A FRESH DISCOVERY
In placing herself in the dock, so to speak, Mrs. Moxton had been
defiant, loud-voiced and reckless, daring Ellis to denounce her for a
crime of which she knew herself innocent. His refusal, and the cause
he gave for such refusal, took her by surprise. Long since she had
guessed that the doctor loved her, but she did not count on his
proclaiming the fact so soon. Nor would he have done so had he not
been thrown off his guard by her appeal. But her demand and his answer
to it produced on both sides a stupefied calm. Ellis, frightened at
his own boldness, remained silent after uttering the fatal words; Mrs.
Moxton, on the other hand, felt her wrath die away in sheer surprise.
Then her cheeks flushed from an unexplained emotion, and a light
beamed from her eyes.
"You love me!" she murmured softly, and looked at Ellis.
Something in her regard, her tone, in her whole attitude, seemed to
melt the frozen silence of the man. He sprang forward and touched her
hand.
"You are not angry?" he asked, with eagerness.
The touch recalled Mrs. Moxton to a sense of what she owed to herself,
and woke in her a feeling of wrath at the audacity of the man, who
could speak the word to a woman lately widowed in so terrible a
manner.
"How dare you!" she cried angrily, retreating. "What must you think of
me to talk like that!"
"I think the world of you," replied Ellis, doggedly. "I have said the
truth."
"You deceive yourself. What you take for the truth is fantasy. You
cannot love one whom you have known only three weeks."
"Love can be born of a glance."
"In romances, I grant, but not in real life." She paused and burst out
laughing. "Oh, it is too absurd."
Ellis was piqued. "I fail to see the absurdity. I speak as I feel."
For the moment Mrs. Moxton appeared to meditate an answer to this
plain statement. Suddenly she bit her lip, drew back and shook her
head. "You speak folly. You think madness," she said. "Consider! I am
a three weeks' widow. My husband died by violence, and his death is
not avenged. My name is smirched. My--no! This is no time for such
talk. Let us forget the words you have uttered."
"I cannot forget."
"Then I must lose my friend," said Mrs. Moxton, determinedly. "I
really cannot meet you on these terms. I am a newly-made widow, not a
possible wife for you."
"But in the future?"
"Let the future look after itself," she cried petulantly. "What we
have to do, is to attend to the present. You wish to help me. Do so by
leaving this crime to be punished by Heaven."
"But your smirched name?"
"I can bear that. I have borne worse things. Oh, do not look so
astonished, Dr. Ellis. I have had a queer up-and-down, topsy-turvy
sort of life. Some day I may tell it to you, but we don't know each
other well enough for that yet. If I find that you deserve my
confidence---" She broke off the sentence abruptly. "Never mind that
now. I have work to do. Yes! I shall take your advice about calling on
Mr. Busham. This very day I shall call and ask him about the will.
Could you meet me here at three o'clock, doctor?"
Ellis felt his breath taken away by the boldness of the demand. "If
you wish me to come."
"Of course I wish it or I would not ask. Remember, doctor, you are my
friend. No, don't repeat that folly. We are comrades at present,
nothing more. You do not understand me now. You will when I explain."
"Will you ever explain?"
"Yes! No! I can't say. So much depends upon what kind of a man I find
you to be. Now, go, please, as I must dress for my visit. Mind, I
shall expect you at three o'clock, to tell you the result of my
interview."
"At three o'clock," repeated Ellis, earnestly, and so they parted.
When the doctor found himself in the broad, cheerful sunshine of the
Jubilee Road he was not quite certain if he was asleep or awake. To
him Mrs. Moxton was more of an enigma than the murder itself. He could
not understand her attitude, nor could he guess what motive she had in
acting thus strangely. She was apparently pleased that he loved her;
she was angry at his abrupt declaration; he could not gain her
confidence; yet she requested him to meet her at three o'clock to ask
his advice about her visit. What was he to understand from such a
medley of contradictions? He sought in his own mind for every possible
explanation, but could find none, so concluding that it was the more
sensible course to possess his soul in patience until this sphinx
explained her own riddle, he returned home. Here, to his surprise, he
found a friend of the morbid lady's come to consult him about her
heart, and in the joy of such promise of an increasing practice he
forgot Mrs. Moxton and her eccentricities. In a similar situation a
woman would not have forgotten, but Byron's lines give the reason for
that:
"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart;
'Tis woman's whole existence."
