"DEAR OLD DIG."
I told Edwards nothing of Sir Digby's curious request, of his strange
confidences, or of the mysterious letter to "E. P. K.", which now reposed
in a locked drawer in my writing-table.
My friend, be he impostor or not, had always treated me strictly
honourably and well. Therefore, I did not intend to betray him, although
he might be a fugitive hunted by the police.
Yet was he a fugitive? Did not his words to me and his marvellous
disguise prior to the tragedy imply an intention to disappear?
The enigma was indeed beyond solution.
At seven o'clock my visitor, finding necessity to revisit Harrington
Gardens, I eagerly accompanied him.
There is a briskness and brightness in Piccadilly at seven o'clock on a
clear, cold, winter's night unequalled in any thoroughfare in the world.
On the pavements and in the motor-buses are thousands of London's workers
hurrying to their homes in western suburbs, mostly the female employees
of the hundreds of shops and work-rooms which supply the world's
fashions--for, after all, London has now ousted Paris as the centre of
the feminine mode--the shops are still gaily lit, the club windows have
not yet drawn their blinds, and as motors and taxis flash past eastward,
one catches glimpses of pretty women in gay evening gowns, accompanied by
their male escorts on pleasure bent: the restaurant, the theatre, and the
supper, until the unwelcome cry--that cry which resounds at half-past
twelve from end to end of Greater London, "Time, please, ladies and
gentlemen. Time!"--the pharisaical decree that further harmless merriment
is forbidden. How the foreigner laughs at our childish obedience to the
decree of the killjoys. And well he may, especially when we know full
well that while the good people of the middle class are forced to return
to the dulness of their particular suburb, the people of the class above
them can sneak in by back doors of unsuspected places, and indulge in
drinking, gambling, and dancing till daylight. Truly the middle-class
Londoner is a meek, obedient person. One day, however, he may revolt.
Piccadilly was particularly bright and gay that night, as, passing the
end of St. James's Street, we sped forward in the taxi towards Brompton
Road and past the Natural History Museum to Gloucester Road.
On our arrival the door of the flat was opened by a constable without a
helmet. Recognising the famous inspector, he saluted.
The body of the unknown girl had been removed to the mortuary for a
post-mortem examination, but nothing else had been moved, and two
officers of the C.I.D. were busy making examination for finger-prints.
I allowed them to take mine for comparison, but some they found upon the
mahogany table and upon the back of a chair were undoubtedly those of
the victim herself.
The small glass-topped specimen-table still lay where it had been
overturned, and the fragments of the two green-glass flower-vases were
strewn upon the carpet with the drooping red anemones themselves.
Regarding the overturned table the two detectives held that it had
separated the assassin from his victim; that the girl had been chased
around it several times before her assailant had thrown it down, suddenly
sprung upon her, and delivered the fatal blow, full in her chest.
"We've thoroughly examined it for finger-prints, sir," the elder of the
two officers explained to my companion. "Both on the glass top and on the
mahogany edge there are a number of prints of the victim herself, as well
as a number made by another hand."
"A man's?" I asked.
"No; curiously enough, it seems to be a woman's," was the reply.
"A woman's!"
I thought of that sweet perfume, and of the person who had lurked in the
shadow of the stairs!
"That's interesting," remarked Edwards. "They may be those of the woman
who wore green combs in her hair, or else of the porter's wife."
"The owner's man-servant is away abroad on business for his master, we've
found out," answered the man addressed. "So of late the porter's wife,
who lives in the basement of the next house, has been in the habit of
coming in every day and tidying up the room. We took her prints this
morning, and have found quite a lot about the place. No," added the man
emphatically, "the finger-prints on that little table yonder are not
those of the porter's wife, but of another woman who's been here
recently. We only find them upon the door-handle and on the edge of the
writing-table, against which the woman must have leaned. We'll have them
photographed to-morrow."
The men then showed us the marks in question--distinct impressions of
small finger-tips, which they had rendered vivid and undeniable by the
application of a finely-powdered chalk of a pale green colour.
Apparently the two experts had devoted the whole day to the search for
finger-print clues, and they had established the fact that two women had
been there--the victim and another.
Who was she?
The investigation of the papers in my friend's writing-table had not yet
been made. Inspector Edwards had telephoned earlier in the day, stating
that he would himself go through them.
Therefore, exercising every care not to obliterate the three finger-marks
upon the edge of the table, the officers proceeded to break open drawer
after drawer and methodically examine the contents while I looked on.
The work was exciting. At any moment we might discover something which
would throw light upon the tragedy, the grim evidence of which remained
in that dark, still damp stain upon the carpet--the life-blood of the
unknown victim.
Already the face of the dead girl had been photographed, and would,
before morning, be circulated everywhere in an endeavour to secure
identification.
I had learnt from Edwards that before noon that morning, upon the
notice-board outside Bow Street Police Station, there had been posted one
of those pale, buff-coloured bills headed in great, bold capitals: "Body
found," in which the description had been filled in by a clerkish hand,
and at the bottom a statement that the corpse was lying at the Kensington
Mortuary awaiting identification.
That she was a lady seemed established by her dress, her well-kept hands,
innocent of manual labour, by the costly rings and bracelet she was
wearing, and the fact that, in the pocket of her coat was found her purse
containing eleven pounds in gold and some silver.
