AT THE SUN-DIAL
The messenger of evil had waited twenty minutes by the side of the
sun-dial, when he saw a lady come round the corner from the front of the
house, and saunter towards him. Moonlight lay weltering on the white
walks of the terrace, on the whiter slabs of stone, on the water of the
basin, on the surface of the lake eastward where the lowest of the
terraces curved into the parkland that the wavelets lapped on. It
weltered, too, on the lady's hair, deftly coiled and twisted into the
coiffure of a Greek statue. It shimmered on the powdered blue of her
gown that made her coming a little ghostly in that light, on the rows of
pearls around her throat, and on the satin gloss of her shoes. She made
straight for the dial; and then, all at once, finding some unknown man
keeping the tryst, half halted.
He ran out to her, touched his cap, saying "Miss Marsh," handed her the
note, touched his cap again, and was going.
"From whom?" she called after him in some astonishment.
"Lady at the Swan, miss"--and he hurried off even more swiftly, for this
was a question which he had answered against orders.
She stood a little, looking at the envelope, her breathing labored, an
apprehension in her heart. Then, hearing the coming of footsteps which
she knew, she broke it open, and ran her eye over the few words.
Bending slightly, with the flood of the moon on the paper, she could
easily read the plainly written, message.
... The Mr. Glyn whom you know is no other than the Mr. Rupert
Osborne who is in everyone's mouth in connection with the
Feldisham Mansions Murder....
Now she laughed with a sudden catch of the breath, gasping "Oh!" with a
sharp impatience of all anonymous scandalizers. But as her head rather
swam and span, she walked on quickly to the basin, and there found it
necessary to sit down on the marble. The stab of pain passed in a few
seconds, and again she sprang up and laughed as lightly as one of the
little fountains in the basin that tossed its tinted drops to the
moonbeams.
Not twenty yards away was Osborne coming to her.
She looked at him steadily--her marvelous eyes self-searching for sure
remembrance of the earnestness with which he had pleaded in favor of the
lover of Rose de Bercy--how he had said that Osborne had already loved
again; and how she, Rosalind--oh, how blind and deaf!--heedlessly had
brushed aside his words, saying that a man of that mood was below being
a topic....
"Is it half an hour?" Osborne came whispering, with a bending of the
body that was like an act of worship.
She smiled. In the moonlight he could not perceive how ethereally white
was her face.
"It is one half-minute!... It was rather quixotic of you to have
proposed, and of me to have accepted, such a meeting. But I felt sure
that by this hour others would be strolling about the terraces. As it
is, you see, we are pioneers without followers. So, till we meet
again----"
She seemed to be about to hurry away without another word; he stood
aghast.
"But, Rosalind----"
"What? How dare you call me Rosalind?"
Now her eyes flashed upon him like sudden lightning from a dark blue
sky, and the scorn in her voice blighted him.
"I--I--don't understand," he stammered, trying to come nearer. She drew
her skirts aside with a disdain that was terrifying.
Then she laughed softly again; and was gone.
He looked after her as after treasure that one sees sinking into the
sea, flashing in its descent to the depths. For one mad instant he had
an impulse to run in vain pursuit, but instead he gave way, sank down
upon the edge of the marble basin, just where she had dropped a few
brief seconds earlier, covered his face, and a groan that was half a sob
broke so loudly from his throat that she heard it. She hesitated, nearly
stopped, did not look round, scourged herself into resolution, and in
another moment had turned the corner of the house and was lost to sight.
What had happened to change his Rosalind into this unapproachable
empress Osborne was too stunned to ask himself explicitly. He knew he
was banned, and that was enough. Deep in his subconsciousness he
understood that somehow she had found out his wretched secret--found out
that he was not the happy Glyn reeling through an insecure dream in
fairyland, but the unhappy Osborne, heavily tangled in the sordid and
the commonplace.
And, because he was unhappy and troubled, she left him without pity,
turned her back eternally upon him. That hurt. As he stood up to walk
away toward Tormouth, a fierce anger and a gush of self-pity battled in
his eyes.
He had no more hope. He wandered on through the night, unseeing,
stricken as never before. At last he reached the hotel, and, as soon as
he could summon the energy, began to pack his portmanteau to go back to
London. The day of the postponed inquest now loomed near, and he cared
not a jot what became of him, only asking dumbly to be taken far from
Tormouth.