Nevertheless, when his mind was less occupied with material things,
the feeling about Mrs. Moxton revived, and he waited impatiently for
the hour of three. It would seem that circumstances were about to
involve him in the drama,--it might be tragedy--of this woman's life,
and he felt eager for the call to step on the stage. What part would
be assigned to him he could not guess. Was he to be the husband of the
heroine or merely the friend, or would he pose as the foil to that
shadowy lover in whose existence and guilt Cass believed? Altogether
Ellis was in the dark, afraid to venture forward for fear of the
unknown. He waited for a hand to draw him on to his doom--in plain
English, for the hand and guidance of Mrs. Moxton. These strange
thoughts, passing through the doctor's mind, made him fear that its
usually accurate balance was disturbed.
Shortly after three o'clock struck from the bran-new brick tower of
the bran-new Dukesfield church, he saw her walking briskly down the
road. Even in his pre-occupation he noted her trim figure, the decided
way in which she set down and lifted her feet, and the general air of
alert resolution which stamped her whole being. Here was a woman of
mind, of decision, of character, with few feminine failings, and more
than ever Ellis wondered at her past history, as related by herself at
the inquest. He began to suspect that there might be something after
all in the ideas of Harry Cass. Mrs. Basket declared the woman "was a
deep 'un." That also might be true.
"Good news! good news!" cried Mrs. Moxton, when she arrived. "I have
seen Mr. Busham and I am right. Old Moxton made a will leaving the
property to Edgar."
"But he is dead. How do you stand now?"
The widow let the gate click behind her, and walked up the path with a
wrinkled brow, betokening thought. "That depends upon Edgar's will."
"Did he make one?"
"I think so. In one of his good humours he made a will leaving all his
property to me. I believe the will was signed and witnessed at Monte
Carlo. He told me about it, but I never saw it."
"Then how do you know it exists?"
"Edgar told me of it," repeated Mrs. Moxton. "It will no doubt be in
his despatch-box, or in this room."
By this time the pair were again in the cheerful parlour, and her gaze
was fixed upon a well-filled bookcase. "I should not wonder if it was
hidden amongst the books," said Mrs. Moxton, pensively.
Ellis showed some amazement at this strange remark. "Why should he
have put a valuable document amongst his books, Mrs. Moxton?"
The widow sat down and signed to Ellis to do likewise. "My dear
doctor, do you know anything about drunken men?"
This was even a stranger remark than the former.
"I have come into contact with them," said Ellis, with a slight smile,
"but what has that to do with this will?"
"More than you think," she retorted. "Edgar was never very sane at the
best of times; but when drunk, as he often was, he took leave of his
senses completely. Drunken men, as I daresay you know, have each their
various idiosyncrasies which display the true animal within. Edgar's
indwelling animal was a magpie."
"Oh!" The doctor seized on her meaning at once. "You believe that he
concealed things!"
"Yes! When drunk he would hide his watch, chain, jewellery, money, and
when sober could not remember where he put them. I was set to hunt
them out, and often found them in that bookcase. Lately he took to
hiding papers, so it is not unlikely he concealed his will. However,
it may be in his despatch-box after all. That is in the bedroom, and I
have the keys, so I shall go and look. In the meantime, doctor, would
you turn out those books and see if it is concealed there?"
"Certainly; but one moment, Mrs. Moxton," he added as she was about to
leave the room; "if your husband has left no will, what becomes of the
property?"
"Half goes to Mr. Busham as the next-of-kin, and half to me as the
widow, but, of course, I get all if Edgar left a will in my favour."
"Mr. Busham won't like that."
"No!" Mrs. Moxton frowned. "I'll tell you what he is," she burst out;
"a mean, grasping miser. His manner to me was most disagreeable. I
feel sure he suspects me of the murder. While he can get half the
property I daresay he will hold his tongue, but if all comes to me I
am certain he will make trouble."
"About the murder?"
"Yes, but I am not afraid. I can defend myself, and I have you for a
friend."
"But what can I do?"
