In Which Margaret Purcell Consults Mr. Penfield
Mr. Joseph Penfield was undeniably in a rather awkward dilemma. For he
had hooked the wrong fish. His letter to Maggie Purcell had been
designed to put him immediately in touch with Purcell himself; whereas
it had evoked an urgent telegram from Maggie announcing her intention
of calling on him “on important business” and entreating him to
arrange an interview.
It was really most unfortunate. There was no one in the world that he
had less desire to see, at the present moment, than Margaret Purcell.
And yet there was no possible escape; for not only was he her
solicitor and her trustee, but he was an old family friend and not a
little attached to her in his dry way. But he didn’t want her just
now. He wanted Purcell; and he wanted him very badly.
For a solicitor of irreproachable character and spotless reputation,
his position was highly unpleasant. As soon as he had opened the
letter from Penzance he had recognized the nature of the enclosures
and had instantly connected them with the forgeries of Bank of England
notes of which he had heard. The intricate watermarks on the “blanks”
were unmistakable. But so was the handwriting of the accompanying
letter. It was Daniel Purcell’s beyond a doubt; and the peculiar,
intensely black ink was equally characteristic. And, short as the note
was, it made perfectly clear its connection with the incriminating
enclosures. It wrote down Daniel Purcell a bank-note forger.
Now Mr. Penfield was, as we have said, a man of irreproachable
character. But he was a very secretive and rather casuistical old
gentleman, and his regard for Margaret had led him to apply his
casuistry to the present case; pretending to himself that his
discovery of the illicit blanks came within the category of “clients’
secrets” which he need not divulge. But in his heart he knew that he
was conniving at a felony; that he ought to give information to the
police or to the Bank, and that he wasn’t going to. His plan was to
get hold of Purcell, make him destroy the blanks in his presence, and
deliver such a warning as would put a stop to the forgeries.
But if he did not propose to give Purcell away, neither did he intend
to give himself away. He would share his compromising secret with no
one—especially with a lady. And this consideration raised the
difficult question, What on earth was he to say to Margaret Purcell
when she arrived? A question which he was still debating with her
telegram spread out before him and his silver snuff-box in his hand
when a clerk entered his private office to announce the unwelcome
visitor.
Fortifying himself with a pinch of snuff, he rose and advanced towards
the door to receive her, and as she entered he made a quick mental
note of her anxious and troubled expression.
“How do you do, Mrs. Purcell?” said he, with a ceremonious bow. “You
have had a long journey and rather an early one. How very unfortunate
that this business, to which you refer in your telegram, should have
arisen while you were on holiday so far away.”
“You have guessed what the business is, I suppose,” said Margaret.
Mr. Penfield smiled deprecatingly. “We lawyers,” said he, “are not
much addicted to guessing, especially when definite information is
available. Pray be seated; and now,” he continued, as Margaret
subsided into the clients’ chair and he resumed his own, resting his
elbows on the arms and placing his finger-tips together, “let us hear
what this new and important business is.”
“It is about that mysterious letter that you had from my husband,”
said Margaret.
“Dear, dear,” said Mr. Penfield. “What a pity that you should have
taken this long journey for such a trifling affair; and I thought I
gave you all the particulars.”
“You didn’t mention whom the letter was from.”
“For several excellent reasons,” replied Mr. Penfield, checking them
off on his fingers. “First, I don’t know; second, it is not my
business; third, your husband, whose business it is, does know. My
object in writing to you was to get into touch with him so that I
could hand back to him this letter which should never have come into
my possession. Shall I take down his address now?”
“I haven’t it myself,” Margaret replied with a faint flush. “I have no
idea where he is at present. He left Sennen on the 23rd to go to
Oulton via Penzance. But he never arrived at Oulton. He has not been
home, he has not been to the office and he has not written. It is
rather alarming, especially in connection with your mysterious
letter.”
“Was my letter mysterious?” said Mr. Penfield, rapidly considering
this new, but not very surprising development. “I hardly think so. It
was not intended to be. What was there mysterious about it?”
