed that his wife was looking at him with upturned face, and that
her eyes were streaming with tears.
"I am innocent. I did not do it. I did not kill her. I never touched
her. There is something I do not understand."
That was all he had to say--and that was not enough.
As the judge very soon made him comprehend.
He took a black thing out of a tin box which was at his side and
perched it on the top of his wig, and he sentenced Tommy to be hanged;
and, in sentencing him, he gave it to him hot.
He told him that instead of exhibiting any signs of remorse for the
dreadful thing he had done he had just uttered an infamous lie to add
to the rest of his crimes. That lie had extinguished any spark of pity
which he might have felt. Tommy had been guilty of as wicked, as cruel,
and as cowardly a murder as had ever come within the range of the
judge's experience. He might not hope for mercy. There was no
circumstance of extenuation. He had behaved more like a devil than a
man. He was a disgrace to his class and to his station, and he had
brought shame upon our common manhood; and the sentence of the court
was that he should be taken to the place from whence he came, and there
be hanged by the neck till he was dead; and might God have mercy on his
soul!
And that was the end of it--or it might have been, if it had not been
for me.
I don't know how it was; I don't know whether the devil prompted me or
not. But the idea came to me, all at once, with a force which was
beyond my powers of resistance.
And I did it!
I dropped my cloak, I removed my veil, and I stood up where I knew that
Tommy would see me. And he did see me. He looked my way, and he saw me,
and he knew me too!
And I smiled at him.
And with sudden, instant recognition he stretched out his arms towards
me in a kind of frenzy; and he tried to speak, or shout, or do
something, but he couldn't. And before he could get a word out edgeways
the warder bustled him down the stairs below.
BOOK IV--THE CRIMINAL.
(_The Author tells the Tale_.)
CHAPTER XXXIII.
MR. TENNANT SPEAKS.
"I saw her! I saw her!"
"None of that now. You'd better come quietly."
Mr Tennant looked at the warder who spoke. With the assistance of his
colleague the man was hurrying him along in a fashion which, even at
that moment of amazement and of horror, in some subtle way reminded him
of his school days.
"I saw her!" he repeated.
"So you might have done; nobody says you didn't. Only don't let's have
any fuss."
The man spoke as one might speak, not ill-naturedly, but with the
superior wisdom of a senior to a fractious child. Mr. Tennant knew that
he was not understood; that it was no use to attempt to make himself
understood. His mind was in a chaos. What was he to do?
It had come to him in a flash of revelation that he had been made the
subject of some hideous mockery, the victim of some malevolent plot;
that he had been racked and re-racked for nothing at all; that he had
stood his trial for the murder of a woman, who, all the time, was
actually alive; that the law had committed some grotesque blunder; that
he had been condemned to be hung for another person's crime.
What was he to do?
He did nothing till he was back again in gaol. In the condemned cell
this time. Nobody had told him, but he knew what it was. He knew that
here a long line of murderers had awaited their fate, that here he
would be kept until he was hung.
A natural shudder shook him as he realised that they were about to
thrust him into this last abiding-place of the damned. He felt that if
he did not speak so as to make himself understood before they had him
fast in there he would never have a chance to speak at all: That if
that door clanged upon his silence, hope, for him, would have died with
its clangour.
He turned to the warder.
"I wish to see the governor."
"You can't see the governor now."
"I must. Listen to me." He tried to restrain his emotion, to hold
himself in hand. "Some extraordinary error has taken place. Just as I
was leaving the court I saw the woman whom I am charged with having
killed."
The warder stared, as if inclined to laugh.
"I am not mad, nor am I dreaming; nor did I see a ghost. I saw this
woman. She was as much alive as you or I. She was among a number of
other women on the bench near the judge. She stood up and she stared at
me. I saw her as plainly as I see you. There has been some astounding
mistake. Tell the governor that I must see him at once or it will be
too late. If you do not tell him my blood may be upon your head."
"All right."
The warder clanged the door, and went.
Mr. Tennant was left alone in that abode of the haunted.
Would the man tell him? Would the governor come? Would he listen if he
came? Would they stir a finger? Would they believe him? Would they pay
the slightest attention to anything that he said?
It would have been hard enough to hang believing her dead, although he
had not killed her, but now that he had seen her standing up and
looking at him, and smiling at his agony----!
This explained the two ghostly visitations. It was not a ghost, it was
herself he had seen. All this time he had been suffering the agonies of
the damned, and she had been laughing in her sleeve. How she must have
enjoyed the play! Oh, what a fool he had been!
What was that? Was that footsteps ringing on the stone pavement along
the vaulted corridor? He listened. It was somebody going, not coming.
Suppose the governor would not come?
There was a bell. Should he ring it and make a scene and in that way
emphasise the expression of his desire? If he could succeed in no other
way, he would try that. It was time that was precious. Every moment
that passed made his task the harder. If they had only given him an
opportunity to proclaim the woman's identity! If they only had! If he
could only get back into the court even now and stop her before again
she vanished into air!
Would the governor not come?
Then he would ring the bell and wake the echoes of the prison, and keep
on ringing until they either disconnected the bell or put him into
irons. He would not hang without a struggle now. He would ring at once.
Ah! There was some one coming.
Two persons. He could hear two separate tramp tramps, one falling a
little behind the other as they came along the flagstones.
The door was opened. It was the governor.
"You wish to see me?"
"I do, sir."
Again Mr. Tennant tried to master himself, to hold himself in hand. He
realised to the full, and very late in the day, how much might hinge
upon his being able to preserve his presence of mind.
"What do you wish to say?"
"I wish to say that the woman whom I am charged with having murdered
was actually in the court."
"Nonsense."
"It is not nonsense. It is the simple truth. I saw her as plainly as I
see you."
The governor eyed him with what, for him, was a look of
ferocity--unofficially, he was one of the softest-hearted creatures
breathing.
