WHICH TELLS OF AN EVENTFUL NIGHT
Left alone in a police-station cell the night but one following his
arrest, Arthur Hudson fell a victim to the most profound dejection. It
was all very well to keep up a brave face before Paul Renishaw, the
detective, and the two inspectors, when the charge was new, had been
suddenly sprung upon him, and he did not realise its dire importance;
but here, in the silence of the gloomy white-washed corridor, in a
bare apartment only eight or nine feet square, in which a single
gas-jet burned but feebly, the horror of it all smote him with a sense
of insufferable shame.
In vain he forced himself to sit upon the narrow truckle bed that had
been allotted to him, and to affect an interest in the dull-looking
objects with which his cell was furnished--the iron toilet set, the
tiny mirror, the roughly used brush and comb, and a copy of the
police-station regulations, that had been glued upon a card, glazed
and hung upon the blue-washed wall. All the forces of his manhood
seemed to rise in hot rebellion against a calm acquiescence in these
indignities, and finally, he sought relief in pacing up and down the
narrow cell, a prey to a thousand grave terrors.
Now and then, however, the deathly silence would be disturbed by the
advent of some fresh prisoner,--once a boy sobbing piteously; next, a
drunken woman, shouting snatches of ribald songs, alternated with
bursts of frightful blasphemies; and occasionally, some strong man,
who sternly resisted capture and who seemed to fight every inch of the
way from the street to the cell. The clang of the iron doors upon
these poor wretches had, however, a curiously soothing effect upon
them. Once or twice, it is true, they tried to plead for release, or
to beg piteously that some relative or friend should be sent for, but
the gruff voices of their gaolers soon put an end to their appeals,
and as hour after hour boomed from the great clock of St. Paul’s,
great silence took possession of the building.
Then it was indeed, that poor Arthur’s brain gave him the most
poignant torture. In spite of his strong will, it would travel back to
the memories of happier times, would recall how only yesterday all the
world seemed to smile upon him and his fortunes, and not a trouble
threatened him. With a deep groan, which he could not repress, he
recalled how he loved one of noblest and sweetest of girls, and how
everything was hastening gaily forward to his marriage--hastening like
the sunny days of summer, when they rush pell-mell to the rosy
fulfilment of a gorgeous autumn--and then it seemed impossible that
any blow should affect his heart’s best happiness.
How strangely, how softly, and yet, how irresistibly the change had
come about! Somehow, it seemed that in one tiny hour at the office in
Cheapside, the whole face of life had changed for him. Somehow, all
his plans and hopes had seemed to get out of joint from that
particular moment on which Ventris Blake had crossed his threshold. To
all outward appearances, it was only a plain matter of business on
which the millionaire had called--the transaction had been concluded
without any hitch--the usual friendly courtesies had been exchanged at
the close,--and yet, look what a terrible network of crime, intrigue
and bitterness had thrown its folds around him ever since!
Winifred had been forced to flee from her home. Mrs. Blake had been
found beaten to death on a lonely road near Scarborough. Russell
Langford had been reduced to a state of abject terror. He, Arthur, had
been branded as a man who had secretly married a woman in a far off
town in Northamptonshire, and then deserted her, and then posed as a
single man to win another young girl’s affection. Even that was not
sufficient to satisfy the malignity of the unscrupulous fate that had
attacked them, for now, to crown all, he had been seized on this awful
charge of murder--the murder of a woman he had never seen, of a woman
he had never even heard of, yet who would be held out to the world as
his own distracted and deserted wife.
At first it seemed impossible to believe that all these things could
follow from an hour’s association with one man, even such a man as
Ventris Blake. With a touch of childish ingenuity he tried to imagine
that all this catalogue of trouble was so much imagination, and that
he had simply to rub his eyes to wake up again in the dear old flat at
Emperor’s Gate, to see Winifred in her favourite attitude, nestling by
the side of the fire. He did shut his eyes, and he did open them, but
it was not to the bright homelike scene his memory had painted: it was
to the four bare walls of a police-station cell, and to the moan of
some drunken ruffian turning uneasily in his sleep.
