THE PIECE OF CONVICTION.
The morning of the tenth of January was one of those of gloom and
darkness which are, on occasions, the blots upon London's reputation.
There seemed no fog, only a heavy, threatening cloud of night fell
suddenly upon the city, and at three o'clock it might have been midnight.
Streets, shops, and offices were lit everywhere, and buses and taxis
compelled to light up, while in the atmosphere was a sulphurous odour
with a black deposit which caused the eyes to smart and the lungs to
irritate.
Londoners know those periods of unpleasant darkness only too well.
I was sitting in my room in Albemarle Street, watching Haines, who was
cleaning a piece of old silver I had bought at an auction on the previous
day. The collecting of old silver is, I may say, my hobby, and the piece
was a very fine old Italian reliquary, about ten inches in height, with
the Sicilian mark of the seventeenth century.
Haines, under my tuition, had become an expert and careful cleaner of
silver, and I was watching and exhorting him to exercise the greatest
care, as the ornamentation was thin, and some of the scrollwork around
the top extremely fragile. It had, according to the inscription at its
base, contained a bone of a certain saint--a local saint of Palermo it
seemed--but the relic had disappeared long ago. Yet the silver case
which, for centuries, had stood upon an altar somewhere, was a really
exquisite piece of the silversmith's art.
Suddenly the telephone-bell rang, and on answering it I heard Phrida's
voice asking--
"I say, Teddy, is that you? Why haven't you been over since Thursday?"
I started, recollecting that I had not been to Cromwell Road since the
afternoon of the inquest--three days ago.
"Dear, do forgive me," I craved. "I--I've been so horribly busy. Had to
be at the works each day."
"But you might have been over in the evening," she responded in a tone of
complaint. "You remember you promised to take me to the St. James's last
night, and I expected you."
"Oh, dearest, I'm so sorry," I said. "But I've been awfully worried, you
know. Do forgive me!"
"Yes, I know!" she answered. "Well, I'll forgive you if you'll run over
now and take me to tea at the Leslies. I've ordered the car for four
o'clock. Will that suit you?"
The Leslies! They were snobbish folk with whom I had but little in
common. Yet what could I do but agree?
And then my well-beloved rang off.
When I got down to Cromwell Road just before four o'clock, the darkness
had not lifted.
My feelings as I passed along the big, old-fashioned hall and up the
thickly-carpeted stairs to the drawing-room were mixed ones of doubt,
and yet of deep affection.
Ah, I loved Phrida--loved her better than my own life--and yet----?
Fresh in my memory was the doctor's evidence that the crime in Harrington
Gardens had been committed with a thin, triangular knife--a knife such as
that I had often seen lying upon the old-fashioned, walnut what-not in
the corner of the room I was just about to enter. I had known it lying in
the same place for years.
Was it still there?
Purposely, because I felt that it could no longer be there, I had
refrained from calling upon my love, and now, when I paused and turned
the handle of the drawing-room door, I hardly dared to cast my eyes upon
that antiquated piece of furniture.
Phrida, who was sitting with her hat and coat already on, jumped up gaily
to meet me.
"Oh, you really are prompt, Teddy!" she cried with a flush of pleasure.
Then, as I bent over her mother's hand, the latter said--
"You're quite a stranger, Mr. Royle. I expect you have been very upset
over the curious disappearance of your friend. We've searched the papers
every day, but could find nothing whatever about it."
Phrida had turned towards the fire, her pretty head bent as she buttoned
her glove.
"No," I replied. "Up to the present the newspapers are in complete
ignorance of the affair. But no doubt they'll learn all about it before
long."
Then, crossing the room to pick up a magazine lying upon a chair, I
halted against the old walnut what-not.
Yes, the mediæval poignard was still lying there, just as I had always
seen it!
Had it been used, and afterwards replaced?
I scarcely dared to glance at it, lest I should betray any unusual
interest. I felt that Phrida's eyes were watching me, that she suspected
my knowledge.
I took up the magazine idly, glanced at it, and, replacing it, returned
to her side.
"Well," she asked, "are you ready?"
And then together we descended to the car.
All the way up to Abbey Road she hardly spoke. She seemed unusually pale
and haggard. I asked her what was the matter, but she only replied in a
faint, unnatural voice--
"Matter? Why nothing--nothing, I assure you, Teddy!"
I did not reply. I gazed upon the pretty, pale-faced figure at my side in
wonder and yet in fear. I loved her--ah! I loved her well and truly, with
all my soul. Yet was it possible that by means of that knife lying there
so openly in that West-End drawing-room a woman's life had been
treacherously taken.
Had my friend Digby, the fugitive, actually committed the crime?
When I put the whole matter clearly and with common-sense before myself,
I was bound to admit that I had a strong belief of his innocence.
What would those finger-prints reveal?