"Man, don't tell such tales to me."
"I am telling you the absolute, literal truth. I have felt all along
that there was something about the medical evidence which I did not
understand. The woman they described was not the woman who fell out of
the train. Now I understand how it was. That woman is not dead. I saw
her, just now, alive, in court."
"Why did you not interrupt the proceedings to say so?"
"I did not see her before sentence was pronounced. When I did see her I
was so astonished that, before I had recovered sufficiently from my
astonishment to be able to speak the warders removed me from the court.
I told the warders who it was that I had seen."
The governor observed the prisoner, as it was, reflectively. Certainly
Mr. Tennant had become on a sudden a different man. He had lost his
awkwardness. He was no longer ill at ease. He held himself erect. His
eyes were clear, his glance unwavering. His bearing was simple--the
simplicity of the man was what struck one first of all--yet assured. He
spoke with a calmness, and even with a dignity which, considering that
sentence of ignominious death had just been pronounced upon him, could
scarcely fail to be impressive.
"Tennant, so far as it concerns your fate, whatever you may have to say
will be without effect. For you in this world there is no hope. You had
better prepare yourself for the world which is to come. Do not buoy
yourself up with any hopes that anything you may say will prevent the
sentence which has been pronounced upon you being executed. That
sentence will certainly be carried out."
The condemned man would have spoken, but the governor went on.
"But the warder has just told me what you told him, and in discharge of
what I hold to be my duty I have requested the detective who has been
in charge of the case to come and hear what you may have to say. Here
he is."
And there he was--Matthew Holman, the man who looked so like a sailor.
"Well, Tennant, what cock-and-bull story have you to tell us now?"
"None. I have to tell you the truth."
"It is time."
Mr. Holman's tone was biting, his glance was keen.
Mr. Tennant re-told the story of his famous journey. The detective
seemed not so much to be listening to the words he uttered as searching
for what might be behind them.
"So you did know her? What was her name?"
"I knew her as Ellen Howth. But she may have had half a dozen names
before I knew her and since."
The detective made a note in his pocket-book.
"Where did she live?"
"I have no notion. As I have told you before that night I had not seen
or heard of her for years."
"Describe her."
Mr. Tennant described her.
"You understand that, until I heard the medical evidence, I supposed
that she had been killed by the fall from the carriage. When I heard
what the doctors had to say I began to wonder. It became clearer and
clearer to me that they could not be talking of Ellen Howth. The two
descriptions did not tally. I did not believe that she was pregnant. I
knew that she was over thirty, and it seemed inconceivable that a
medical man could mistake a woman of considerably over thirty for a
girl under twenty-one. When I saw Ellen Howth standing up there and
smiling at me, in an instant it was all made plain."
"What was all made plain?"
"Many things. For one, it explained what seemed to me to be the
discrepancies between the evidence and what I knew to be the facts--the
facts, that is, so far as they concerned myself."
"Where was the woman whom you say you saw standing--tell me exactly."
Mr. Tennant paused to think. The detective's eyes were on him, and the
governor's and the warder's at the back.
"She was on the bench. She was on the last row of seats. She sat either
second or third from the judge, to his right. When he had pronounced
sentence I noticed her rising and I noticed her remove her veil, and
she looked at me, I have no doubt with the deliberate design of
attracting my attention."
"I believe I noticed the woman to whom you refer."
This was the governor. The detective said nothing. He continued to look
at the prisoner for a moment or two in silence. Then from a pocket in
his coat he took an envelope.
"There is a portrait of Ellen Howth."
He handed a photograph to Mr. Tennant.
"This is not Ellen Howth."
"Then that is."
He passed the prisoner a second photograph.
"Nor is this. Neither of these photographs in the least resembles Ellen
Howth. Not in any one particular. I have never seen the woman whose
portrait this purports to be. Of that I am sure."
"It beats me, my lad, to think how a man circumstanced as you are, can
lie so glibly. You know as well as I do, and indeed better, that you
are holding in your hands portraits of the poor young woman whose life
you took."
"That is not so. Neither of these portraits at all resembles the woman,
Ellen Howth, with whom I travelled from Brighton. If they are
photographs of the woman who was found dead, then it is certain that I
had no hand whatever in killing her."
"You have seen those portraits before."
"Never!"
"Do you mean to tell me that no one, neither your counsel nor your
solicitor, nor any one else showed you them?"
"I do. You appear surprised."
"It is not a question of surprise. I don't believe you."
"You can soon ascertain for yourself that what I tell you is a fact.
You must remember that from the first I told my solicitor the actual
facts. I took it for granted that the woman who had been found dead was
Ellen Howth. Under those circumstances there was no reason why I should
be shown or why I should wish to be shown her photograph. I have not
seen that portrait before. The woman whose portrait it is is a complete
stranger to me. Were she here she would tell you that I am equally a
stranger to her. There is some mystery which, at present, I do not
profess to understand. But of one thing I am certain, that the woman,
Ellen Howth, whom I supposed was dead, is as much alive as you are or
as I am."
"Give me those portraits. It strikes me that you are one of those men
who will go even to face their God with a lie upon their lips. I don't
believe a word that you have said."
"Then you wrong me cruelly. I hope, for your sake, as well as for my
own, that you will learn that you do, before it is too late."
The detective made no reply. He went out of the cell without a word.
The governor followed him. The door was clanged. The condemned man was
left alone to get himself, if he could, into a mood in which he should
be able to look the gallows squarely and without flinching in the face.
The governor spoke to the detective as they walked side by side.
"What do you think of it?"
"Queer-street."
"I certainly noticed myself the woman of whom he speaks. I wonder you
didn't. Her action was most marked. She certainly did cast at him what
seemed to me to be a glance of exultant recognition, while the sight of
her seemed to fill him with stupefied amazement. I wondered when I saw
it what the scene might mean."
"What was she like?"
"He describes her very fairly."