Finally, worn out with the horror of it all, the futility, the ever
deepening sense of tragedy that seemed to mock all his puny efforts to
free himself from the march of ironic circumstances, he felt it was
useless to struggle further.
“I can’t escape this awful thing that has fastened its poisonous fangs
about me,” he moaned, as worn out with the night’s terrors, he flung
himself on to his narrow bedstead, and buried his face in his hot and
feverish hands. “The whole world seems arrayed in force against me;
everywhere I turn I see some pit dug for my feet. Why need I go to any
more anxiety or worry in the matter? I am marked for ruin; now let
ruin come.” And his frame shook with a storm of dry impetuous sobs.
A few minutes later his brave, reliant nature asserted itself, and
throwing back his shoulders, he rose once again to his feet--maybe a
little ashamed of his previous weakness.
“Bah! what a coward I am,” he told himself, with well simulated
fierceness. “Here am I, wasting hours of pity and anguish over my own
wretched fortunes, whereas I ought not to think of myself at all--all
my mind ought to be fixed on the terrible trouble this last blow will
prove to poor driven, distracted Winifred.”
Throwing out his arms with a gesture of infinite weariness, he
recommenced to promenade the cell. Somehow, the mere thought of
Winifred brought back to him all his early faith and courage. His eyes
too, caught a glimpse of the day-light breaking over the distant
buildings, now dull and leaden, as though fearful of breaking entirely
through the blackness, and, anon, white and clear, as though the true
victorious forces of life must always be the forces of light.
This, it is true, was only one of nature’s simple object lessons, and
perhaps, only those who have spent long hours of heartbreaking misery
in the deep, dull silence of a black winter night, can ever fully
understand all that it meant to Arthur at this particular moment.
Certainly, it brought back to him hopes that had long vanished, and a
belief that, although his path was so dark he saw nowhere an avenue of
escape, there still remained to him a faith he had too long forgotten;
and, throwing himself on his knees, his overcharged heart found refuge
in a deep and impassioned prayer.
A few minutes later, he had crept into his bed and slept so soundly
that it needed the constable in charge to come and shake him by the
shoulder, before he could be brought back to a sense of the dull
threatening realities that awaited him. Then, with a merry laugh, he
sprang up and threw on his clothes, and soon found himself busily
discussing a breakfast of ham and eggs, and steaming hot coffee, which
the officials, at his request, had thoughtfully provided for him out
of the money they took from him when they searched him.
Shortly afterwards, there was a sound of a well-remembered tread in
the corridor, and Paul Renishaw bustled into the cell, accompanied by
one of the smartest solicitors he had been able to secure at such
short notice. For at least an hour, these three men engaged in a long
and earnest conversation, and, accustomed as he was to all manner of
cases and defences, even the solicitor, Mr. Spencer Holmes, was forced
to admit this charge against Arthur was one of the most extraordinary
he had ever heard in his experience.
Time moved forward very quickly after this, and long before he
expected the summons, Arthur found a constable call to him to follow
him into the presence of a magistrate, who had undertaken to deal with
the formal evidence of the case, prior to the removal of the prisoner
to Scarborough.
With a bright step and confident air, poor Arthur marched off in the
wake of his guide, along a series of corridors, and up two or three
flights of stairs, until at length he reached the yard of the police
station, where he found an old and dingy four wheeled cab in waiting
for him. Into this he was thrust, with two or three pleasant jests and
much good humour, and finally driven off to Bow Street, in the company
of his acquaintances of the previous night--Inspector Lawton and the
Detective, an officer named Dawson.