Sir Digby's papers promised to be extremely interesting, as we cleared
the books off a side-table and sat down to carefully investigate them.
The writing-table was a pedestal one, with a centre drawer and four
drawers on either side. The first drawer burst open was the top one on
the left, and from it Edwards drew two bundles of letters, each secured
by faded pink tape.
These bundles he handed to me, saying--
"See what you think of these, Mr. Royle!"
One after another I opened them. They were all in the same sprawly
handwriting of a woman--a woman who simply signed herself "Mittie."
They were love-letters written in the long ago, many commencing "My
darling," or "Dearest," and some with "Dear old Dig."
Though it seemed mean of me to peer into the closed chapter of my
friend's history, I quickly found myself absorbed in them. They were the
passionate outpourings of a brave but overburdened heart. Most of them
were dated from hotels in the South of England and in Ireland, and were
apparently written at the end of the eighties. But as no envelopes had
been preserved they gave no clue to where the addressee had been at the
time.
Nearly all were on foreign notepaper, so we agreed that he must have been
abroad.
As I read, it became apparent that the writer and the addressee had been
deeply in love with one another, but the lady's parents had forbidden
their marriage; and as, alas! in so many like cases, she had been induced
to make an odious but wealthier marriage. The man's name was Francis.
"He is, alas! just the same," she wrote in one letter dated
"Mount Ephraim Hotel, at Tunbridge Wells, Thursday": "We have
nothing in common. He only thinks of his dividends, his stocks
and shares, and his business in the City always. I am simply an
ornament of his life, a woman who acts as his hostess and
relieves him of much trouble in social anxieties. If father had
not owed him seventeen thousand pounds he would, I feel certain,
never have allowed me to marry him. But I paid my father's debt
with my happiness, with my very life. And you, dear old Dig, are
the only person who knows the secret of my broken heart. You
will be home in London seven weeks from to-day. I will meet you
at the old place at three o'clock on the first of October, for I
have much--so very much--to tell you. Father knows now how I
hate this dull, impossible life of mine, and how dearly I love
your own kind self. I told him so to-day, and he pities me. I
hope you will get this letter before you leave, but I shall
watch the movements of your ship, and I shall meet you on the
first of October. Till then adieu.--Ever your own MITTIE."
At the old place! Where was it, I wondered? At what spot had the secret
meeting been effected between the man who had returned from abroad and
the woman who loved him so well, though she had been forced to become the
wife of another.
That meeting had taken place more than twenty years ago. What had been
its result was shown in the next letter I opened.
Written from the Queen's Hotel at Hastings on the fourth of October, the
unfortunate "Mittie," who seemed to spend her life travelling on the
South Coast, penned the following in a thin, uncertain hand:--
"Our meeting was a mistake, Dig, a grave mistake. We were
watched by somebody in the employ of Francis. When I returned to
Tunbridge Wells he taxed me with having met you, described our
trysting-place--the fountain--and how we had walked and walked
until, becoming too tired, we had entered that quiet little
restaurant to dine. He has misjudged me horribly. The sneak who
watched us must have lied to him, or he would never have spoken
to me as he did--he would not have insulted me. That night I
left him, and am here alone. Do not come near me, do not reply
to this. It might make matters worse. Though we are parted, Dig,
you know I love you and only you--_you_! Still your own MITTIE."
I sat staring at that half-faded letter, taking no heed of what Edwards
was saying.
The fountain! They had met at the fountain, and had been seen!
Could that spot be the same as mentioned in the mysterious letter left
behind by the fugitive Cane after the sudden death of the Englishman away
in far-off Peru?
Did someone, after all the lapse of years, go there on every twenty-third
of the month at noon wearing a yellow flower, to wait for a person who,
alas! never came?
The thought filled me with romance, even though we were at that moment
investigating a very remarkable tragedy. Yet surely in no city in this
world is there so much romance, so much pathos, such whole-hearted love
and affection, or such deep and deadly hatred as in our great palpitating
metropolis, where secret assassinations are of daily occurrence, and
where the most unpardonable sin is that of being found out.
"What's that you've got hold of?" Edwards asked me, as he crossed to the
table and bent over me.
I started.
Then, recovering myself--for I had no desire that he should
know--replied, quite coolly:
"Oh, only a few old letters--written long ago, in the eighties."
"Ah! Ancient history, eh?"
"Yes," I replied, packing them together and retying them with the soiled,
pink tape. "But have you discovered anything?"
"Well," he replied with a self-conscious smile, "I've found a letter here
which rather alters my theory," and I saw that he held a piece of grey
notepaper in his hand. "Here is a note addressed to him as long ago as
1900 in the name of Sir Digby Kemsley! Perhaps, after all, the man who
died so mysteriously in Peru was an impostor, and the owner of this place
was the real Sir Digby!"
"Exactly my own theory," I declared.
"But that fountain!" he remarked. "The fountain mentioned in the letter
left behind by the man Cane. We must take immediate steps to identify it,
and it must be watched on the twenty-third for the coming of the woman
who wears a yellow flower. When we find her, we shall be able to discover
something very interesting, Mr. Royle. Don't you agree?"