LOVE'S CONFESSION.
I dined alone at the Club, and afterwards sat over my coffee in one of
the smaller white-panelled rooms, gazing up at the Adams ceiling, and my
mind full of the gravest thoughts.
What had Edwards meant when he promised me an unpleasant surprise? Had
the woman Petre already made a statement incriminating my well-beloved?
If so, I would at once demand the arrest of her and her accomplices for
attempted murder. It had suggested itself to me to make a complete
revelation to Edwards of the whole of my exciting adventure at
Colchester, but on mature consideration I saw that such a course might
thwart my endeavours to come face to face with Digby.
Therefore I had held my tongue.
But were Edwards' suspicions that the assassin Cane and the man I knew as
Sir Digby Kemsley were one and the same, correct, or were they not?
The method by which the unfortunate Englishman in Peru had been foully
done to death was similar to the means employed against myself at
Colchester on the previous night. Again, the fact that the victim did not
shout and call for aid was, no doubt, due to the administration of that
drug which produced complete paralysis of the muscles, and yet left the
senses perfectly normal.
Was that Indian whom they called Ali really a Peruvian native--the
accomplice of Cane? I now felt confident that this was so.
But in what manner could the impostor have obtained power over Phrida?
Why did she not take courage and reveal to me the truth?
Presently, I took a taxi down to Cromwell Road and found my well-beloved,
with thin, pale, drawn face, endeavouring to do some fancy needlework by
the drawing-room fire. Her mother had retired with a bad headache, she
said, and she was alone.
"I expected you yesterday, Teddy," she said, taking my hand. "I waited
all day, but you never came."
"I had to go into the country," I replied somewhat lamely.
Then after a brief conversation upon trivialities, during which time I
sat regarding her closely, and noting how nervous and agitated she
seemed, she suddenly asked:
"Well! Have you heard anything more of that woman, Mrs. Petre?"
"I believe she's gone abroad," I replied, with evasion.
Phrida's lips twitched convulsively, and she gave vent to a slight sigh,
of relief, perhaps.
"Tell me, dearest," I said, bending and stroking her soft hair from her
white brow. "Are you still so full of anxiety? Do you still fear the
exposure of the truth?"
She did not reply, but of a sudden buried her face upon my shoulder and
burst into tears.
"Ah!" I sighed, still stroking her hair sympathetically, "I know what you
must suffer, darling--of the terrible mental strain upon you. I believe
in your innocence--I still believe in it, and if you will bear a stout
heart and trust me, I believe I shall succeed in worsting your enemies."
In a moment her tear-stained face was raised to mine.
"Do you really believe that you can, dear?" she asked anxiously. "Do you
actually anticipate extricating me from this terrible position of doubt,
uncertainty, and guilt?"
"I do--if you will only trust me, and keep a brave heart, darling," I
said. "Already I have made several discoveries--startling ones."
"About Mrs. Petre, perhaps?"
"About her and about others."
"What about her?"
"I have found out where she is living--down at Colchester."
"What?" she gasped, starting. "You've been down there?"
"Yes, I was there yesterday, and I saw Ali and the two servants."
"You saw them--and spoke to them?" she cried incredibly.
"Yes."
"But, Teddy--ah! You don't know how injudicious it was for you to visit
them. Why, you might have----"
"Might have what?" I asked, endeavouring to betray no surprise at her
words.
"Well, I mean you should not have ventured into the enemy's camp like
that. It was dangerous," she declared.
"Why?"
"They are quite unscrupulous," she replied briefly.
"They are your enemies, I know. But I cannot see why they should be
mine," I remarked.
"My enemies--yes!" my love cried bitterly. "It will not be long before
that woman makes a charge against me, Teddy--one which I shall not be
able to refute."
"But I will assist you against them. I love you, Phrida, and it is my
duty to defend you," I declared.
"Ah! You were always so good and generous," she remarked wistfully. "But
in this case I cannot, alas, see how you can render me any aid! The
police will make inquiries, and--and then the end," she added in a voice
scarce above a whisper.
"No, no!" I urged. "Don't speak in that hopeless strain, darling. I know
your position is a terrible one. We need not refer to details; as they
are painful to both of us. But I am straining every nerve--working night
and day to clear up the mystery and lift from you this cloud of
suspicion. I have already commenced by learning one or two facts--facts
of which the police remain in ignorance. Although you refused to tell
me--why, I cannot discern--the name of the unfortunate girl who lost her
life, I have succeeded in gaining knowledge of it. Was not the girl named
Marie Bracq?"
She started again at hearing the name.
"Yes," she replied at once. "Who told you?"
"I discovered it for myself," I replied. "Who was the girl--tell me?"
"A friend of Digby Kemsley's."
"A foreigner, of course?"
"Yes, Belgian, I believe."
"From Brussels, eh?"
"Perhaps. I don't know for certain."
"And she learned some great secret of Digby's, which was the motive of
the crime," I suggested.
But my love only shook her pretty head blankly, saying--"I don't know.
Perhaps she knew something to his detriment."
"And in order to silence her, she was killed," I suggested.
