“I Will See You--If You Are Alive”
Jack Beardmore went home savage and sick at heart. Thalia Drummond
was an obsession to him, and yet he had every reason to believe the
worst of her. He was a fool, a thrice-condemned fool, he told himself
as he paced the library, his hands thrust into his pockets, his
handsome young face clouded with the gloom of despair. He felt at that
moment he would like to hurt her, punish her as she unconsciously had
punished him. He flung himself down into his chair and sat for an hour
with his head on his hands, covering the old ground which reason had
so often trodden that it had left a worn and familiar track.
He got up sick and weary, and, opening a safe, took out a packet of
documents and flung them on the table. It was the sealed envelope
addressed to his father and unopened which interested him most, and he
had a childish desire to open it if only to spite Thalia.
Why was she so anxious that he should not see the photograph which it
contained? Was she so interested in Marl? He remembered with a scowl
that she had spent the evening with that man on the night he died so
mysteriously. He rose, and gathering the papers together, he carried
them to his bedroom. He was so tired that he had not even the
curiosity to probe into the mystery which attached to the photograph
of an execution. He shivered at the thought of the grisly contents,
and he dropped the package on his dressing-table with a little grimace
and began leisurely to undress.
He quite expected that he would pass a sleepless night; his emotion
and the state of his mind seemed to call for such an end to a
miserable day, but youth, if it has its anguish, has also its natural
reaction. He was asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow.
And then he began to dream. To dream of Thalia Drummond; and in his
dream, Thalia was in the power of an ogre whose face was remarkably
like Inspector Parr’s. He dreamt of Marl, a grotesque terrifying
figure, whom he somehow associated with Inspector Parr’s
grandmother--that “mother” of whom he stood in such awe.
What woke him was the reflection of a light from the dressing-table
mirror. The light had been extinguished when he sat up in bed, but,
half-asleep as he was, he was certain that there had been a flash of
some kind--it was hardly the season for lightning.
“Who is there?” he asked, and put out his hand to reach for the lamp.
But the lamp was not there; somebody had moved it. Now he saw, and was
out of bed in a second.
He heard a movement toward the door and ran. Somebody was in his grip,
somebody who squirmed and struggled, and then he released his hold
with a gasp. It was a woman--instinct told him that it was Thalia
Drummond.
Slowly he put out his hand, groping for the electric switch, and the
room was flooded with light.
It was Thalia--Thalia as white as death and trembling. Thalia who held
something behind her and met his pained gaze with a tragic attempt at
defiance.
“Thalia!” he groaned, and sat down.
Thalia in his room! What had she been doing?
“Why did you come?” he asked shakily, “and what are you concealing?”
“Why did you bring those papers up to your room?” she asked almost
fiercely. “If you had left them in your safe--oh, why didn’t you leave
them in your safe?”
And now he saw that she held the sealed packet containing the
photograph of the execution.
“But--but, Thalia,” he stammered, “I don’t understand you. Why didn’t
you tell me----”
“I told you not to look at the picture. I never dreamt you would bring
it here. They have been here to-night searching for it.”
She was breathless, on the verge of tears that were not all anger.
“Been here to-night?” he said slowly. “Who have been here?”
“The Crimson Circle. They knew you had that photograph, and they came
and burgled your library. I was in the house when they came, and
prayed--prayed”--she wrung her hands and he saw the look of anguish on
her face. “I prayed that they would find it, and now they will think
you have seen the picture. Oh, why did you do it?”
He reached for his dressing-gown, realising that his attire was
somewhat scanty, and in the warm folds he felt a little more
assurance.
“You are still talking Greek to me,” he said. “The thing I understand
perfectly is that my house has been burgled. Will you come with me?”
She followed him down the stairs and into his library. She had spoken
the truth. The door of the safe hung drunkenly upon its hinges. A hole
had been cut through the shutter and it was open. The contents of the
safe lay upon the floor; the drawers of his desk had been forced open
and apparently a search had been made amongst the papers on the desk.
Even the waste-paper basket had been turned out and searched.
“I can’t understand it,” he muttered. He was pulling the heavy
curtains across the window.
“You will understand better, though I hope you do not understand too
well,” she said grimly. “Now, please take a sheet of paper and write
as I dictate.”
“To whom must I write?” he asked in surprise.
“Inspector Parr,” she said. “Say ‘_Dear Inspector.--Here is the
photograph which my father received the day before his death. I have
not opened it, but perhaps it may interest you._’”
Meekly he wrote as she ordered and signed the letter, which, with the
photograph, she put into a large envelope.
“And now address it,” she said. “And write on it on the top left-hand
corner, ‘From John Beardmore,’ and put after that ‘Photograph, very
urgent.’”
With the envelope in her hand she walked to the door.
“I shall see you to-morrow, Mr. Beardmore, if you are alive.”
He would have laughed, but there was something in her drawn face, some
message in her quivering lips, that checked the laughter on his.