"If she's still in Lewes I'll leave no stone unturned to find her."
"And if she isn't?"
"You know, sir, that if you give him a chance, a man in his position
can always pitch some sort of a tale to save his neck. And the worse
they are the more they lie like the truth."
"That's true enough."
The governor sighed.
"If ever a man was found guilty on the evidence this man was. If he's
not guilty, then I'll never again put my trust in evidence; and so far
I've generally found evidence that will stand sifting quite good enough
for me. Still, as I say, I'll leave no stone unturned to find the woman
of whom he speaks."
"And of whom I speak."
The governor spoke with a little smile.
"Yes, sir, and of whom you speak too."
CHAPTER XXXIV.
MR. HOLMAN AT HOME.
But they looked for her in vain. They did not find her. And the
following night Mr. Holman was in the bosom of his family.
Mr. Holman's home was in a street off Leicester Square. His family
consisted of his wife. Of her he was wont to make a confidant, as he
did on the present occasion.
Mr. Holman had come up by an afternoon train from Lewes. Mrs. Holman
had prepared a meat tea for him on his arrival. He had commenced his
attack upon the viands before she began to question him.
"So they're going to hang him?"
"It would seem as though they were."
Mrs. Holman detected something in her husband's tone.
"What do you mean? Aren't they going to hang him?"
"Did I say they weren't going to hang him? Didn't I say it seems as
though they were. Don't you understand Queen's English?"
Mrs. Holman was silent for a second or two.
"Surely they're not getting up a petition to let him off?"
"I've heard nothing at all about it, if they are. But perhaps you've
heard more than me. You do sometimes, don't you?"
"You don't mean to say that you don't believe he did it. I thought you
were sure that he was guilty."
"I've been sure of a good many things in my time, and been sorry for it
afterwards. I'm not the only leather-headed fool there is about, as
perhaps you know."
Mrs. Holman was skilled in the inflections of her husband's voice. She
perceived that it would be wiser, temporarily, to keep her curiosity in
her pocket, and to allow him to finish his meal in peace, which she did
and obtained her reward.
When the lady's lord and master had eaten and drunk to his heart's
content he wiped his lips and he looked at his wife.
"What do you think he says?"
"I haven't the least idea."
"He says that the woman who was found is not the woman who was with him
in the train."
"A man like him would say anything."
"How clever you women are. You know everything. As it happens, it seems
to me that he's just the sort of man who would not say anything, and I
ought to be a pretty good judge of that kind of thing if any one is."
Mr. Holman was regarding the two portraits which he had submitted to
Mr. Tennant for inspection. "I don't half like it. I can swear that
this is a good likeness of the woman that was found. He says that it's
not the least like the woman who was with him in the train.
"Fiddlededee!"
"Of course it's fiddlededee. And if he was hung, and it came out
afterwards that what he said was true, it would look like fiddlededee,
wouldn't it? I should feel as if I'd murdered him."
"Matthew!"
"Somehow the tale which he tells sounds true, and the queer part of it
is that he says that the woman whom he travelled with in the train from
Brighton was actually present in the court during the trial."
"It isn't possible."
"Oh, dear no! Of course not. If you say so, it couldn't be. It seems
funny though that the governor should be of a different opinion."
"What governor?"
"What governor! The governor of Lewes gaol--stupid! Considering how
clever you set yourself up to be, it's queer what a lot of explanation
you seem to want. The governor noticed this woman of whom Tennant
speaks, and something about her goings-on struck him as being queer.
I've been looking for her in Lewes all this blessed day. She's not
there. But I'll find her if she's anywhere. I'm not going to have a man
hung for a woman that's alive if I can help it. I'm going to make my
report in the morning, and if I'm not told off to hunt her up I'll be
surprised."
A ring was heard.
"Go and see what idiot that is ringing the bell. If it's any one to see
me let me know who it is before you show him in."
Mrs. Holman went to see what idiot it was. She returned and reported.
"It's that American who has lost his daughter, Mr. Haines his name is."
"Confound Mr. Haines! What's he come humbugging about? Show him in.
I'll make short work of Mr. Haines."
Mr. Haines was shown in, tall and thin, Yankee writ large all over him.
Uninvited, he seated himself. He crossed his legs. He balanced his hat
upon his knees. He looked at Mr. Holman without speaking a word. Mr.
Holman, without any show of deference, looked back at him, nor was his
manner when he spoke marked by a superfluity of courtesy.
For some moments the silence remained unbroken--a fact which seemed to
arouse the detective's irascibility.
"Is that all you have to say? If so, perhaps you will excuse me. My
time happens to be of value."
Mr. Haines opened his lips.
"That creature has buncoed me again."
"What creature?"
"Private detective Stewart Trevannion."
"When a man calls himself a private detective, nine times out of ten
yon may safely write him down a scoundrel. The tenth time, perhaps, he
is something worse."
"A scoundrel. That's what he is. And next time we chance to meet I'll
write the thing on him in good bold letters in my very plainest hand.
He raised another fifty out of me. He undertook to place me in
communication with my girl if I let him have it. He has placed me in
communication neither with my girl nor with himself since he raised
that fifty."
Mr. Holman leaned against the side of the table on which he had just
been having tea. He regarded his visitor with something like a twinkle
in his eye.
"Governor, do you mind my speaking a little plainly?"
"I do not."
"Take my tip, book a berth in the next boat, and go back where you came
from. You'll be more at home like over there."
"Not till I have looked upon her grave if she is dead, or on her face
if she is living."
"Ah, then, I shouldn't be surprised if you were to stay this side some
time. You'll settle here."
"Aren't the resources of civilisation sufficient to enable me to find
my girl?"
"The resources of civilisation aren't interested. You drove her away,
it's for you to fetch her back again. What it strikes me is that she
don't want to come, and she don't mean to, either."
"She is dead."
"How are you going to prove it?"
"I want you to help me."
