INTO THE LION’S MOUTH.
In the sickness of her suspense Ismay turned to the bootblack. Her
mouth was so stiff and dry that she questioned him chiefly to see if
her tongue would obey her.
“Why didn’t you go straight to the police and tell them all you knew
this afternoon? That man in the house was only a servant, who didn’t
care what you knew.”
“I ain’t lucky,” he said cunningly. “It’s all right if they comes to
you, then you has to answer. But it’s never no good to go and blow the
gaff on any one. You gets it in the neck after.”
“That’s nonsense,” with uneasy sharpness. What if the child were right?
“I never was in no cab before,” he remarked gaily. “It’s fine, ain’t
it? Where are we going?”
“We’re nearly there.” She peered out into the silent, dreary streets
evasively.
“I say, you’re not taking me to no refuge?” he cried suspiciously.
“Because I won’t go, and you can’t make me. I earn my living, I do.”
“No, we’re not going to--a refuge,” she answered, with a pang at her
heart. For truly she was going into the lion’s mouth.
They had turned under a stone archway, and the hansom stopped at an
open door, where the cold electric light shone relentlessly.
She dared not stop to pay the cab, for the boy, with a yell, and a wild
squirm, was trying to get away from her.
“I ain’t done nothing,” he screeched, “and you’re a liar. You said
you’d nothing to do with the coppers, and you’ve brought me to Scotland
Yard!”
He bit at her hand as she forced him into the grim hall, under the
glaring lights.
“Listen!” she cried; “no one’s going to hurt you. It’s I they’ll hurt
if it’s any one. You’re not going to get anything but good.”
But the bootblack merely roared and kicked. Two policemen, who were
standing by a door, came forward.
“What’s the matter, miss?” one asked affably. “Has he been picking your
pocket? I beg your pardon, madam!” for Ismay, without slackening her
hold on the writhing child, had looked at him as a queen looks at a
forward servant.
“He has done nothing,” she said clearly. “Is the inspector here, Mr.
Davids?” she spoke on chance. Davids had been inspector here four years
ago. He might have left or died since then.
“Yes, madam. But----” he hesitated. “It’s very late, and these things
usually go to the police court.”
“Go and tell him I want to see him.” The tone was perfectly civil, but
the man went as if he had been shot out of a gun. Who was this that
came so late, in the clothes of a working girl, with the speech and
manner of a duchess? But the inspector, sitting wearily, waiting for a
report, was not much interested. He was too well used to women arriving
at strange hours, and they had generally lost their umbrellas.
“Let her in,” he said resignedly. “Did you say she was a lady?”
“Yes, sir.”
Ismay took her last coin from her pocket as the man came out.
“Pay my hansom,” she said, and heard the second policeman laugh.
“The like of them coming in hansoms!” And for a moment she regretted
her worn-out, ugly clothes.
A lady! As the door closed behind her and the struggling boy, who was
fighting dumbly, too terrified to scream, the inspector looked up in
surprise. The girl was as shabby, if not as ragged, as the boy.
“Please tell him that he is not to be hurt, that he’s safe,” she said
quickly. “He’s so frightened.”
The inspector looked from her to the child.
“Then what have you brought him here for at this hour?” he asked
sternly.
“Because he knows something about the Onslow Square mystery.” Now that
the die was cast and she must speak, she could hardly drag out the
words.
“What! that child?” said the inspector incredulously. But he rose and
went over to the gasping, terrified boy, and put a kindly hand on his
shoulder.
“No one will hurt you,” he said, and the firm touch of his hand quieted
the child like magic.
As he looked up he met Ismay’s eyes, darkly green, but dull as
malachite.
“Mr. Davids, don’t you know me?” And in spite of her quiet voice he saw
she trembled.
“I am Ismay Trelane. Do you remember the night you raided my mother’s
house in St. John’s Wood for a gambling-den? I was a child, and afraid.
You stopped me as I was running out of the house, and you carried me
up-stairs to my bed.”
“Mrs. Trelane is your mother? You are that long-legged child?” He
stood, remembering the utter forlornness of the little girl, her
miserable bedroom in that sumptuous house, her pride that kept her from
crying as she clung to him.
“How do you come here?” he asked. “I heard your mother had--had gone
back to her relations.”
The boy, now that they talked of other things, was relieved; also
that no policemen were in the room was reassuring. He sat down in a
frightened way on the edge of a chair, staring at them.
“I’m going to tell you.” Bravely she held up her small, lovely head,
till he wondered at her beauty and her hard-held agony. “If I’m wrong,
and there isn’t enough to go on----” she caught her breath.
