When Lady Maud stopped at Margaret's house on her way to the theatre
she had been dining at Princes' with a small party of people, amongst
whom Paul Griggs had found himself, and as there was no formality to
hinder her from choosing her own place she had sat down next to him.
The table was large and round, the sixty or seventy other diners in
the room made a certain amount of noise, so that it was easy to talk
in undertones while the conversation of the others was general.
The veteran man of letters was an old acquaintance of Lady Maud's; and
as she made no secret of her friendship with Rufus Van Torp, it was
not surprising that Griggs should warn her of the latter's danger. As
he had expected when he left New York, he had received a visit from a
'high-class' detective, who came to find out what he knew about Miss
Bamberger's death. This is a bad world, as we all know, and it is made
so by a good many varieties of bad people. As Mr. Van Torp had said to
Logotheti, 'different kinds of cats have different kinds of ways,' and
the various classes of criminals are pursued by various classes of
detectives. Many are ex-policemen, and make up the pack that hunts
the well-dressed lady shop-lifter, the gentle pickpocket, the agile
burglar, the Paris Apache, and the common murderer of the Bill Sykes
type; they are good dogs in their way, if you do not press them,
though they are rather apt to give tongue. But when they are not
ex-policemen, they are always ex-something else, since there is no
college for detectives, and it is not probable that any young man ever
deliberately began life with the intention of becoming one. Edgar Poe
invented the amateur detective, and modern writers have developed him
till he is a familiar and always striking figure in fiction and on the
stage. Whether he really exists or not does not matter. I have heard a
great living painter ask the question: What has art to do with truth?
But as a matter of fact Paul Griggs, who had seen a vast deal, had
never met an amateur detective; and my own impression is that if one
existed he would instantly turn himself into a professional because it
would be so very profitable.
The one who called on Griggs in his lodgings wrote 'barrister-at-law'
after his name, and had the right to do so. He had languished in
chambers, briefless and half starving, either because he had no talent
for the bar, or because he had failed to marry a solicitor's daughter.
He himself was inclined to attribute his want of success to the
latter cause. But he had not wasted his time, though he was more than
metaphorically threadbare, and his waist would have made a sensation
at a staymaker's. He had watched and pondered on many curious cases
for years; and one day, when a 'high-class' criminal had baffled the
police and had well-nigh confounded the Attorney-General and proved
himself a saint, the starving barrister had gone quietly to work in
his own way, had discovered the truth, had taken his information to
the prosecution, had been the means of sending the high-class one to
penal servitude, and had covered himself with glory; since when he had
grown sleek and well-liking, if not rich, as a professional detective.
Griggs had been perfectly frank, and had told without hesitation all
he could remember of the circumstances. In answer to further questions
he said he knew Mr. Van Torp tolerably well, and had not seen him in
the Opera House on the evening of the murder. He did not know whether
the financier's character was violent. If it was, he had never seen
any notable manifestation of temper. Did he know that Mr. Van Torp had
once lived on a ranch, and had killed two men in a shooting
affray? Yes, he had heard so, but the shooting might have been in
self-defence. Did he know anything about the blowing up of the works
of which Van Torp had been accused in the papers? Nothing more than
the public knew. Or anything about the circumstances of Van Torp's
engagement to Miss Bamberger? Nothing whatever. Would he read the
statement and sign his name to it? He would, and he did.
Griggs thought the young man acted more like an ordinary lawyer than a
detective, and said so with a smile.
'Oh no,' was the quiet answer. 'In my business it's quite as important
to recognise honesty as it is to detect fraud. That's all.'
For his own part the man of letters did not care a straw whether Van
Torp had committed the murder or not, but he thought it very unlikely.
On general principles, he thought the law usually found out the truth
in the end, and he was ready to do what he could to help it. He held
his tongue, and told no one about the detective's visit, because he
had no intimate friend in England; partly, too, because he wished to
keep his name out of what was now called 'the Van Torp scandal.'
He would never have alluded to the matter if he had not accidentally
found himself next to Lady Maud at dinner. She had always liked him
and trusted him, and he liked her and her father. On that evening she
spoke of Van Torp within the first ten minutes, and expressed her
honest indignation at the general attack made on 'the kindest man that
ever lived.' Then Griggs felt that she had a sort of right to know
what was being done to bring against her friend an accusation of
murder, for he believed Van Torp innocent, and was sure that Lady
Maud would warn him; but it was for her sake only that Griggs spoke,
because he pitied her.
She took it more calmly than he had expected, but she grew a little
paler, and that look came into her eyes which Margaret and Logotheti
saw there an hour afterwards; and presently she asked Griggs if he too
would join the week-end party at Craythew, telling him that Van Torp
would be there. Griggs accepted, after a moment's hesitation.
She was not quite sure why she had so frankly appealed to Logotheti
for help when they left Margaret's house together, but she was not
disappointed in his answer. He was 'exotic,' as she had said of him;
he was hopelessly in love with Cordova, who disliked Van Torp, and he
could not be expected to take much trouble for any other woman; she
had not the very slightest claim on him. Yet she had asked him to help
her in a way which might be anything but lawful, even supposing that
it did not involve positive cruelty.