As he was packing the smaller of the bags, he saw the scrap of
blood-stained lace that Furneaux had already seen, had taken out, and
had replaced. Osborne, with that same feeling of repulsion with which
Furneaux had thrust it away from him, held it up to the light. What was
it? How could it have got into his bag? he asked himself--a bit of lace
stained with blood! His amazement knew no bounds--and would have been
still more profound, if possible, had he seen Furneaux's singular act in
replacing it in the bag after finding it.
He threw the horrible thing from him out of the window, and his very
fingers tingled with disgust of it. But then came the disturbing
thought--suppose it had been put into his bag as a trap? by the police,
perhaps? And suppose any apparent eagerness of his to rid himself of it
should be regarded as compromising? He was beginning to be circumspect
now, timorous, ostentatious of that innocence in which a whole world
disbelieved.
So he glanced out of the window, saw where the lace had dropped upon a
sloping spread of turf in the hotel grounds, and ran down to get it.
When he arrived at the spot where he had just seen it, the lace had
disappeared.
He stood utterly mystified, looking down at the spot where the lace
should be and was not; then looked around in a maze, to discover on a
rustic seat that surrounded an oak tree an elderly lady and a bent old
man sitting there in the shadow. Some distance off, lounging among the
flower beds in the moonlight, was the figure of a tall man. Osborne was
about to inquire of the two nearest him if they had seen the lace, when
the old gentleman hurried nimbly forward out of the tree's shadow and
asked if he was seeking a piece of something that had dropped from
above.
"Yes," answered Osborne, "have you seen it?"
"That gentleman walking yonder was just under your window when it
dropped, and I saw him stoop to pick it up," said the other.
Osborne thanked him, and made for "the gentleman," who turned out to be
a jauntily-dressed Italian, bony-faced, square in the jaw, his hair
clipped convict-short, but dandily brushed up at the corner of the
forehead.
To the question: "Did you by chance pick up a bit of lace just now?" he
at once bowed, and showing his teeth in a grin, said:
"He dropped right to my feet from the sky; here he is"--and he presented
the lace with much ceremony.
"I am obliged," said Osborne.
"Do not say it," answered the other politely, and they parted, Osborne
hurrying back to his room, with the intent to catch a midnight train
from Tormouth.
As he entered the house again, the older man, incredibly quick on his
uncertain feet, overtook him, and, touching him on the arm, asked if he
intended to catch the train that night.
"That is my desire," answered Osborne.
"It is mine, too," said the other; "now, could you give me a seat in
your conveyance?"
Osborne said, "With pleasure," and they entered the hotel to prepare to
go.
At the same moment the Italian sauntered up to the oak tree beneath
which sat Hylda Prout in her Tormouth make-up. Seating himself without
seeking her permission, he lit a cigarette.
"Good-evening," he said, after enveloping himself in a cloud of smoke.
She did not answer, but evidently he was not one to be rebuffed.
"Your friend, Mistare Pooh, he is sharp! My! he see all," he said
affably.
This drew a reply.
"You are quite right," she said. "He sees all, or nearly all. Do you
mean because he saw you pick up the lace?"
"Now--how _you_ know it was _lace_?" asked the Italian, turning full
upon her. "You sitting here, you couldn't see it was lace so far--no
eyes could see that."
This frankness confused the lady a moment; then she laughed a little,
for he had supplied her with a retort.
"Perhaps I see all, too, like my friend."
There was a silence, but the Italian was apparently waiting only to
rehearse his English.
"You know Mr. Glyn--yes?" he said.
"No."
"Oh, don't say 'no'!" Reproach was in his ogle, his voice. His tone was
almost wheedling.
"Why not?"
"The way I find you spying after him this morning tell me that you know
him. And I know that you know him before that."
"What concern is it of _yours_?" she asked, looking at him with a
lowering of the lids in a quick scrutiny that was almost startled. "What
is _your_ interest in Mr. Glyn?"
"Say 'Osborne' and be done," he said.
"Well, say 'Osborne,'" she responded.
"Good. We are going to understand the one the other, I can see. But if
you want to know what is 'my interest' in the man, you on your part will
tell me first if you are friend or enemy of Osborne."