“Sit down.” The inspector pushed a chair toward her, his weariness all
gone.
Slowly, clearly, she told him everything, except that Marcus Wray meant
Sir Gaspard’s daughter to die. Let her die; she would no longer raise a
finger to save her. It was not to prevent Wray’s crimes, but to bring
them home to him, that she was here.
When she came to the scarab she faltered a little, for Davids was
frowning. Yet he could not wonder, looking at her marvelous face, at
Cylmer’s weakness in giving her his secret. He only wondered at the
blindness that had made the man refuse to hear her story. And still,
when it was all done, he shook his head very pitifully.
“I’m afraid it isn’t enough,” he said, looking at the girl who had come
to London in despair to try and save the mother against whom things
looked so dark.
Ismay pointed to the boy.
“Ask him,” she said dully. “I went to Onslow Square. I found him on the
steps, crying because they wouldn’t let him in.”
The child, who had sat dumb and only half-comprehending, shied at
first, then, under the half-teasing questions of the inspector, grew
garrulous, then proud of his importance.
“I’d know him fast enough, if I see him,” he observed cheerfully. “He
upset my box when he passed me, and so I run after him, and I see him
drop that bottle. It was shiny, and I run and grabbed it.”
“Or it would have been ground to powder?” the inspector said musingly.
“It would have been a clever idea if it had worked better.”
He held out the scarab in its broken setting.
“Was the blue thing on his cuff like this?”
“I dunno. I hadn’t time to see. Won’t it soon be morning, mister? I’m
awful hungry.”
“What are you going to do?” said Ismay, very low. For there had been no
change in that imperturbable face.
Davids turned round from a cupboard, whence he produced some biscuits
for the boy, who fell on them ravenously.
“Where does this man Wray live?” he asked, and she told him.
He locked away the scarab and the bottle in silence, and the girl’s
beautiful face grew blank and wan. Was he going to do nothing? Had she
told her story in vain?
“I won’t hide anything from you, Miss Trelane,” he said bluntly. “I’m
going myself to Wray’s rooms, and I must tell you if we find nothing
there, and have only this boy’s story to go on, the case against your
mother will scarcely be improved. The child can identify Wray, perhaps,
but he may be able to clear himself with the greatest of ease.”
Ismay looked at him blankly. Her head ached till the pain numbed her,
her excitement had gone, and instead she felt sick. If she had told
all, only for Cylmer to triumph in her mother’s guilt, what should she
do? Yet her lips never quivered as she nodded in assent.
“I am going to turn the key on you, too,” he said, so evenly that she
did not know whether he thought her an impostor or not. “And you’d
better try to sleep. I may be a long time.”
He wondered afresh at her courage as he left her alone with the boy,
in a suspense that must be like the very grasp of death. He was not
too certain of her, either. She seemed truthful, but she was Mrs.
Trelane’s child. A long acquaintance with that lady’s career did not
lead to confidence in her daughter. Hour by hour the night wore on. The
bootblack slept coiled up on the floor; but Ismay sat bolt upright,
wide-awake, her damp clothes drying on her.
Once she started to her feet at a noise outside. But whoever it was
passed on, and as the dark hour before dawn hung on the earth her head
fell backward on the leather chair. The night was so long, the day so
far off yet, and there was nothing to tell her what the sunrise would
bring.
Davids, coming in before the first gray light began to make the lights
pale, stopped on the threshold and looked pitifully at the boy and
girl. Both were asleep; the boy with a tear-stained face; the girl
like a lovely marble image, an image of a woman who has drunk deep of
a bitter cup in her youth, and must remember the taste of it till her
dying day. The inspector was a hard man, and this was his trade, but
something in the sight touched his heart.
“Poor children!” he said softly. “Poor babes that have never been
young,” and, with a gentle hand, he touched Ismay’s shoulder.
“Wake up!” he cried softly. “You must catch the early train back to the
country. You can’t do any good here.”
She started to her feet; wan, haggard, with black rings round her eyes.
“Me alone?” she said. He noted approvingly that she showed no symptom
of screaming. “Yes, alone. It is our only chance. Can you get into your
room without being seen?”
“I think so, if there’s time.”
Her eyes widened like a cat’s as she looked at his face. She was awake
now to the new day. And at what she saw there she cried out aloud, her
icy calm shattered at last.
“You’ve been very brave. Can you be braver still?” the man said slowly.
And the girl, whose strength was nearly done, said “yes.”