EDWARDS BECOMES MORE PUZZLED.
At half-past seven on that same evening, Edwards, in response to a
telegram I sent him from Calais, called upon me in Albemarle Street.
He looked extremely grave when he entered my room. After Haines had taken
his hat and coat and we were alone, he said in a low voice:
"Mr. Royle, I have a rather painful communication to make to you. I much
regret it--but the truth must be faced."
"Well?" I asked, in quick apprehension; "what is it?"
"We have received from an anonymous correspondent--who turns out to be
the woman Petre, whom you know--a letter making the gravest accusations
against Miss Shand. She denounces her as the assassin of the girl Marie
Bracq."
"It's a lie! a foul, abominable lie!" I cried angrily. "I told you that
she would seek to condemn the woman I love."
"Yes, I recollect. But it is a clue which I am in duty bound to
investigate."
"You have not been to Miss Shand--you have not yet questioned her?" I
gasped anxiously.
"Not before I saw you," he replied. "I may as well tell you at once that
I had some slight suspicion that the young lady in question was
acquainted with your friend who posed as Sir Digby."
"How?" I asked.
He hesitated. "Well, I thought it most likely that as you and he were
such great friends, you might have introduced them," he said, rather
lamely.
"But surely you are not going to believe the words of this woman Petre?"
I cried. "Listen, and I will tell you how she has already endeavoured to
take my life, and thus leave Miss Shand at her mercy."
Then, as he sat listening, his feet stretched towards the fender, I
related in detail the startling adventure which befel me at Colchester.
"Extraordinary, Mr. Royle!" he exclaimed, in blank surprise. "Why, in
heaven's name, didn't you tell me this before! The snake! Why, that is
exactly the method used by Cane to secure the death of the real Sir
Digby!"
"What was the use of telling you?" I queried. "What is the use even now?
The woman has fled and, at the same time, takes a dastardly revenge upon
the woman I love."
"Tell me, Mr. Royle," said the inspector, who, in his dinner coat and
black tie, presented the appearance of the West End club man rather than
a police official. "Have you yourself any suspicion that Miss Shand has
knowledge of the affair?"
His question non-plussed me for the moment.
"Ah! I see you hesitate!" he exclaimed, shrewdly. "You have a
suspicion--now admit it."
He pressed me, and seeing that my demeanour had, alas! betrayed my
thoughts, I was compelled to speak the truth.
"Yes," I said, in a low, strained voice. "To tell you the truth,
Edwards, there are certain facts which I am utterly unable to
understand--facts which Miss Shand has admitted to me. But I still refuse
to believe that she is a murderess."
"Naturally," he remarked, and I thought I detected a slightly sarcastic
curl of the lips. "But though Miss Shand is unaware of it, I have made
certain secret inquiries--inquiries which have given astounding results,"
he said slowly. "I have, unknown to the young lady, secured some of her
finger-prints, which, on comparison, have coincided exactly with those
found upon the glass-topped table at Harrington Gardens, and also with
those which you brought to me so mysteriously." And he added, "To be
quite frank, it was that action of yours which first aroused my suspicion
regarding Miss Shand. I saw that you suspected some one--that you were
trying to prove to your own satisfaction that your theory was wrong."
I held my breath, cursing myself for such injudicious action.
"Again, this letter from the woman Petre has corroborated my
apprehensions," he went on. "Miss Shand was a friend of the man who
called himself Sir Digby. She met him clandestinely, unknown, to
you--eh?" he asked.
"Please do not question me, Edwards," I implored. "This is all so
extremely painful to me."
"I regret, but it is my duty, Mr. Royle," he replied in a tone of
sympathy. "Is not my suggestion the true one?"
I admitted that it was.
Then, in quick, brief sentences I told him of my visit to the Préfecture
of Police in Brussels and all that I had discovered regarding the
fugitives, to which he listened most attentively.
"They have not replied to my inquiry concerning the dead girl Marie
Bracq," he remarked presently.
"They know her," I replied. "Van Huffel, the _Chef du Sureté_, stood
aghast when I told him that the man Kemsley was wanted by you on a charge
of murdering her. He declared that the allegation utterly astounded him,
and that the press must have no suspicion of the affair, as a great
scandal would result."
"But who is the girl?" he inquired quickly.
"Van Huffel refused to satisfy my curiosity. He declared that her
identity was a secret which he was not permitted to divulge, but he added
when I pressed him, that she was a daughter of one of the princely houses
of Europe!"
Edwards stared at me.
"I wonder what is her real name?" he said, reflectively. "Really, Mr.
Royle, the affair grows more and more interesting and puzzling."
"It does," I said, and then I related in detail my fruitless journey to
Paris, and how the three fugitives had alighted at Munich from the
westbound express from the Near East, and disappeared.