In one second she had reflected, and said: "Enemy."
His hand shot out in silence to her, and she shook it. The mere action
drew them closer on the seat.
"I believe you," he whispered, "and I knew it, too, for if you had been
a friend you would not be in a disguise from him."
"How do you know that I am in a disguise?"
"Since yesterday morning I know," he answered, "when I see you raise
your blind yonder, not an old woman, but a young and charming lady not
yet fully dressed, for I was here in the garden, looking out for what I
could see, and my poor heart was pierced by the vision at the window."
He pressed his palm dramatically on his breast.
"Yes, of course, it is on the left, as usual," said Hylda Prout saucily.
"But let us confine ourselves to business for the moment. I don't quite
understand your object. As to the bit of lace----"
"How you _know_ it was lace?"
She looked cautiously all round before answering. "I know because I
searched Mr. Osborne's room, and saw it."
"Good! Before long we understand the one the other. You be frank, I be
frank. You spied into the bag, and _I_ put it in the bag."
"I know you did."
"Now, how you know?"
"There was no one else to do it!"
"No? Might not Osborne put it there himself? You know where that bit of
lace come from?"
"I guess."
"What you guess?"
"I guess that it is from the dress of the dead actress, for it has blood
on it."
"You guess good--very good. And Osborne killed her--yes?"
She pondered a little. This attack had come on her from a moonlit sky.
"That I don't know. He may have, and he may not," she murmured.
"Which is more likely? That _he_ killed her, or that _I_ killed her?"
"I don't know. I should say it is more likely that you killed her."
"What! You pay me that compliment? Why so?"
"Well, you are in possession of a portion of the dress she wore when she
was killed, and you put it into someone's belongings to make it seem
that he killed her, an act which looks a little black against you."
"Ah, ma bella, now you jest," said the Italian, laughing. "The fact that
I am so frank with you as to say you all this is proof that I not kill
her."
"Yes, I see that," she agreed. "I was only joking. But since you did not
kill her, how on earth did you get hold of that piece of her dress?"
"That you are going to know when I have received better proof that you
are as much as I the enemy of Osborne. Did I not guess good, on seeing
you yesterday morning at the window, that you are the same young lady
who is Osborne's secretary in London, where I see you before?"
Hylda Prout admitted that she was the secretary.
"Good, then," said the Italian; "you staying in the house with him have
every opportunity to find proof of his guilt of the murder; until which
is proved, the necks of those I am working for are in danger."
With the impulsive gesture of his race he drew his forefinger in ghastly
mimicry across his throat.
"So bad as that?" asked the woman coolly. "Unfortunately, I don't know
who 'those' are you are working for. The----?"
"Yes."
"The Anarchists?"
"If you call them so."
"Did _they_ kill her?"
"Not they!"
"Did they intend to?"
"Not they!"
"Then, where did you get that bit of lace? And where is the dagger?"
"Dagger! What about dagger now?"
He asked it with a guilty start. At last the talk was taking a turn
which left Hylda Prout in command.
"If you have that lace, you have the dagger, too. And if you have the
dagger, what help do you want from me? Produce that, and Osborne is done
for."
Her voice sank to a whisper. If Furneaux could have been present he must
have felt proud of her.
"Dagger!" muttered the Italian again in a hushed tone. "You seem to know
much more----"
"Stay, let us get up and walk. It is not quite safe here.... There are
too many trees."
The man, who had lost his air of self-confidence, seemed to be unable to
decide what to do for the best. But Hylda Prout had risen, and he, too,
stood up. He was compelled to follow her. Together they passed through
the grounds toward the cliffs.
The same moonlight that saw them strolling there, saw at the same time
Furneaux and Osborne racing in a trap along the road to Sedgecombe
Junction to catch the late train on the main line. Furneaux was inclined
to be chatty, but Osborne answered only in monosyllables, till his
companion's talk turned upon the murder of the actress, when Osborne,
with a sudden access of fury, assured him in very emphatic language that
his ears were weary of that dreadful business, and prayed to be spared
it. The old gentleman seemed to be shocked, but Osborne only glanced at
his watch, muttering that they would have to be smart to catch the
train; and as he put back the watch in its pocket, the other dropped his
bag over the side of the vehicle.