“Everything,” she replied, producing the letter from her bag and
glancing at it as she spoke. “You emphasize that Dan’s letter and the
other contents have been seen by no eye but yours and that they are in
a receptacle to which no one has access but yourself. There is a
strong hint of something secret and compromising in the nature of
Dan’s letter and the enclosures.”
“I would rather say ‘confidential,’” murmured Mr. Penfield.
“And,” Margaret continued, “you must see that there is an evident
connection between this misdirected letter and Dan’s disappearance.”
Mr. Penfield saw the connection very plainly, but he was admitting
nothing. He did, indeed, allow that “it was a coincidence” but would
not agree to “a necessary connection.” “Probably you will hear from
your husband in a day or two, and then the letter can be returned.”
“Is there any reason why you should not show me Dan’s letter?”
Margaret demanded. “Surely I am entitled, as his wife, to see it.”
Mr. Penfield pursed up his lips and took a deliberate pinch of snuff.
“We must not confuse,” said he “the theological relations of married
people with their legal relations. Theologically they are one; legally
they are separate persons subject to a mutual contract. As to this
letter, it is not mine and consequently I can show it to no one; and I
must assume that if your husband had desired you to see it he would
have shown it to you himself.”
“But,” Margaret protested impatiently, “are not my husband’s secrets
my secrets?”
“That,” replied the lawyer, “is a delicate question which we need not
consider. There is the question of the secrets of a third party. If I
had the felicity to be a married man, which unfortunately I have not,
you would hardly expect me to communicate your private, and perhaps
secret, affairs to my wife. Now would you?”
Margaret had to admit that she would not. But she instantly countered
the lawyer by inquiring: “Then I was apparently right in inferring
that this letter and the enclosures contained matter of a secret and
compromising character.”
“I have said nothing to that effect,” replied Mr. Penfield,
uncomfortably; and then, seeing that he had no choice between a
downright lie and a flat refusal to answer any questions, he
continued: “The fact is that it is not admissible for me to make any
statement. This letter came to me by an error and my position must be
as if I had not seen it.”
“But it can’t be,” Margaret persisted, “because you have seen it. I
want to know if Dan’s letter was addressed to any one whom I know. You
could tell me that, surely?”
“Unfortunately I cannot,” replied the lawyer, glad to be able to tell
the literal truth for once. “The letter was without any formal
opening. There was nothing to indicate the identity or even the sex of
the person to whom it was addressed.”
Margaret noted this curious fact and then asked: “With regard to the
enclosures. Did they consist of money?”
“They did not,” was the reply, “nor cheques.”
A brief silence followed during which Margaret reflected rapidly on
what she had learned, and what she had not learned. At length she
looked up with a somewhat wry smile and said: “Well, Mr. Penfield, I
suppose that is all I shall get out of you?”
“I am afraid it is,” he replied. “The necessity of so much reservation
is most distasteful, I assure you; but it is the plain duty of a
lawyer to keep not only his own counsel but other people’s.”
“Yes, of course, I quite understand that. And now, as we have finished
with the letter, there is the writer to consider. What had I better do
about Dan?”
“Why do anything? It is only four days since he left Sennen.”
“Yes, but something has evidently happened. He may have met with an
accident and be in some hospital. Do you think I ought to notify the
police that he is missing?”
“No; certainly not,” Mr. Penfield replied emphatically; for, to his
mind, Purcell’s disappearance was quite simply explained. He had
discovered the mistake of the transposed letter, and knew that
Penfield held the means of convicting him of a felony, and he had gone
into hiding until he should discover what the lawyer meant to do. To
put the police on his track would be to convince him of his danger and
drive him hopelessly out of reach. But Mr. Penfield could not explain
this to Margaret; and to cover his emphatic rejection of police
assistance he continued: “You see, he can hardly be said to be
missing; he may merely have altered his plans and neglected to write.
Have patience for a day or two, and if you still hear no tidings of
him, send me a line and I will take what measures seem advisable for
trying to get into touch with him.”