"How am I going to help you any more than I have done? I'm a public
servant. I receive instructions from my superiors, and I have to obey
them. How am I going to devote myself to you? I don't know what good I
should do if I could. Thousands of girls are missing; they leave home
because they're sick of it, and they set up on their own hook. How do
you think you're going to find 'em if they don't mean to be found? It
may be easy in the stories, but it isn't out of them."
Rising from his chair, Mr. Haines paced slowly across the room. Mr.
Holman watched him. He noticed his air of extreme depression.
"You do as I say, take my tip, and go back by the next ship. You'll be
able to look for her as well there as over here--yes, and better. You
say she knows what address will find you. You'll hear from her safe
enough when she's had about enough of it.
"Not me."
"How can you tell that."
"Because she's dead."
Mr. Holman moved from the table with a gesture of impatience. Not
impossibly he would have terminated the interview then and there. He
looked as if language of even unusual strength was trembling on his
lips. He was prevented, however, from giving it utterance by the
unannounced entrance of a second visitor.
The visitor was in the shape of a girl--a young girl. She was pretty,
with a prettiness which more than suggested the theatre. She had an
amazing array of short, fair hair. It shrined her face like a sort of
coronal. The big hat was perched on the top of her hair. There was a
hint of kohl about her pretty eyes. And though her plump cheeks were
clean enough and tempting enough just then, one could have sworn that
they had long been familiar with rouge.
She came into the room with a complete absence of ceremony, as if she
was perfectly at home.
"Well, uncle, so you're back again."
Mr. Holman looked her up and down without saying a word. Planting
herself right in front of him she clasped her hands behind her
back--impudently demure. "You can look at me."
"So you have dyed your hair."
"I have."
"And cut it off."
"And cut it off."
"And fluffed it?"
"Fluffed it? Crimped it, I suppose you mean. My dear uncle, if anybody
offered to double your salary on condition that you dyed your hair,
you'd dye it all the colours of the rainbow." Mr. Holman turned away.
"Aren't you going to kiss me? You'd not only dye, you'd give your hair
to kiss me if you weren't my uncle. How nice it is to have relations!"
Mrs. Holman appeared at the door.
"Never mind him, Hetty. He's come back in a bad temper."
"Of course he's come back in a bad temper. Did you ever know him when
he hadn't come back in a bad temper? He's the worst-tempered man I ever
knew, and that's saying something."
Mr. Holman seated himself in an arm-chair by the fire. The young lady
sat on one of the arms. She smoothed her uncle's hair.
"Dear uncle, how well you're looking."
Mr. Holman shook his head, as if to remove it from the reach of her
embrace.
"Don't touch me."
"And what a nice, kind look you've got in your eyes."
"Hetty, I'm ashamed of you."
"Oh, no, you're not. You're not half such a goose as you pretend to
be."
"I tell you that I am."
"You're what? A goose. Dear uncle, I would never let any one call you a
goose except yourself. Won't you kiss me?"
The fair young face stooped down. The man's weather-beaten face looked
up. The lips met.
The kiss was interrupted by a series of exclamations which came from
the back of the room. So unexpected and so startling a series of
exclamations that Mr. Holman rose from his chair with such suddenness
as almost to overturn his niece.
"What's up now?" he asked.
A good deal seemed to be up, at any rate with Mr. Haines. That
gentleman was standing on the other side of the table staring at
something which he was holding in his hand, giving vent to a variety of
observations which were scarcely parliamentary.
"It's Loo! Blamed if it ain't! It's my girl! It's Loo!"
Throwing down what he was holding, he rushed at the detective like some
wild animal.
"Damn you!" he yelled. "It's Loo!"
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE WOMAN OF THE PORTRAIT.
The detective easily avoided the man's blind rush, the result of which
was that Mr. Haines all but cannoned into Mr. Holman's niece.
Miss Hetty Johnson, however--the young lady's name was Johnson--seemed
in no way disconcerted.
"That's right. Knock me down and trample on me. I don't mind. I've done
nothing to nobody. But it's all the same as if I had."
Brought back by the young lady's words to a sense of reality, Mr.
Haines spluttered out an apology.
"I beg your pardon. It was an accident." Then he raved at Mr. Holman.
"You--you devil! You've been having me, tricking me, doing me. You
cursed slippery British hound, I feel like killing you!"
He looked as he said he felt. His tall figure was drawn upright, his
long arms were stretched out in front of him, his fists were clenched
as in a paroxysm of rage.
Mr. Holman stared at him with stolid imperturbability.
"Perhaps, when you've quite finished, you'll tell us what's wrong."
"You know. Don't you try to play it any more off on to me, or the
presence of a woman shan't save you."
"What's the matter with the man?" asked Mrs. Holman.
"Don't you hear me asking him?" chimed in her lord. "But it doesn't
seem as if he cared to tell us."
As if one was not sufficient, Mr. Haines began shaking both his fists
at the detective.
"You said you knew nothing about her; you told me you could not help
me; you advised me to go back by the next ship. I could not make it
out. Now I do catch on. You had her portrait all the time."
"Whose portrait?"
"Loo's!"
"Who's Loo?"
"My girl!"
The words came from Mr. Haines with a roar.
The detective looked at him as if he was beginning to suspect that,
after all, there might be some method in his madness.
"See here, Mr. Haines, I don't know if you are or are not mad, but just
try to behave as if you weren't. I've no notion what you're talking
about. I tell you I know no more about your girl than I know about the
man in the moon."
"You tell me that, and expect me to believe it, when you have her
portrait?"
"I have her portrait! Where?"
"Here!" Striding forward, he snatched up one of the two portraits which
were lying on the table. As he did so, he perceived the second. "Why,
here's another! There are two! You have two portraits of my girl, and
you tell me that you know nothing of her."
Although the detective's face remained impassive, a speck of light
seemed all at once to come into his eyes. The pupils dilated. There was
something in them which suggested that the whole man had become, upon a
sudden, alert and eager.