There was nothing to be done but to stop, and the delinquent, with the
stiffness and slowness of age, descended to pick it up. Thus some
precious minutes were wasted. Furneaux, in fact, did not wish Osborne to
start for London that night at that late hour, since he wanted to
apprise Winter of Osborne's departure. Hence he had begged a seat in the
conveyance, and had already lost time at the hotel. A little later, when
Osborne again glanced at his watch, it was to say: "Oh, well, there is
no use in going on," and he called to the driver to turn back. Indeed,
the whistle of the departing train was heard at the station half a mile
away.
"Well, yes," said Furneaux, curiously pertinacious, when the dog-cart
was on the homeward road, "one is weary of hearing this murder
discussed. I only spoke of it to express to you my feeling of
disapproval of the lover--of the man Osborne. Is it credible to you that
he was not even at her funeral? No doubt he was advised not to be--no
doubt it was wise from a certain point of view. But _nothing_ should
have prevented him, if he had had any affection for her. But he had
none--he was a liar. Talk of her deceiving him! It was he--it was
_he_--who deceived her, I say!"
"Have a cigar," said Osborne, presenting his case; "these are rather
good ones; you will find them soothing."
His hospitality was declined, but there was no more talk, and the trap
trotted back into Tormouth.
Up at "St. Briavels" that same moment the same moonlight, shining on a
balcony, illumined yet another scene in the network of events. Rosalind
Marsh was sitting there alone, her head bent between her clenched hands.
She had returned home early from the Abbey, and Mrs. Marsh, who had
silently wondered, presently came out with the softness of a shadow upon
her, and touched her shoulder.
"What is the matter?" she asked in a murmur of sympathy.
"My head aches a little, mother dear."
"I am sorry. You look tired."
"Well, yes, dear. There are moments of infinite weariness in life. One
cannot avoid them."
"Did you dance?"
"Only a little."
"Weary of emotions, then?"
The old lady smiled faintly.
"Mother!" whispered Rosalind, and pressed her mother's hand to her
forehead.
There was silence for a while. When Mrs. Marsh spoke again it was to
change the subject.
"You have been too long at Tormouth this time. I think you need a
change. Suppose we took a little of London now? Society might brighten
you."
"Oh, yes! Let us go from this place!" said Rosalind under her breath,
her fingers tightly clenched together.
"Well, then, the sooner the better," said Mrs. Marsh. "Let it be
to-morrow."
Rosalind looked up with gratitude and the moonlight in her eyes.
"Thank you, dear one," she said. "You are always skilled in divining,
and never fail in being right."
And so it was done. The next forenoon saw the mother and daughter
driving in an open landau past the Swan to Tormouth station, and, as
they rolled by in state, Hylda Prout, who was peeping from a window
after the figure of Osborne on _his_ way to the station, saw them.
A glitter came into her eyes, and the unspoken thought was voiced in
eloquent gesture: "What, following him so soon?"--for she knew that they
could only be going by the London train, which had but one
stopping-place after Tormouth. At once she rushed in a frenzy of haste
to prepare to travel by that very train.
Some wild ringing of bells and promise of reward brought chambermaid and
"boots" to her aid.
In her descent to the office to pay her bill she was encountered by her
new friend, the Italian, who, surprised at her haste, said to her,
"What, you go?"--to which she, hardly stopping, answered: "Yes--we will
meet when we said--in two days' time."
"But me, too, I go," he cried, and ran to get ready, the antics of the
pair creating some stir of interest in the bar parlor.
At this time Furneaux was already at the station, awaiting the train,
having already wired to Winter in London to meet him at Waterloo. And so
the same train carried all their various thoughts and purposes and
secrets in its different compartments on the Londonward journey.
Furneaux, who chose to sit in the compartment with Rosalind and Mrs.
Marsh, listened to every sigh and syllable of Rosalind, and, with the
privilege of the aged, addressed some remarks to his fellow-travelers.
Hylda Prout and the Italian were together--a singular bond of intimacy
having suddenly forged itself between these two. They were alone, and
Hylda, who left Tormouth old and iron-gray, arrived at London red-headed
and young, freckle-splashed and pretty. But as for Osborne, he traveled
in the dull company of his black thoughts.