For she had not been married to Leven four years without learning
something of Asiatic practices, and she knew that there were more
means of making a man tell a secret than by persuasion or wily
cross-examination. It was all very well to keep within the bounds of
the law and civilisation, but where the whole existence of her best
friend was at stake, Lady Maud was much too simple, primitive, and
feminine to be hampered by any such artificial considerations, and
she turned naturally to a man who did not seem to be a slave to them
either. She had not quite dared to hope that he would help her, and
his readiness to do so was something of a surprise; but she would have
been astonished if he had been in the least shocked at the implied
suggestion of deliberately torturing Charles Feist till he revealed
the truth about the murder. She only felt a little uncomfortable when
she reflected that Feist might not know it after all, whereas she had
boldly told Logotheti that he did.
If the Greek had hesitated for a few seconds before giving his answer,
it was not that he was doubtful of his own willingness to do what she
wished, but because he questioned his power to do it. The request
itself appealed to the Oriental's love of excitement and to his taste
for the uncommon in life. If he had not sometimes found occasions for
satisfying both, he could not have lived in Paris and London at all,
but would have gone back to Constantinople, which is the last refuge
of romance in Europe, the last hiding-place of mediaeval adventure,
the last city of which a new Decameron of tales could still be told,
and might still be true.
Lady Maud had good nerves, and she watched the play with her friends
and talked between the acts, very much as if nothing had happened,
except that she was pale and there was that look in her eyes; but only
Paul Griggs noticed it, because he had a way of watching the small
changes of expression that may mean tragedy, but more often signify
indigestion, or too much strong tea, or a dun's letter, or a tight
shoe, or a bad hand at bridge, or the presence of a bore in the room,
or the flat failure of expected pleasure, or sauce spilt on a new gown
by a rival's butler, or being left out of something small and smart,
or any of those minor aches that are the inheritance of the social
flesh, and drive women perfectly mad while they last.
But Griggs knew that none of these troubles afflicted Lady Maud, and
when he spoke to her now and then, between the acts, she felt his
sympathy for her in every word and inflection.
She was glad when the evening was over and she was at home in her
dressing-room, and there was no more effort to be made till the next
day. But even alone, she did not behave or look very differently; she
twisted up her thick brown hair herself, as methodically as ever, and
laid out the black velvet gown on the lounge after shaking it out,
so that it should be creased as little as possible; but when she was
ready to go to bed she put on a dressing-gown and sat down at her
table to write to Rufus Van Torp.
The letter was begun and she had written half a dozen lines when she
laid down the pen, to unlock a small drawer from which she took an old
blue envelope that had never been sealed, though it was a good deal
the worse for wear. There was a photograph in it, which she laid
before her on the letter; and she looked down at it steadily, resting
her elbows on the table and her forehead and temples in her hands.
It was a snapshot photograph of a young officer in khaki and puttees,
not very well taken, and badly mounted on a bit of white pasteboard
that might have been cut from a bandbox with a penknife; but it was
all she had, and there could never be another.
She looked at it a long time.
'You understand, dear,' she said at last, very low; 'you understand.'
She put it away again and locked the drawer before she went on with
her letter to Van Torp. It was easy enough to tell him what she had
learned about Feist from Logotheti; it was even possible that he had
found it out for himself, and had not taken the trouble to inform her
of the fact. Apart from the approval that friendship inspires, she had
always admired the cool discernment of events which he showed when
great things were at stake. But it was one thing, she now told him, to
be indifferent to the stupid attacks of the press, it would be quite
another to allow himself to be accused of murder; the time had come
when he must act, and without delay; there was a limit beyond which
indifference became culpable apathy; it was clear enough now, she
said, that all these attacks on him had been made to ruin him in the
estimation of the public on both sides of the Atlantic before striking
the first blow, as he himself had guessed; Griggs was surely not an
alarmist, and Griggs said confidently that Van Torp's enemies meant
business; without doubt, a mass of evidence had been carefully got
together during the past three months, and it was pretty sure that an
attempt would be made before long to arrest him; would he do nothing
to make such an outrage impossible? She had not forgotten, she could
never forget, what she owed him, but on his side he owed something to
her, and to the great friendship that bound them to each other. Who
was this man Feist, and who was behind him? She did not know why she
was so sure that he knew the truth, supposing that there had really
been a murder, but her instinct told her so.
Lady Maud was not gifted with much power of writing, for she was not
clever at books, or with pen and ink, but she wrote her letter
with deep conviction and striking clearness. The only point of any
importance which she did not mention was that Logotheti had promised
to help her, and she did not write of that because she was not really
sure that he could do anything, though she was convinced that he would
try. She was very anxious. She was horrified when she thought of what
might happen if nothing were done. She entreated Van Torp to answer
that he would take steps to defend himself; and that, if possible, he
would come to town so that they might consult together.
She finished her letter and went to bed; but her good nerves failed
her for once, and it was a long time before she could get to sleep.
It was absurd, of course, but she remembered every case she had ever
heard of in which innocent men had been convicted of crimes they had
not committed and had suffered for them; and in a hideous instant,
between waking and dozing, she saw Rufus Van Torp hanged before her
eyes.
The impression was so awful that she started from her pillow with a
cry and turned up the electric lamp. It was not till the light flooded
the room that the image quite faded away and she could let her
head rest on the pillow again, and even then her heart was beating
violently, as it had only beaten once in her life before that night.