"I would ask you, Mr. Haines, to consider carefully what you are
saying. More may depend upon your words than you imagine. Do I
understand you to say that you know the original of that photograph?"
"Know the original! Of course I do. It's my girl, my Loo!"
"Are you prepared to swear it?"
"I am, before God and man."
"May I ask if there is anything in particular in which the likeness
consists?"
"Don't you think a father knows his daughter when he sees her in a
picture? Don't talk back to me. I tell you it's my girl, my Loo! Where
is she?"
"I will tell you everything in a moment, Mr. Haines. Look at those
photographs closely. Don't you notice anything about them which is
peculiar?"
Mr. Haines did as he was told. He peered closely at the portraits.
"She is looking pretty sick."
"Well she might do. Those photographs were taken after death?"
"After death?"
"Have you heard of the Three Bridges Tragedy?"
"The Three Bridges Tragedy? Yes."
"That is the portrait of the victim."
"The victim? So! She is dead. She was done to death. I knew it."
"The man who has been found guilty of the crime is now lying in gaol
under sentence of death."
"They shan't hang him?"
"It looks uncommonly as if they would."
"I say they shan't. Not if I have to tear down the prison walls with my
hands and nails to get at him. Do you think I've come all these
thousands of miles to let them strangers pay the man that killed my
girl? You bet I've not!"
Mr. Haines glanced at the detective as if he defied his contradiction.
The detective looked at him, in return, as if he doubted what to make
of him.
While the two men were thus, as it were, taking each other's measure,
Miss Hetty Johnson advanced to the table on which Mr. Haines had,
perhaps unconsciously, replaced the photographs. She picked them up.
"Is this the poor girl who was murdered?" She glanced at them. As she
did so she uttered a startled exclamation, "Why, it--it's Milly!" She
turned to Mr. Holman all in a tremor of excitement. "Uncle, this is
Milly!"
Her uncle turned to her with what almost amounted to a savage start.
"Who do you say it is? You don't mean to say that you know the
original? Hanged if I don't believe everybody does except me. And here,
all this time, we've been hunting the whole world to find out."
Miss Johnson was not at all affected by her uncle's display of temper.
She repeated her previous assertion, and that with more emphasis than
before.
"This is Milly Carroll who was with me at the theatre. I am sure of it.
Aunt, you've heard me talk of Milly Carroll?"
"Often," said her aunt. "Now, Hetty, don't you let your fancy run away
with you. It may be like her, and yet it mayn't be her. Remember the
mischief you might do. You think before you speak."
"My dear aunt, there is not the slightest necessity for you to talk to
me like that. I am sure that this is Milly Carroll. Heaps of girls at
the theatre will tell you so if you ask them. It doesn't do her
justice, and she looks as if she were dead, but it's her." She dropped
her hand to her side, as if a startling reflection had all at once
occurred to her. "I wonder if that explains it?"
"Explains what?"
"Her silence. I wondered why she had never replied to my last letter.
All the time, perhaps, she was dead. And I was telling every one how
unkind she was. To think of it!"
"Do you know where she lived?"
"When I last heard from her she was living at Brighton."
"Brighton? Then he did do it. What an artistic liar that man must be!"
"She left the stage for good. She was going to be married."
"Going to be married, was she? Then it's her. What was her future
husband's name?"
"I never heard his name. We always took him for some big swell, she
kept his name so close. She used to call him Reggie."
"Reggie? Oh! Not Tommy?"
"No, Reggie. I knew him very well by sight."
"What do you mean--you knew him very well by sight?"
"Well, I spoke to him two or three times, and, of course, he spoke to
me. And I used often to see her with him. And then he was always at the
theatre. He used to give her everything she wanted, and made no end of
a fuss of her. The girls all envied her good luck."
"It looks as if they had cause to. What sort of party was this swell of
hers to look at?"
"He was tall, and dark, and very handsome, and he had most beautiful
hands, and one of the nicest-speaking voices I ever heard--and such a
smile! And he dressed awfully well--he was an awful swell. Milly told
me he was awfully rich, but I could see that without her telling me."
Mr. Holman had listened to the girl's description with some appearance
of surprise.
"Of course you could. You girls can see anything. That's how it is so
many of you come to grief--you think you see so much. You're sure you
haven't made a mistake about this swell of hers? You're sure he wasn't
short, and plump, and rosy?"
"He wasn't a scrap like that. He was exactly as I've told you. Short,
and plump, and rosy? Indeed! I should think he wasn't."
"Would you recognise him if you saw him again?"
"Rather! I should think I should. I should know him anywhere. If you
saw him once, you would never be likely to forget him, he was too
good-looking."
"Was he indeed? You seem to have been more than half in love with him
yourself. You girls always do fall in love with the right sort of men.
Have you any of this young woman's writing?"
"I've some of her letters which she sent me."
Mr. Haines, advancing, laid his hand gently on Miss Johnson's arm.
"Will you let me see her letters--my girl's, my Loo's?"
"Of course I will. You can come round and look at them now if you like.
There's time before I'm due at the theatre." The young girl looked up
at the old man with a curious interest. "She was an American. She used
to talk to me about a place called Colorado."
"She was raised in Colorado. And that is where she left me. So you were
her friend--my girl's friend?"
"Well, we were pals."
"Pals? Yes. You were pals."
Mr. Haines looked at Miss Johnson inquiringly, searchingly, as if he
was endeavouring to ascertain, by force of visual inspection, what sort
of girl she was.
Mr. Holman interposed.
"When you two have done palavering, perhaps Miss Hetty Johnson will be
good enough to tell me what was this young woman's address at
Brighton--that is, if she happens to remember it."
"I remember it perfectly."
Miss Hetty proved that she did by unhesitatingly furnishing her uncle
with the information required. Her uncle entered the address she gave
him in his pocket-book. He looked at his watch.