The first to alight at Waterloo, before the train stopped, was Furneaux.
His searching eyes at once discovered Winter waiting on the platform. In
a moment the Chief Inspector had a wizened old man at his ear, saying:
"Winter--I'm here. Came with the crowd."
"Hallo," said Winter, and from old-time habit of friendship his hand
half went out. Furneaux, however, seemed not to notice the action, and
Winter's hand drew back.
"Osborne is in the train," whispered Furneaux. "I telegraphed because
there is an object in his smaller bag that I want you to see--as a
witness, instantly. There he comes; ask him into the first-class
waiting-room. It is usually empty."
Furneaux himself went straight into the waiting-room and sat in a corner
behind a newspaper. Soon in came Winter, talking to Osborne with a
marked deference:
"You will forgive me, I am sure, for this apparent lack of confidence,
but in an affair of this sort one leaves no stone unturned."
"Do not mention it," said Osborne, who was rather pale. "I think I can
guess what it is that you wish to see...."
A porter, who had followed them, put the two portmanteaux on a table,
and went out. Osborne opened the smaller one, and Winter promptly had
the blood-stained bit of lace in his hand.
"What is it, sir?" asked Winter.
"Heaven knows," came the weary answer. "It was not in my possession when
I left London, and was put into one of my bags by someone at Tormouth.
When I found it, I threw it out of the window, as that gentleman there
can prove," for he had seen Furneaux, but was too jaded to give the
least thought to his unaccountable presence. "Afterwards I ran down and
recovered it. _He_ was in the garden...."
The unhappy young man's glance wandered out of the door to see Rosalind
and her mother go past towards a waiting cab. He cared not a jot if all
Scotland Yard were dogging his footsteps now.
"Is that so, sir?" asked Winter of Furneaux.
"Exactly as Mr. Glyn says," answered Furneaux, looking at them
furtively, and darting one very curious glance at Winter's face.
"And who, Mr.--Glyn, was about the place whom you could possibly suspect
of having placed this object in your bag--someone with a wicked motive
for throwing suspicion upon you?"
Winter's lips whitened and dwelt with venom upon the word "wicked."
"There was absolutely no one," answered Osborne. "The hotel was rather
empty. Of course, there was this gentleman----"
"Yes," said Winter after him, "this gentleman."
"An elderly lady, a Mrs. Forbes, I believe, as I happened to read her
name, a foreigner who probably never saw me before, an invalid girl and
her sister--all absolutely unconnected with me."
Furneaux's eyes were now glued on Winter's face. They seemed to have a
queer meaning in them, a meaning not wholly devoid of spite and malice.
"Well, Mr.--Glyn," said Winter, "let me tell you, if you do not know,
that this bit of lace was certainly part of the dress in which Miss de
Bercy was murdered. Therefore the man--or woman--who put it into your
bag was there--on the spot--when the deed was done."
Osborne did then exhibit some perplexed interest in a strange discovery.
"How can you be certain that it was part of her dress?" he asked.
"Because a fragment of lace of this size was torn from the wrap she was
wearing at the time of the murder--I noticed it at my first sight of the
body. This piece would just fit into it. So, whoever put it into your
bag----"
"In that case I may have put it in myself!" said Osborne with a nervous
laugh, "since I may be the murderer."
Apparently the careless comment annoyed Winter.
"I don't think I need detain you any longer, sir," he said coldly. "As
for the lace, I'll keep it. I feel very confident that this part of the
mystery will not baffle me for more than a day or two."
And ever the eyes of Furneaux dwelt upon Winter's face with that queer
meaning reveling in their underlook.
Osborne turned to go. He did not trouble to call another porter, but
carried his own luggage. He was about to enter a cab when he caught
sight of the back of a woman's head among the crowd hurrying to an exit,
a head which seemed singularly familiar to him. The next moment it was
gone from his sight, which was a pity, since the head belonged to Hylda
Prout, who had not anticipated that Osborne would be delayed on the
platform, and had had to steal past the waiting-room door at a rush,
since she was no longer an old lady, but herself. She could not wait in
the train till he was well away, for she thought it well to ascertain
the whereabouts of Rosalind Marsh in London, and wished to shadow her.