“Thank you,” said Margaret, not very enthusiastically, rising to take
her departure. She was in the act of shaking Mr. Penfield’s hand when,
with a sudden afterthought she asked:
“By the way, was there anything in Dan’s letter that might account for
his disappearance in this fashion?”
This was rather a facer for Mr. Penfield, who, like many casuists,
hated telling a direct lie. For the answer was clearly “yes,” whereas
the sense that he was compelled to convey was “no.”
“You are forgetting that the letter was not addressed to me,” he said.
“And that reminds me that there must have been another letter—the one
that _was_ addressed to me and that must have been put into the other
person’s envelope. May I ask if that letter has been returned?”
“No, it has not,” replied Margaret.
“Ha!” said Mr. Penfield. “But it probably will be in the course of a
day or two. Then we shall know what he was writing to me about and who
is the other correspondent. Good day, good day, Mrs. Purcell.”
He shook her hand warmly and hastened to open the door for her in the
hope—justified by the result—that she would not realize until she had
left that her very significant question had not been answered.
Indeed she did not realize how adroitly the old solicitor had evaded
that question until she was too far away to return and put it afresh,
even if that had seemed worth while; for her attention was occupied by
the other issue that he had so artfully raised. She had overlooked the
presumable existence of the second transposed letter, the one that
should have been in Mr. Penfield’s envelope. It ought to have been
returned at once. Possibly it was even now waiting at Sennen to be
forwarded. If it arrived, it would probably disclose the identity of
the mysterious correspondent. On the other hand it might not; and if
it were not returned at all, that would confirm the suspicion that
there was something gravely wrong. And it was at this point that
Margaret became conscious of Mr. Penfield’s last evasion.
Its effect was to confirm the generally disagreeable impression that
she had received from the interview. She was a little resentful of the
lawyer’s elaborate reticence, which, coupled with the strange
precautionary terms of his letter to her, convinced her that her
husband had embarked on some questionable transaction and that Mr.
Penfield knew it and knew the nature of that transaction. His instant
rejection of the suggestion that an accident might have occurred and
that the police might be notified seemed to imply that he had some
inkling of Purcell’s proceedings, and his final evasion of her
question strongly suggested that the letter, or the enclosures, or
both, contained some clue to the disappearance.
Thus, as she took her way home, Margaret turned over again and again
the puzzling elements of the mystery; and at each reshuffling of the
scanty facts the same conclusion emerged; her husband had absconded
and he had not absconded alone. The secret that Mr. Penfield was
guarding was such a secret as might, if divulged, have pointed the way
to the Divorce Court. And with this conclusion and a frown of disgust,
she turned into the entry of her flat and ascended the stairs.
As she let herself in, the maid met her in the hall.
“Mr. Varney is in the drawing-room, ma’am,” she said. “He came about
ten minutes ago. I am getting tea for him.”
“Thank you, Nellie,” said Margaret, “and you might get me some, too.”
She passed on to her bedroom for a hasty wash and change and then
joined her visitor in time to pour out the tea.
“How good of you, Mr. Varney,” she said warmly as they shook hands,
“to come to me so quickly. You must have only just arrived.”
“Yes,” he replied, “I came straight on from the station. I thought you
would be anxious to know if I had heard anything.”
“And have you?”
“Well,” Varney replied, hesitatingly, “I’m rather afraid not. I seem
to have drawn a blank.”
Margaret looked at him critically. There was something in his manner
suggestive of doubt and reservation.
“Do you mean an absolute blank? Did you find out nothing at all?”
Again Varney seemed to hesitate and Margaret’s attention sharpened.
“There isn’t much use in making guesses,” said he. “I found no
definite traces of Dan. He hadn’t been at the ‘Ship,’ where I put up
and where he used to stay when he went to Falmouth, and of course I
couldn’t go round the other hotels making inquiries. But I went down
the quay-side and asked a few discreet questions about the craft that
had left the port since Monday, especially the odd craft, bound for
small ports. I felt that if Dan had any reason for slipping off
quietly, he wouldn’t go by a passenger boat to a regular passenger
port. He would go on a cargo boat bound to some out-of-the-way place.