"It's twenty minutes past seven. There's a train from Victoria to
Brighton at 7.50. If I got a decent cab I ought to have time to catch
it, and to spare. If I do catch it, I ought to be able to get all the
information I want in time to catch the last train back to town. If I
don't, I'll wire." This was to his wife. He turned to his niece. "You
keep a still tongue in your head, if you can, and don't go chattering
at the theatre. And don't let anything that was that young woman's pass
out of your hands to any one--do you hear?"
"I hear. But, uncle, I don't, and I can't, believe that Milly's
sweetheart had anything to do with killing her."
"No one asks you for what you believe. I've been asking you for what
you know. And that's all I'm likely to ask you for. You mark what I
say, and don't you give a scrap of her writing to any one. I'm off."
He was off, catching up the portraits from the table as he went.
As soon as her uncle had gone Miss Johnson turned to Mr. Haines.
"If you want to see those letters, you'll have to come now. I have to
be at the theatre soon after eight."
The young girl and the old man went away together. Miss Johnson led the
way through Coventry Street. Suddenly stopping, she caught Mr. Haines
by the arm.
"Oh! There he is!"
"Who?"
"Milly's sweetheart."
"Where?"
Miss Johnson pointed to a tall man who was standing on the pavement
talking to the driver of a hansom cab. Mr. Haines started. His
companion felt that he was trembling. He spoke as if he were short of
breath.
"Are you sure?"
"Quite sure--certain."
Mr. Haines went forward without a word. Miss Johnson stood still and
watched, fearing she knew not what.
But she need have feared nothing, for nothing happened.
By the time that Mr. Haines had reached the cab the man in question had
seated himself inside. Mr. Haines had a good look at him before the cab
moved off.
"It's he! Her aristocrat! I knew that he smelt of blood first time I
saw him, but if I'd known that the blood was hers----"
He raised his hands above his head, as if by way of a wind-up to his
unfinished sentence.
The passers-by stared at the old man talking to himself and
gesticulating on the pavement, wondering, perhaps, if he was drunk or
if he was merely mad.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE VARIOUS MOODS OF A GENTLEMAN OF FASHION.
Mr. Townsend was shaving himself. Advancing his face an inch or two
nearer his shaving-glass, with his fingers he smoothed his chin.
"Very awkward," he said. "Very!"
The allusion could scarcely have been to the process in which he was
engaged. Everything had gone with smoothness. Not even a scratch had
marred the perfect peace.
Mr. Townsend concluded that his chin was as clean shaven as it possibly
could be. He put his razor down. He took up a cigarette. He lighted it.
"Exceedingly awkward!"
As he murmured the iteration, seating himself in an armchair, he
selected an open letter from among a heap of others which lay on a
little table at his side. The letter he had selected was unmistakably a
feminine production. It was written in a large, bold, running hand, on
paper which was as stiff as cardboard.
"MY DEAREST REGGIE,--You must come and see me! At once! I shall expect
you this morning!
"_Whatever you have done, it it quite impossible that I shall let you
go--you are mine!_
"You understand that I am waiting for you, and that you are to come to
me as soon as you possibly can.
"You are to tell the bearer when I shall see you!
"YOUR DORA."
That was what the letter said. The italics and the notes of exclamation
were the lady's own. As he puffed his cigarette Mr. Townsend read the
letter carefully through and smiled. Removing his cigarette, he pressed
the letter to his lips. Then, carefully folding the letter between his
fingers, he laid it down.
"As I said I would go, I shall have to go--it's uncommonly awkward. Had
she been wise, she would have taken what I wrote as the final word, and
left it so."
Rising, he continued his toilet, humming to himself, now and then,
snatches of a popular comic song. Going to the fireplace, he began
pushing about, with the toe of his shoes, the pieces of burning coal.
"It's odd how I love her--very! After my experience. And this time, as
the man says in the play, it is love. Well, she has called the stakes.
It is for me to win. If I don't, I can but lose."
He returned to the table on which the letters were. He picked up
another, also unmistakably the production of a feminine hand. It
contained but a line or two. It was without prefix or signature. And
this time the writing was small and fine and clear:--
"I have heard nothing from you. The eight-and-forty hours will be up
this afternoon at five. After that time I shall feel it my duty to do
my utmost at once to save the life of an innocent man. I shall be at
home to you till five."
Mr. Townsend read this epistle also with a smile, but he did not press
it to his lips when read. Instead, he commented on it with a curious
sort of humour.
"You pretty dear! You are the dangerous sort that always smiles. I have
heard and read a good deal about women being cleverer than men, but
till I met you I never met my match."
Tearing the letter into pieces, he dropped the fragments among the
burning coals. As he adjusted his necktie before a looking-glass he
indulged himself with further snatches of that comic song. Having
completed his toilet, he went into the adjoining room. In response to
his ring breakfast was brought in. And, with every appearance of the
satisfaction of the man whose conscience is perfectly at ease, Mr.
Townsend sat down to the discussion of his morning meal.
As he was finishing, a manservant opened the door.
"Lord Archibald Beaupré, sir, wishes to see you."
"Show him in here."
Presently there entered a tall, thin, and rather weedy-looking young
man. His scanty hair was of that colourless fairness which is almost
peculiar to a certain type of Scotchman. He would not have been
bad-looking, in spite of his being slightly freckled, if it had not
been for three things: first, he had obviously at least his share of
the pride for which his countrymen are proverbial; second, he was
obviously more than sufficiently weak; and third, he was equally
obviously bad tempered.
On this occasion he did not seem to be by any means in the most
agreeable frame of mind. Taking no sort of notice of Mr. Townsend's
nodded greeting, he marched straight to an easy-chair, and, sitting
down on it, he rested his hands on the handle of his stick, and his
chin on his hands. He looked straight in front of him with about as
sour a visage as he could well have worn. Mr. Townsend continued his
breakfast as if there was nothing at all peculiar in his visitor's
demeanour, and as he ate he smiled.