Mrs. Marsh and her daughter carried the usual mountain of ladies'
luggage, which demanded time and care in stowing safely on the roof of a
four-wheeler, so Hylda Prout was in time to call a hansom and follow
them. After her went the Italian, who made off hastily when the train
arrived, but lurked about until he could follow the girl unseen, for she
had frightened him.
Now, at the station that day, keeping well in the background, was a
third detective beside Winter and Furneaux.
Clarke, with his interest in Anarchists, knew that this particular
Italian was coming from Tormouth either that day or the day after. Two
nights before, while on a visit to the Fraternal Club in Soho, he had
overheard the whispered word that "Antonio" would "be back" on the
Wednesday or the Thursday.
Clarke did not know Antonio's particular retreat in London, and had
strong reasons for wishing to know it. He, therefore, followed in a cab
the cab that followed Rosalind's cab. In any other city in the world
than London such a procession would excite comment--if it passed through
street after street, that is. But not so in cab-using London, where a
string of a hundred taxis, hansoms, and four-wheelers may all be going
in the same direction simultaneously.
As Clarke went westward down the Strand and across Trafalgar Square, he
was full of meditations.
"What is Antonio doing with Osborne's lady secretary?" he asked himself.
"For that is the young woman he is after, I'll swear. By Jove, there's
more in this tangle than meets the eye. It's a case for keeping both
eyes, and a third, if I had it, wide, wide open!"
Rosalind's and Mrs. Marsh's cab drew up before a house in Porchester
Gardens. As they got out and went up the steps, the cabs containing
Antonio and Hylda Prout almost stopped, but each went on again.
"Now, what in the world is the matter?" mused Clarke. "Why are those two
shadowing a couple of ladies, and sneaking on each other as well?"
He told his own driver to pass the house slowly, as he wished to note
its number, and the vehicle was exactly opposite the front door when it
was opened by a girl with a cap on her head to let in Mrs. Marsh and
Rosalind; Clarke's eye rested on her, and lit with a strange fire. A cry
of discovery leapt to his lips, but was not uttered. A moment after the
door had closed upon the two travelers, Clarke's hand was at the
trap-door in the roof of the hansom, and, careless whether or not he was
seen, he leaped out, ran up the steps, and rang.
A moment more and the door was opened to him by the same girl, whom he
had recognized instantly as Pauline Dessaulx, the late lady's-maid of
Rose de Bercy--a girl for whom he had ransacked London in vain. And not
he alone, for Pauline had very effectively buried herself from the
afternoon after the murder, when Clarke had seen her once, and she him,
to this moment. And there now they stood, Clarke and Pauline, face to
face.
He, for his part, never saw such a change in a human countenance as now
took place in this girl's. Her pretty brown cheeks at once, as her eyes
fell on him, assumed the whiteness of death itself. Her lips, the very
rims of her eyelids even, looked ghastly. She seemed to be on the verge
of collapse, and her whole frame trembled in an agony of fear. Why? What
caused these deadly tremors? Instantly Clarke saw guilt in this excess
of emotion, and by one of those inspirations vouchsafed sometimes even
to men of his coarse fiber he did the cleverest act of his life.
Putting out his hand, he said quietly, but roughly:
"Come now, no nonsense! Give it to me!"
What "it" meant he himself had no more notion than the man in the moon.
His real motive was to set the terrified girl speaking, and thus lead
her on to yield some chance clew on which his wits might work. But at
once, like one hypnotized, Pauline Dessaulx, still keeping her eyes
fixed on his face, slowly moved her right hand to a pocket, slowly drew
out a little book, and slowly handed it to him.
"All right--you are wise," he said. "I'll see you again." The door
slammed, and he ran down the steps, his blood tingling with the sense
that he had blundered upon some tremendous discovery.
Nor was he far wrong. When in the cab he opened the book, he saw it was
Rose de Bercy's diary. He did not know her handwriting, but he happened
to open the book at the last written page, and the very first words his
staring eyes devoured were these:
If I am killed this night, it will be by ---- or by C. E. F.
Where the blank occurred it was evident that some name had been written,
and heavily scratched through with pen and ink.
But the alternative suggested by the initials! C. E. F.! How grotesque,
how exquisitely ludicrous! Clarke, gazing at the enigma, was suddenly
shaken with a spasm of hysterical laughter.