"Defend me!" Mrs. Moxton threw a searching glance at the amazed face
of Ellis. "Look for the will," she said abruptly, and left the room.
By this time the doctor's capacity for astonishment was completely
exhausted. Mrs. Moxton's conduct became more extraordinary at every
interview, and it was worse than useless trying to account for it.
Only further acquaintance and observation could explain her
personality and apparently purposeless remarks; therefore Ellis,
taking this sensible view, devoted himself to the task of searching
for the will.
The bookcase was of white-painted wood, of no great size, and with
three shelves. French novels in yellow and green paper covers
predominated and Ellis tumbled these ruthlessly on to the floor.
To all appearance the taste of the late Mr. Moxton had not been
over-refined, for the majority of the novels were by the most sensual
Parisian authors. But mingled with these decadent works were a number
of old-fashioned books, mostly educational, with here and there a slim
old-fashioned volume of travels. For the first ten minutes of his
search Ellis paid no attention to these, but looked for the will at
the back of the shelves. It was not to be found in any one of them,
but he came across an amazing number of music-hall programmes, headed:
"The Merryman, Viper Street, Soho." Evidently someone had been an
assiduous attendant at this place of amusement, if the programmes were
to be taken as evidence.
"Moxton!" said Ellis to himself, when this idea occurred to him. "So
this is where he went night after night." He examined the dates of the
programmes. "Yes! all within the last three months, one night after
another. H'm! Mrs. Moxton said that she did not know where her husband
went, yet these programmes must have informed her even if he held his
tongue. Extraordinary woman! I can't understand her actions or
denials."
Failing to find the will on the shelves, Ellis examined the books. One
of these, a fat little brown volume, entitled, _The Universal
Informer_, was inscribed on the flyleaf, "Janet Gordon, from her
father, Thomas Gordon, Edinburgh," both of which names were unknown to
Ellis. The book opened of itself at a turned-down page, on which was
set forth a list of the towns and cities of the world. Now, what
struck Ellis as strange was the fact that the turned-down page was
towards the end of the list, and contained the towns beginning with
"Z." This was one of the letters concealed in the blood signs, and to
say the least it is not a letter generally used. Wondering if he was
on the track of a discovery, Ellis glanced down the page. His eye
caught the word "lizard," and he eagerly read the paragraph in which
it was contained. Four lines informed him that "Zirknitz is a town in
Austria, and that in its environs is found a peculiar species of
lizard." Ellis reflected. "On the arm was the letter 'Z' concealed in
a sign, and the representation of a lizard. This book, which opens of
itself at this particular page, mentions an Austrian town called
Zirknitz and a peculiar lizard. There must be some connection between
the murder and this paragraph, but I can't see it myself. What can an
Austrian town have to do with the crime in Jubilee Road?"
Finding no answer to this question he pursued his search. The
old-fashioned books seemed to belong to Thomas Gordon, of Edinburgh,
but in one or two he had inscribed their presentation to his "daughter
Janet," or to his "daughter Laura."
"Laura!" murmured Ellis. "That is Mrs. Moxton's name. Perhaps she is
the Laura Gordon who owns these books. In fact, she must be. If so,
she has a sister Janet; it is the first I have heard of her sister.
Hullo, what's this?"
"This" was a novel of Catulle Mendes, which had a name scribbled in
pencil on the outside. The name was "Rudolph Zirknitz."
"R. U. Z.," said the doctor, staring at the pencilled autograph; "so
it stands for Rudolph Zirknitz, who evidently takes his name and the
totem of the lizard from that Austrian town."
At this moment Mrs. Moxton entered with a disconsolate air.
"Have you found the will, doctor?" she inquired; "it is not in the
despatch-box."
"No, Mrs. Moxton, I have not found the will, but I have learnt the
name of the man who killed your husband."
The widow became as grey as the wall-paper, and leant against the door
for support. "What? Who? I--I do not understand," she gasped.
"The murderer is called Rudolph Zirknitz," explained Ellis. "Now, who
is Rudolph Zirknitz?"
Mrs. Moxton made no attempt to answer this question. Closing her eyes
she slipped quietly on to the floor, and lay at the feet of Ellis,
white and insensible.