After a while he leaned back on his chair.
"Well, Archie, any news?"
"News be damned!"
Mr. Townsend still smiled.
"By all means if you wish it. It is the same to me."
"You know very well what I have come for."
"I take it that you have come to bestow on me for a short period the
charm of your society." The visitor scowled. His host but smiled the
more. "Have anything to eat?"
"I'll have something to drink."
"You'll find all the ingredients on the sideboard. Help yourself, dear
boy."
The visitor helped himself. As he stood at the sideboard pouring the
liquor out into a glass his host sat watching him with amusement which
was wholly unconcealed. The contrast between the two men was striking.
It would have forced itself on to the attention of the most casual
spectator. The one weak, irritable almost to the point of peevishness;
the other strong, unruffled, self-contained. The one with, in his whole
bearing, that suggestion of self-assertion which is often but the child
of shyness, but which none the less repels; the other with that easy,
graceful, seemingly unconscious, personal magnetism which, in spite of
oneself, attracts. One could understand how the one might be forgiven
till seventy times seven, while the other would be condemned, without
benefit of clergy, for his first offence.
Lord Archibald Beaupré returned to the easy-chair, armed with a
tumbler of whisky and soda. He took a considerable drink. And then he
spoke--morosely.
"It's the meeting of that cursed club to-night."
Mr. Townsend had watched his every movement, particularly seeming to
note the quantity he had drunk--and still he smiled.
"So it is."
The other burst into a torrent of words.
"I wish I had never heard of it! I wish I had never had anything to do
with it! I wish I had never had anything to do with any one of you! I
wish----"
His emotions proved too much for him; he prematurely stopped.
"Wish it out." Mr. Townsend was lighting a cigarette. "And when you've
wished it out, what then?"
"Damn you. You do nothing else but jibe and jeer at me."
"My dear Archie, your manners are not good."
"Curse my manners!"
"By all means, if you wish it. Only I am inclined to think there won't
be very much to curse."
Lord Archibald ground out an oath between his teeth, and he groaned.
Mr. Townsend went on; he was enjoying his cigarette.
"By the way, have you done anything for the Honour of the Club?"
His visitor half rose from his seat, then sank back into it again.
"No! You know I haven't! Don't talk of it! No!"
"I have no desire to talk of it. It is scarcely a question of talk. It
is rather a question of do."
His hearer covered his face with his hands and shuddered. There was
something in his host's eyes, as he smilingly regarded him, which
suggested possibilities--and also limitations--of a distinctly curious
sort. He kept his glance fixed on his companion, and, as he spoke
again, he expelled through his nostrils the smoke of his cigarette.
"On the whole, perhaps, your policy of postponement may turn out
fortunately for both of us. You will remember that under certain
circumstances I reserved the right to nominate a candidate--a
candidate, that is, for your attention. The circumstances which I
thought might arise have arisen."
"Townsend!"
"Archie!"
Lord Archibald removed his hands from his face. The two men looked at
each other--the one face ghastly, haggard, frightened; the other easy,
careless, smiling.
"Do you mean it?"
Lord Archibald's voice was husky. Mr. Townsend flicked the ash from his
cigarette.
"I am in the habit, in matters of moment, of meaning what I say,
although that may not be the case with you."
The airily-suggested insinuation stung. The other burst into a sudden
blaze of passion.
"What do you mean by that?"
The host met his visitor's furious gaze with a smile which seemed to
convey a fulness of meaning which was sufficient to subdue the other's
wrath.
"What did you mean by asking me if I meant what I said? Didn't you
know?"
Lord Archibald turned his face away. Taking up the tumbler of soda and
whisky he drained it of its contents. Getting up from his chair, he
went to the sideboard to replenish. While he was in the act of doing
so, and his back towards his host, he asked a question.
"Who is it?"
"A woman."
Lord Archibald spun round like a teetotum, a decanter in one hand, a
tumbler in the other.
"A woman? Reggie? You--you don't mean Miss Jardine?"
Mr. Townsend's lips curled. In some subtle way his countenance was
transfigured. The ease and the carelessness vanished. He became all
bitterness and gall.
"Beaupré, I am inclined to think that you are the most consummate ass
of my acquaintance. Why will you perpetually harp upon a single string?
You are so utterly inept that the wonder is I have borne with you so
long. Might I ask you not eternally to play the fool?"
Lord Archibald put down the decanter and the glass. The muscles of his
face quivered as if he was about to be afflicted by an attack of St.
Vitus' Dance.
"If anybody but you had spoken to me like that, at the very least he
should never speak to me again."
The only effect which his visitor's fury had on Mr. Townsend was to
make him still more scornful.
"Don't gas to me, my good fellow. Reserve that sort of thing for some
other of your acquaintance. I regret that you should have rendered it
necessary for me to remind you that you are under a considerable
obligation to me, and I regret still more that you should have
compelled me to ask if it is your intention to fulfil that obligation.
I believe that even Scotchmen do occasionally fulfil their
obligations."
His listener's face was a sickly yellow. Rage had made him calm.
"Mr. Townsend, be so good as to tell me who this woman is."
Thus requested, Mr. Townsend, scribbling something on a scrap of paper,
tossed the scrap of paper across the table to his guest.
"There is her name and her address. I took you with me once to call on
her. Probably you remember the occasion and the lady. Your business
with her must be transacted before five o'clock this afternoon. If you
are a quarter of an hour after that time you may as well postpone the
fulfilment of your obligation to a future day. For my purpose you will
be too late."
The other scanned what was written on the scrap of paper. He folded the
paper up; he placed it in his waistcoat-pocket.
"You shall have the literal letter of your bond. Afterwards, Mr.
Townsend, I will deal with you."
Without another word Lord Archibald Beaupré left the room.
