"Well," he exclaimed, looking up at me when he had read it, "there's
nothing very fishy about that, is there?"
Then I recollected that he was in ignorance of my suspicions. Yet I
loved Eva with all my soul and held back from placing any facts in the
hands of this man who, with ruthless disregard for my affection or my
feelings, would perhaps arrest her for complicity in the crime. And yet
as I sat before him, watching his face through the blue haze of
cigarette smoke, I felt impelled to seek his aid, for this tangled chain
of recent events had utterly bewildered and unnerved me. I was not yet
strong again after the strange seizure which had so puzzled the doctor,
and a sense of gloom and despair had since overwhelmed me, arising
perhaps from the constant suspicion that a secret attempt had been made
upon my life.
To remain longer in that state of uncertainty was impossible. I felt I
should go mad if I did not make some further determined effort to
ascertain the truth. Some one, whom I knew not, had attempted to kill
me. And why? There could be but one reason. Because I had succeeded
in placing myself upon the actual track of the assassin. An attempt,
cowardly and dastardly, had been made upon me, therefore I had every
right to seek the aid of the police to discover its author.
This argument decided me, and casting my cigarette into the grate, I
asked Boyd to give me his attention while I related to him all that I
had discovered.
In an instant his free-and-easy manner changed, and as I spoke he sat
leaning towards me, attentively listening to every word, but hazarding
no remark. Without attempting to conceal anything, I explained to him
first of all my great love for the woman who was under such terrible
suspicion, and then as I narrated our conversation when alone on the
river, and repeated her curious response to my declaration of love, he
knit his dark brows seriously and gave vent to a grunt indicative of
doubt. He was no blunderer, this detective. Unlike the majority he was
well-educated, speaking French and Italian fluently, an adept in the art
of disguise, a man who formed very careful theories, and whose
appearance was never that of an agent of police. One would rather have
taken him for a well-to-do Jew, or perhaps some prosperous City man of
foreign extraction, for his dark complexion and aquiline features gave
him an un-English appearance, and his invariable spruceness in dress
accounted for his success in following criminals, who never dreamed that
the smart, well-dressed gentleman of perfect manner was actually an
emissary from Scotland Yard. His knowledge of foreign languages had
caused him to be entrusted with numbers of very important inquiries
political and criminal, and in tracking the guilty he had paid flying
visits to nearly all the Continental capitals.
In his sharp eyes there was a strange glitter, I thought, as without
interruption I told him what I knew. I advanced no theories whatever,
but merely laid before him the plain unvarnished truth. Then, when I
had finished, I said--
"Now, first of all, recollect that whatever may be the result of our
inquiries I will do no harm whatever to the woman I love. Understand
that entirely."
"I quite understand," he said gravely, speaking for the first time.
"That's only natural. But the difficulties in our way appear almost
insurmountable."
"Well?" I asked anxiously, "what is your opinion, now that I have told
you everything?"
He shook his head, puffed thoughtfully at the fresh cigarette he had
just lit, and then contemplated it thoughtfully.
"I have no opinion at present," he responded. "One might form half a
dozen theories upon these facts, all equally wide of the mark."
"Then how are we to act?" I asked in dismay.
He raised his dark eyebrow's in gesture of bewilderment. Then he gazed
gravely in my face.
"Look here, Boyd," I continued, "I love Eva Glaslyn, and to you I make
no secret of it whatsoever. But at all hazards I mean to ascertain the
truth."
"Even at the risk of convicting her?" he inquired, looking across at me
quickly.
"Convicting her!" I echoed. "Then you really entertain the same
suspicion as myself?"
"We may have suspicions without forming any theories," he responded
calmly. Then he added, in a tone of regret, "It's certainly a thousand
pities that you love her."
"Why?"
"Upon your own showing she appears to have very little regard for you."
"How?"
"Well," he answered slowly, "there's no doubt that the other day an
attempt was made upon your life."
"And you suspect her?"
"We can suspect no one else," he answered.
"According to that old herbalist's statement she had purchased a certain
drug of him. What could an innocent young lady require with this
unnamed drug if not to administer it to some one she wanted to get rid
of?"
"But she has no object in ridding herself of me," I urged.
"Of that I'm not quite so sure, my dear fellow," he observed, after a
brief pause. "Recollect that on the morning when she went to St.
James's Park in order to meet, for some mysterious purpose, the man whom
we now know was old Mr. Blain, she met you face to face. We have no
idea what her actions were previously, but she may have believed that
you had been spying upon her; therefore, on recognising you when you
were formally introduced at Riverdene, she conceived a plan for getting
you out of the way. It was with that object very possibly that she made
the secret purchase at the herbalist's."
"No, Boyd, I can't believe it of her," I said quickly. "I won't believe
it!"