The thought held me breathless. Yes, to satisfy myself I would
surreptitiously secure finger-prints of my well-beloved and then in
secret compare them with those found in Sir Digby's rooms.
But how? I was reflecting as the car passed by Apsley House and into the
Park on its way to St. John's Wood.
Was I acting honestly? I doubted her, I quite admit. Yet I felt that if I
took some object--a glass, or something with a polished surface--that she
had touched, and submitted it to examination, I would be acting as a
sneak.
The idea was repugnant to me. Yet with that horrible suspicion obsessing
me I felt that I must do something in order to satisfy myself.
What inane small talk I uttered in the Leslies' big, over-furnished
drawing-room I know not. All I remember is that I sat with some insipid
girl whose hair was flaxen and as colourless as her mind, sipping my tea
while I listened to her silly chatter about a Cook's tour she had just
taken through Holland and Belgium. The estimable Cook is, alas!
responsible for much tea-table chatter among the fair sex.
Our hostess was an obese, flashily-dressed, dogmatic lady, the wife of
the chairman of a big drapery concern who, having married her eldest
daughter to a purchased knighthood, fondly believed herself to be in
society--thanks to the "paid paragraphs" in the social columns of certain
morning newspapers. It is really wonderful what half-guineas will do
towards social advancement in these days! For a guinea one's presence can
be recorded at a dinner, or an at home, or one's departure from town can
be notified to the world in general in a paragraph all to one's self--a
paragraph which rubs shoulders with those concerning the highest in the
land. The snobbery of the "social column" would really be amusing were it
not so painfully apparent. A good press-agent will, for a fee, give one
as much publicity and newspaper popularity as that enjoyed by a duke, and
most amazing is it that such paragraphs are swallowed with keen avidity
by Suburbia.
The Leslies were an average specimen of the upper middle-class, who were
struggling frantically to get into a good set. The old man was bald,
pompous, and always wore gold pince-nez and a fancy waistcoat. He carried
his shop manners into his drawing-room, retaining his habit of rubbing
his hands in true shop-walker style when he wished to be polite to his
guests.
His wife was a loud-tongued and altogether impossible person, who, it was
said, had once served behind the counter in a small shop in Cardiff, but
who now regarded the poor workers in her husband's huge emporium as mere
money-making machines.
By dint of careful cultivation at bazaars and such-like charitable
functions she had scraped acquaintance with a few women of title, to whom
she referred in conversation as "dear Lady So and So, who said to me the
other day," or "as my friend Lady Violet always says."
She had buttonholed me at last, though I had endeavoured to escape her,
and was standing before me like a pouter-pigeon pluming herself and
endeavouring to be humorous at the expense of a very modest little
married woman who had been her guest that afternoon and had just left
after shaking my hand.
Women of Mrs. Leslie's stamp are perhaps the most evil-tongued of all.
They rise from obscurity, and finding wealth at their command, imagine
that they can command obeisance and popularity. Woe betide other women
who arouse their jealousy, for they will scandalise and blight the
reputation of the purest of their sex in the suburban belief that the
invention of scandal is the hallmark of smartness.
At last I got rid of her, thanks to the arrival of an elegant young man,
the younger son of a well-known peer, to whom, of course, she was at once
all smiles, and, presently, I found myself out in the hall with Phrida. I
breathed more freely when at last I passed into the keen air and entered
the car.
"Those people are impossible, dearest," I blurted out when the car had
moved away from the door. "They are the most vulgar pair I know."
"I quite agree," replied my well-beloved, pulling the fur rug over her
knees. "But they are old friends of mother's, so I'm compelled to go and
see them sometimes."
"Ah!" I sighed. "I suppose the old draper will buy a knighthood at this
year's sale for the King's Birthday, and then his fat wife will have a
tin handle to her name."
"Really, Teddy, you're simply awful," replied my companion. "If they
heard you I wonder what they would say?"
"I don't care," I replied frankly. "I only speak the truth. The
Government sell their titles to anybody who cares to buy. Ah! I fear that
few men who really deserve honour ever get it in these days. No man can
become great unless he has the influence of money to back him. The
biggest swindler who ever walked up Threadneedle Street can buy a
peerage, always providing he is married and has no son. As old Leslie
buys his calicoes, ribbons and women's frills, so he'll buy his title. He
hasn't a son, so perhaps he'll fancy a peerage and become the Lord
Bargain of Sale."
Phrida laughed heartily at my biting sarcasm.
Truth to tell, though I was uttering bitter sentiments, my thoughts were
running in a very different direction. I was wondering how I could best
obtain the finger-prints of the woman who held my future so irrevocably
in her hands.
I had become determined to satisfy myself of my love's innocence--or--can
I write the words?--of her guilt!
And as I sat there beside her, my nostrils again became filled by that
sweet subtle perfume--the perfume of tragedy.