"Frémy, whom I think you know, has gone after them," I added.
"If Frémy once gets on the scent he'll, no doubt, find them," remarked my
companion. "He's one of the most astute and clever detectives in Europe.
So, if the case is in his hands, I'm quite contented that all will be
done to trace them."
For two hours we sat together, while I related what the girl at Melbourne
House had told me, and, in fact, put before him practically all that I
have recorded in the foregoing pages.
Then, at last, I stood before him boldly and asked:
"In face of all this, can you suspect Miss Shand? Is she not that man's
victim?"
He did not speak for several moments; his gaze was fixed upon the fire.
"Well," he replied, stirring himself at last, "to tell you the truth, Mr.
Royle, I'm just as puzzled as you are. She may be the victim of this man
we know to be an unscrupulous adventurer, but, at the same time, her hand
may have used that triangular-bladed knife which we have been unable to
find."
The knife! I held my breath. Was it not lying openly upon that table in
the corner of the drawing-room at Cromwell Road? Would not analysis
reveal upon it a trace of human blood? Would not its possession in itself
convict her?
"Then what is your intention?" I asked, at last.
"To see her and put a few questions, Mr. Royle," he answered slowly. "I
know how much this must pain you, bearing in mind your deep affection for
the young lady, but, unfortunately, it is my duty, and I cannot see how
such a course can be avoided."
"No. I beg of you not to do this," I implored. "Keep what observation you
like, but do not approach her--at least, not yet. In her present frame of
mind, haunted by the shadow of the crime and hemmed in by suspicion of
which she cannot clear herself, it would be fatal."
"Fatal! I don't understand you."
"Well--she would take her own life," I said in a low whisper.
"She has threatened--eh?" he asked.
I nodded in the affirmative.
"Then does not that, in itself, justify my decision to see and question
her?"
"No, it does not!" I protested. "She is not guilty, but this terrible
dread and anxiety is, I know, gradually unbalancing her brain. She is a
girl of calm determination, and if she believed that you suspected her
she would be driven by sheer terror to carry out her threat."
He smiled.
"Most women threaten suicide at one time or other of their lives. Their
thoughts seem to revert to romance as soon as they find themselves in a
corner. No," he added. "I never believe in threats of suicide in either
man or woman. Life is always too precious for that, and especially if a
woman loves, as she does."
"You don't know her."
"No, but I know women, Mr. Royle--I know all their idiosyncrasies as well
as most men, I think," he said.
I begged him not to approach my well-beloved, but he was inexorable.
"I must see her--and I must know the truth," he declared decisively.
But I implored again of him, begging him to spare her--begged her life.
I had gripped him by the hand, and looking into his face I pointed out
that I had done and was doing all I could to elucidate the mystery.
"At least," I cried, "you will wait until the fugitives are arrested!"
"There is only one--the impostor," he said. "There is no charge against
the others."
"Then I will lay a charge to-night against the woman Petre and the man
Ali of attempting to kill me." I said. "The two names can then be added
to the warrant."
"Very well," he said. "We'll go to the Yard, and I will take your
information."
"And you will not approach Phrida until you hear something from
Brussels--eh?" I asked persuasively. "In the meantime, I will do all I
can. Leave Miss Shand to me."
"If I did it would be a grave dereliction of duty," he replied slowly.
"But is it a dereliction of duty to disregard allegations made by a woman
who has fled in that man's company, and who is, we now know, his
accomplice?" I protested. "Did not you yourself tell me that you, at
Scotland Yard, always regarded lightly any anonymous communication?"
"As a rule we do. But past history shows that many have been genuine," he
said. "Before the commission of nearly all the Jack the Ripper crimes
there were anonymous letters, written in red ink. We have them now framed
and hanging up in the Black Museum."
"But such letters are not denunciations. They were promises of a further
sensation," I argued. "The triumphant and gleeful declarations of the mad
but mysterious assassin. No. Promise me, Edwards, that you will postpone
this projected step of yours, which can, in any case, even though my love
be innocent, only result in dire disaster."
He saw how earnest was my appeal, and realised, I think, the extreme
gravity of the situation, and how deeply it concerned me. He seemed,
also, to recognise that in discovering the name of the victim and in
going a second time to Brussels, I had been able to considerably advance
the most difficult inquiry; therefore, after still another quarter of an
hour of persuasion, I induced him to withhold.
"Very well," he replied, "though I can make no definite promise, Mr.
Royle. I will not see the lady before I have again consulted with you.
But," he added, "I must be frank with you. I shall continue my
investigations in that quarter, and most probably watch will be kept upon
her movements."
"And if she recognises that you suspect her?" I gasped.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, with a slight shrug of the shoulders. "I cannot
accept any responsibility for that. How can I?"