So I found out what I could about the cargo boats that had put out of
Falmouth; but I didn’t have much luck.”
Again he paused irresolutely, and Margaret asked, with a shade of
impatience: “Did you find out anything at all?”
“Well, no; I can’t say that I did,” Varney replied in the same slow,
inconclusive manner. “It’s disappointing in a way, especially as I
really thought at one time that I had got on his track. But that
turned out a mistake after all.”
“You are sure it was a mistake,” said Margaret, eagerly. “Tell me
about it.”
“I picked up the clue when I was asking about a Swedish steamer that
had put out on Tuesday morning. She had a lading of China clay and was
bound for Malmo, but she was calling at Ipswich to pick up some other
cargo. I learned that she took one or two passengers on board, and one
of them was described to me as a big, red-faced man of about forty who
looked like a pilot or a ship’s officer. That sounded rather like Dan;
and when I heard that he was carrying a biggish suit-case and had a
yellow oilskin coat on his arm, I made pretty sure that it was.”
“And how do you know that it was not Dan?”
“Why,” replied Varney, “it turned out that this man had a woman with
him.”
“I see,” said Margaret, hastily, flushing scarlet and turning her head
away. For a while she could think of nothing further to say. To her,
of course, the alleged disproof of the passenger’s identity was
“confirmation strong as Holy Writ.” But her pride would not allow her
to confess this, at any rate to Varney; and she was in difficulties as
to how to pursue the inquiry without making the admission. At length
she ventured: “Do you think that is quite conclusive? I mean, is it
certain that the woman belonged to the man? There is the possibility
that she may have been merely a fellow passenger whom he had casually
accompanied to the ship. Or did you ascertain that they were
actually—er—companions?”
“No, by Jove!” exclaimed Varney. “I never thought of any other
possibilities. I heard that the man went on board with a woman and at
once decided that he couldn’t be Dan. But you are quite right. They
may have just met at the hotel or elsewhere and walked down to the
ship together. I wonder if it’s worth while to make any further
inquiries about the ship; I mean at Ipswich, or, if necessary, at
Malmo.”
“Do you remember the ship’s name?”
“Yes; the _Hedwig_ of Hernosand. She left Falmouth early on the
Tuesday morning so she will probably have gone to Ipswich some time
yesterday. She may be there now; or, of course, she may have picked up
her stuff and gone to sea the same day. Would you like me to run down
to Ipswich and see if I can find out anything?”
Margaret turned on him with a look that set his heart thumping and his
pulses throbbing.
“Mr. Varney,” she said, in a low, unsteady voice, “you make me ashamed
and proud: proud to have such a loyal, devoted friend, and ashamed to
be such a tax on him.”
“Not at all,” he replied. “After all”—here his voice, too, became a
little unsteady—“Dan was my pal; is my pal still,” he added huskily.
He paused for a moment and then concluded: “I’ll go down to-night and
try to pick up the scent while it is fresh.”
“It _is_ good of you,” she exclaimed; and as she spoke her eyes
filled, but she still looked at him frankly as she continued: “Your
faithful friendship is no little compensation for”—she was going to
say “his unfaithfulness,” but altered the words to “the worry and
anxiety of this horrid mystery. But I am ashamed to let you take so
much trouble, though I must confess that it would be an immense relief
to me to get _some_ news of Dan. I don’t hope for good news, but it is
terrible to be so completely in the dark.”
“Yes, that is the worst part of it,” Varney agreed; and then, setting
his cup on the table, he rose. “I had better be getting along now,” he
said, “so that I can catch the earliest possible train. Good-bye, Mrs.
Purcell, and good luck to us both.”