Left to himself, Mr. Townsend threw the end of his cigarette into the
fire. Thrusting his hands into his trouser-pockets, stretching out his
legs in front of him, he stared at the flame and he smiled--not
pleasantly.
"What a fool the fellow is! I have had about as much of him as I can
stand. Indeed, I have had more. I hope they'll hang him. It will be a
happy despatch. Or perhaps, after he has done the deed, he will turn,
as a relief, to suicide. It's just the sort of thing he would do."
Something tickled him. He laughed.
"What a game of touch and go I'm playing."
He stood up.
"To think that he should have supposed that I meant Dora. My Dora!"
A panel photograph was on the mantelboard. It was the portrait of a
young girl. Mr. Townsend apostrophised it as if it had been a living
thing.
"My darling! If you had only come into my life before, how different it
might all have been! If fortune had but let you come my way, evil
should not have been my good. There is the making of a man in me,
somewhere, that I swear. If I could but get out of it all and shake
myself free and begin again, I'd quickly prove it."
Taking the photograph into his hand, he kissed it. It was strange how
tender his voice had suddenly become.
"My love! What thing is this which I have been consorting with all this
time, and supposing it was love? That's not love. Bah! I have learnt my
lesson rather late in the day, but I have learnt it, sweet. You have
taught me what is love."
He put the portrait back. He sat down again. But he still looked at the
face which was on the mantelboard.
"The place in which I am is such a tight one. You had been wiser, dear,
had you believed me when I wrote that I was not fit for you, and so
straightway have let me go. Again I'll endeavour to persuade you. But
if you'll not be persuaded I will win you, and I will hold you, and I
will keep you if I can, though to do so I have to plunge deeper in the
mire. It may be, indeed, that that way atonement lies. Who knows?"
CHAPTER XXXVII.
"CALL ME DORA."
Mr. Townsend's rooms were at Albert Gate. Miss Jardine's home was in
Sloane Gardens. From Albert Gate to Sloane Gardens is not very far. It
was a clear, brisk morning. Mr. Townsend decided to walk.
Just as he had crossed the road some one touched his arm from behind,
and a voice said--
"Excuse me--might I speak to you for a moment?"
Mr. Townsend turned. He supposed it was a beggar. The speaker looked
like one. The man--it was a man--had on a top hat which was battered
and bruised out of all semblance of its original shape. His overcoat,
which was trimmed with imitation astrachan, was torn in half a dozen
places and covered with mud, as if it had been rolled in the gutter
with its owner inside it, but it was buttoned right up to his chin in a
manner which suggested a not unnatural anxiety to conceal material
deficiencies in the rest of his attire. His countenance bore evidence
of having been recently subjected to serious ill-usage. One eye was
ornamented by a purple patch, the skin of his right cheek was bruised
and broken as by a blow from a fist, and his mouth was so badly cut as
to say, the least, to render it highly inconvenient for him to be
compelled to open his lips.
The sorry spectacle was Stewart Trevannion, _alias_ Alexander Taunton,
_alias_ Mr. Arthur Stewart, _alias_ a dozen other names--the immaculate
Mr. Townsend's brother. A striking contrast the two brothers presented
as they stood there.
Alexander was rubbing his hands over each other. He seemed to
experience a difficulty in holding himself straight up. He shivered as
if in pain.
"Reginald," he muttered.
Possibly Alexander was in a sensitive frame of mind. He seemed to
shrink from the look of mingled amusement and scorn with which his
brother regarded him.
"You!" Mr. Townsend's voice rang with laughter. "Well, my man, what do
you want with me--charity?"
Alexander put up his hand, as if to hide his injured mouth.
"It isn't only that."
"No? What else is it then?"
"It's a word I want to say to you--a word of warning."
"Of warning? Against what?"
"Do you know a man named Haines--an American?"
"Haines?" Mr. Townsend reflected. "Well, what of Mr. Haines?"
"You've been doing something to his daughter--you best know what. He's
found it out, and he's looking for you. If he gets a chance he'll kill
you. He's almost done for me."
Mr. Townsend made a significant gesture in the direction of his
brother.
"Is this his handiwork?"
"It's no laughing matter. I tell you he means murder. If you take my
advice you'll clear. He left me as good as dead last night. He wouldn't
have cared if he had left me quite. I don't believe I've a whole bone
in my body. It's as much as I can do to stand." Alexander put his hand
to his back and groaned. His tone became a whine. "You couldn't oblige
me with the loan of a shilling or two?"
"With pleasure. I'll oblige you with the loan of a whole sovereign. If
you take my advice you'll spend part of it on plaster. I'll think of
what you've said. Good-day."
As he walked away Mr. Townsend swung his cane. He seemed amused.
Alexander, clutching the sovereign tightly in his hand, stared after
him. He did not seem to be at all amused.
"You may laugh now, but you won't laugh then. You've been up to some
devil's trick, and this time you've caught the devil. If he does find
you, one of you'll be missing."
As he pursued his way down Sloane Street, Mr. Townsend did not appear
himself to regard his situation in such a serious light. The idea that
there could be anything serious about it appeared to afford him nothing
but amusement.
"Haines? Haines? I fancy that that's the name of Mrs. Carruth's Yankee
friend. The dissenting parson sort of looking individual. I take it
that Alexander, as usual, has the wrong end of the stick--from the look
of him he appears to have felt both ends of it, and the middle too. If
Mr. Haines has done me the honour to object to my behaviour, I imagine
that it is because he supposes that I have poached on his preserve. I
assure him he need be under no apprehension. If he only knew!"
Mr. Townsend laughed--then checked himself. He struck the ferrule of
his stick against the pavement.
"Now, what am I to say to Dora? Its awkward--very!"
It was awkward. Especially as he had not made up his mind what to say
to Dora, even when he found himself at Sir Haselton Jardine's.
He was shown at once into Miss Jardine's own sitting-room, and there he
found the lady.