"Very well," he said in the same calm tone as before. "But there's
still another fact extremely puzzling, and that is why this man Lowry
should have left in such a hurry. I must inquire at the Carter Street
Police-Station, the district wherein he lived, and see whether there was
anything against him. By the way," he added, "does your friend Cleugh
know the whole of these facts you've explained to me?"
"No, not the whole--only some."
"Does he know that you've declared your love to Lady Glaslyn's daughter
and been refused?"
"No."
"Then don't tell him," said the detective.
"I believe that the reason of his sudden weariness of Lily Lowry's
society is due to the fact that he loves Mary Blain."
"All the more reason, then, why he should in future remain in entire
ignorance of whatever facts we may elicit."
Then he paused, furiously consuming his cigarette and taking a long
draught of the whisky-and-soda I had mixed and placed at his elbow.
"This is really a most remarkable mystery, Urwin," he exclaimed at
length, twisting the plain gold ring upon his finger, a habit of his
when pondering deeply. "There seem a thousand complications. It's
absolutely the most astounding case that I've ever had in hand. Even
Shaw, our superintendent at the Yard, a man whose deep-rooted conviction
is that we never need fail if we really take an interest in an inquiry,
acknowledged to me the other day that he could see no way to a clue. Of
course, we might question Mrs. Blain, or even arrest Blain himself on
suspicion if we could find him again. But whoever is guilty has taken
such careful precautions to obliterate every trace of a clue that both
the superintendent and myself are agreed that the interrogation of
either of the Blains would only result in defeating our ends." That was
exactly my own opinion. I had many times wondered why the police had
not made inquiries of Mrs. Blain on account of the statement by the
landlord at Kensington, but it was now plain that the Director of
Criminal Investigations, the greyheaded, loud-voiced, old gentleman whom
I knew quite well at Scotland Yard, had decided otherwise.
"But why are you so anxious that my friend Cleugh should remain in
ignorance of our movements?" I inquired.
"You say that he loves Mary Blain," answered Boyd. "He might in that
case drop some unintentional hint to her of the direction of our
inquiries. This matter, to be successful, must be entirely a secret
between ourselves--you understand? To-day we've made a discovery--the
identity of the man who threw some object into the lake--and it puts a
rather fresh complexion upon the affair, even though it further
complicates it considerably. You said that his wife has all along told
you that her husband was in Paris--I think?"
"Yes," I responded. "She said he was there in connexion with some
company which he was trying to promote."
"And all along he has been in London--in hiding."
"He may have just returned from Paris," I suggested. "Recollect that
I've not been to Riverdene for some little time."
"No, my dear fellow," Boyd said. "His ingenuity in eluding us in Ebury
Street showed that he had already prepared a snug hiding-place for
himself before that tragedy at Phillimore Place. Besides, the other
evening his clothes showed an attempt at disguise--didn't they?"
"Certainly. He's very smartly dressed always; indeed, rather a fop in
his way."
"Depend upon it that he's never dared to set foot outside London all
this time. He knows well enough that the Metropolis is the safest place
in the whole world in which a criminal may conceal himself. Only a
bungler attempts to get away abroad."
Silence again fell between us. The quiet was unbroken save for the slow
ticking of the clock upon the mantelshelf. Of a sudden, with a rather
curious glance, he bent forward to me, eagerly saying--
"Now in this affair we must be perfectly candid with each other. You
must conceal nothing from me."
"I have concealed nothing," I protested, surprised at his curious
attitude, as though he held me in some suspicion.
"I don't allege that you have," he answered. "But I want you to answer
truthfully a question which is of highest importance. I want you to
tell me whether, on the afternoon of the day you were called by
Patterson to Kensington, your friend Cleugh was here, at home."
"No, he certainly wasn't. I arrived home first, and he came in perhaps
ten minutes or a quarter of an hour later than usual," I answered,
wondering what connexion this could have with the inquiry.
"And after you made the discovery you did not telegraph or communicate
with him in any way? I take it that you were surprised to meet him in
that house."
"Certainly I was," I responded. "But he had an appointment with Lily
Lowry, and finding that she could not keep it, he came along to
Kensington to ascertain the nature of the event about which Patterson
had wired to me."
The detective's features relaxed into a strange smile.
"Would you be surprised then to know that your friend never called at
the Police-Station on that evening, but went straight to Phillimore
Place and there joined me while you were absent inquiring of the
neighbours? That very evening I inquired of the constable on duty at
the door of the station, and of others, all of whom told me that no one
had called to inquire for Patterson except yourself."
"That's certainly extraordinary," I said in wonderment.
"Yes," he observed mechanically. "It's a very curious fact; one which
appears to prove that he knew something more of the mysterious
occurrence than he has admitted--in fact, that he was aware of it long
before we were."
"What!" I gasped, gazing at my companion in alarm. "Surely you don't
mean that you suspect Dick of having had any hand in the affair?"
Then, at that instant, I recollected how, when I had received the
telegram on that memorable evening, his face had suddenly changed, and
his hand had trembled.