The leave-taking almost shattered Varney’s self-possession, for
Margaret, in the excess of her gratitude, impulsively grasped both his
hands and pressed them warmly as she poured out her thanks. Her touch
made him tingle to the finger-ends. Heavens! How beautiful she looked,
this lovely, unconscious young widow. And to think that she might in
time be his own! A wild impulse surged through him to clasp her in his
arms; to tell her that she was free and that he worshipped her. Of
course that was a mere impulse that interfered not at all with his
decorous, deferential manner. And yet a sudden, almost insensible
change in hers made him suspect that his eyes had told her more than
he had meant to disclose. Nevertheless, she followed him to the lobby
to speed him on his errand, and when he looked back from the foot of
the stairs, she was standing at the open door smiling down on him.
The thoughts of these two persons, when each was alone, were strangely
different. In Margaret’s mind there was no doubt that the man on the
steamer was her unworthy husband. But what did Varney think? That a
man of the world should have failed to perceive that an unexplained
disappearance was most probably an elopement seemed to her incredible.
Varney could not be such an innocent as that. The only alternative was
that he, like Mr. Penfield, was trying to shield Dan; to hush up the
disreputable elements of the escapade. But whereas the lawyer’s
obstinate reticence had aroused some slight resentment, she felt no
resentment towards Varney. For he was Dan’s friend first of all and it
was proper that he should try to shield his “pal.” And he was really
serving husband and wife equally. To hush things up would be the best
for both. She wanted no scandal. Loyal and faithful wife as she had
been, her feelings towards her husband were of that somewhat tepid
quality that would have allowed her to receive him back without
reproaches and to accept the lamest explanations without question or
comment. Varney’s assumed policy was as much to her interest as to
Dan’s; and he was certainly playing the part of a devoted friend to
them both.
One thing did, indeed, rather puzzle her. Her marriage had been—on her
husband’s side—undoubtedly a love-match. It was for no mercenary
reasons that he had forced the marriage on her and her father; and up
to the last he had seemed to be, in his rather brutal way, genuinely
in love with her. Why, then, had he suddenly gone off with another
woman? To her constant, faithful nature the thing was inexplicable.
Varney’s reflections were more complex. A vague consciousness of the
cumulative effects of actions was beginning to steal into his mind; a
faint perception that he was being borne along on the current of
circumstance. He had gone to Falmouth with the express purpose of
losing Purcell. But it seemed necessary to pick up some trace of the
imaginary fugitive; for the one essential to Varney’s safety was that
Purcell’s disappearance must appear to date from the landing at
Penzance. That landing must be taken as an established fact. There
must be no inquiry into or discussion of the incidents of that tragic
voyage. But to that end it was necessary that Purcell should make some
reappearance on shore; must leave some traces for possible pursuers to
follow. So Varney had gone to Falmouth to find such traces—and to lose
them. That was to have been the end of the business so far as he was
concerned.
But it was not the end; and as he noted this, he noted too, with a
curious interest unmixed with any uneasiness, how one event generates
others. He had invented Purcell’s proposed visit to Falmouth to give a
plausible colour to the disappearance and to carry the field of
inquiry beyond the landing at Penzance. Then the Falmouth story had
seemed to commit him to a visit to Falmouth to confirm it. That visit
had committed him to the fabrication of the required confirmatory
traces, which were to be found and then lost. But he had not quite
succeeded in losing them. Margaret’s question had seemed to commit him
to tracing them further; and now he had got to find and lose Purcell
at Ipswich. That, however, would be the end. From Ipswich Purcell
would have to disappear for good.
The account that he had given Margaret was founded on facts. The ship
that he had described was a real ship which had sailed when he had
said that she sailed and for the ports that he had named. Moreover,
she had carried one or two passengers. But the red-faced man with the
suit case and his female companion were creatures of Varney’s
imagination.
Thus we see Varney already treading the well-worn trail left by
multitudes of wrongdoers; weaving around himself a defensive web of
illusory appearances, laying down false tracks that lead always away
from himself; never suspecting that the web may at last become as the
fowler’s snare, that the false tracks may point the way to the hounds
of destiny. It is true that, as he fared on his way to Ipswich, he was
conscious that the tide of circumstance was bearing him farther than
he had meant to travel; but not yet did he recognize in this
hardly-perceived compulsion the abiding menace of accumulating
consequences that encompasses the murderer.