"Perhaps."
She made no protest of her own innocence, I noticed. She seemed to place
herself unreservedly in my hands to judge her as I thought fit.
Yet had not her own admissions been extremely strange ones. Had she not
practically avowed her guilt?
"Can you tell me nothing concerning this Belgian girl?" I asked her a few
moments later.
"I only knew her but very slightly."
"Pardon me putting to you such a pointed question, Phrida. But were you
jealous of her?"
"Jealous!" she ejaculated. "Why, dear me, no. Why should I be jealous?
Who suggested that?"
"Mrs. Petre. She declares that your jealousy was the motive of the crime,
and that Digby himself can bear witness to it."
"She said that?" cried my love, her eyes flashing in fierce anger. "She's
a wicked liar."
"I know she is, and I intend to prove her so," I replied with confidence.
"When she and I meet again we have an account to settle. You will see."
"Ah! Teddy, beware of her! She's a dangerous woman--highly dangerous,"
declared my love apprehensively. "You don't know her as I do--you do not
know the grave evil and utter ruin she has brought upon others. So I beg
of you to be careful not to be entrapped."
"Have others been entrapped, then?" I asked with great curiosity.
"I don't know. No. Please don't ask me," she protested. "I don't know."
Her response was unreal. My well-beloved was I knew in possession of some
terrible secret which she dared not betray. Yet why were her lips sealed?
What did she fear?
"I intend to find Digby, and demand the truth from him," I said after we
had been silent for a long time. "I will never rest until I stand before
him face to face."
"Ah! no dear!" she cried in quick alarm, starting up and flinging both
her arms about my neck. "No, don't do that?" she implored.
"Why not?"
"Because he will condemn me--he will think you have learned something
from me," she declared in deep distress.
"But I shall reveal to him my sources of information," I said. "Since
that fatal night I have learned that the man whom I believed was my firm
friend has betrayed me. An explanation is due to me, and I intend to have
one."
"At my expense--eh?" she asked in bitter reproach.
"No, dearest. The result shall not fall upon you," I said. "I will see to
that. A foul and dastardly crime has been committed, and the assassin
shall be brought to punishment."
My well-beloved shuddered in my arms as she heard my words--as though the
guilt were upon her.
I detected it, and became more than ever puzzled. Why did she seek to
secure this man's freedom?
I asked her that question point-blank, whereupon in a hard, faltering
voice, she replied:
"Because, dear, while he is still a fugitive from justice I feel myself
safe. The hour he is arrested is the hour of my doom."
"Why speak so despondently?" I asked. "Have I not promised to protect you
from those people?"
"How can you if they make allegations against me and bring up witnesses
who will commit perjury--who will swear anything in order that the guilt
shall be placed upon my head," she asked in despair.
"Though the justice often dispensed by country magistrates is a
disgraceful travesty of right and wrong, yet we still have in England
justice in the criminal courts," I said. "Rest assured that no jury will
convict an innocent woman of the crime of murder."
She stood slightly away from me, staring blankly straight before her.
Then suddenly she pressed both hands upon her brow and cried in a low,
intense voice:
"May God have pity on me!"
"Yes," I said very earnestly. "Trust in Him, dearest, and He will help
you."
"Ah!" she cried. "You don't know how I suffer--of all the terror--all the
dread that haunts me night and day. Each ring at the door I fear may be
the police--every man who passes the house I fear may be a detective
watching. This torture is too awful. I feel I shall go mad--_mad_!"
And she paced the room in her despair, while I stood watching her, unable
to still the wild, frantic terror that had gripped her young heart.
What could I do? What could I think?
"This cannot go on, Phrida!" I cried at last in desperation. "I will
search out this man. I'll grip him by the throat and force the truth from
him," I declared, setting my teeth hard. "I love you, and I will not
stand by and see you suffer like this!"
"Ah, no!" she implored, suddenly approaching me, flinging herself upon
her knees and gripping my hands. "No, I beg of you not to do that!" she
cried hoarsely.
"But why?" I demanded. "Surely you can tell me the reason of your fear!"
I went on--"the man is a rank impostor. That has been proved already by
the police."
"Do you know that?" she asked, in an instant grave. "Are you quite
certain of that? Remember, you have all along believed him to be the real
Sir Digby."
"What is your belief, Phrida?" I asked her very earnestly.
She drew a long breath and hesitated.
"Truth to tell, dear, I don't know what to think. Sometimes I believe he
must be the real person--and at other times I am filled with doubt."
"But now tell me," I urged, assisting her to rise to her feet and then
placing my arm about her neck, so that her pretty head fell upon my
shoulder. "Answer me truthfully this one question, for all depends upon
it. How is it that this man has secured such a hold upon you--how is it
that with you his word is law--that though he is a fugitive from justice
you refuse to say a single word against him or to give me one clue to
the solution of this mystery?"
Her face was blanched to the lips, she trembled in my embrace, drawing a
long breath.
"I--I'm sorry, dear--but I--I can't tell you. I--I dare not. Can't you
understand?" she asked with despair in her great, wide-open eyes. "_I
dare not!_"