Unfortunately, the news of his arrest had been published in the
morning papers, and a seething, excited mob had gathered in the
vicinity of Drury Lane, so that although the cab was driven with
remarkable swiftness, Arthur did not fail to hear the storm of hisses
and coarse oaths with which the mob greeted his appearance. At first,
indeed, he could hardly believe that this loathsome demonstration was
specially intended for him, but as the officers in plain clothes
formed a cordon round the vehicle, and constables in uniform pressed
forward to their comrades’ assistance, he realised, with an awful
sense of desolation, that at one bound, as it were, he had reached the
position of a notorious suspect.
The scene, when he reached the police court itself, was also in no
sense designed to restore his lost dignity and pride. True, there,
seated at the solicitor’s table, right in front of him, was his own
advocate, Mr. Spencer Holmes and Paul Renishaw, but the rest of the
court was filled by a mob of curious sight-seers and press-men and
artists, who fixed their eyes upon him, as though he were some
extraordinary wild beast just let loose from a cage.
The crowning indignity came, when a road was cleared through a
gangway, and before he actually realised what had happened, he found
himself thrust into the dock.
The dock! Never never would he have believed that such a horrible
degradation as this would have been his, and as the door closed upon
him with a thud, he reeled and for a moment might have fallen, had not
a sturdy warder caught him roughly by the arm, and thinking he had
stumbled over a step, told him roughly to stand up. Those hundreds of
eyes that watched him so pitilessly, so curiously, so relentlessly,
however, brought him quickly back to his senses, and setting his teeth
tightly together, he advanced to the front of the dock and bowed
courteously to the magistrate.
Almost immediately after this the proceeding began, and Inspector
Lawton went into the box and told how he had arrested the prisoner the
previous night in New Bridge Street, on instructions received by
telegraph from the Scarborough police, and how one of their detectives
had come down from the North to take the prisoner back with him on a
charge of having murdered his wife.
Hereupon Mr. Spencer Holmes got up and protested against this course
of action. He declared the arrest was some hideous blunder on the part
of the Scarborough police, and that it would be monstrous for the
magistrate, simply on the mere word of some country officer, to take
one of the most prominent men in the City of London, and to send him
half across England to meet a charge which he did not hesitate to
describe as some most preposterous hallucination on the part of some
demented eye-witness.
Just then a faint rustle was heard at the far end of the court, and
all at once appeared the well-known figure of Russell Langford, who
hastened as quickly as he could, clad in barrister’s wig and gown, and
bearing a huge brief, in the direction of the seat specially reserved
for Counsel.
“Excuse me, your Worship,” said he, “but I have an important
application to make to you in this matter.
“I am sorry to appear so late before your Worship,” he began with a
low bow to the presiding magistrate, but keeping his eyes steadily all
the while out of the way of the hot and scornful glances Arthur shot
at him from the dock. “The fact is, I have only just been instructed
to appear in this case on behalf of the relatives of the deceased,
including her supposed husband, Ventris Blake, who unfortunately
cannot be here to-day as he is simply prostrated with grief by this
tragic end of what he always regarded as a perfect life of married
confidence and happiness.”
For a moment, the eminent advocate paused, and, pulling out his
handkerchief, pretended to blow his nose vigorously, as though he
himself felt a little overcome by this contemplation of a poor
martyred husband’s sufferings.
“What an infernal humbug you are,” Paul muttered sotto voce. “You know
you are talking the veriest piffle.” But, although Langford distinctly
caught every word his friend said, he did not think it wise to take
any notice of it. Then the journalist, too, shrugged his shoulders.
“After all,” he reasoned swiftly, “this shoddy emotionalism is not the
only humbug in public life.”
“Luckily,” proceeded Langford, fixing his eyes upon the magistrate, “I
was in time, just now, to catch the gist of the speech of my learned
friend, Mr. Spencer Holmes, who appears, I take it, on behalf of the
accused. From it, I gather, he has taken practically a unique line in
defending the case at the outset, and has even gone so far as to
suggest that these proceedings are an absolute travesty of justice. In
those circumstances, and as the Treasury have not yet had time to be
fully communicated with, I trust you will allow me to step a little
out of the usual course, so that we can avoid any appearance of a
miscarriage of justice in this matter. The concession I suggest is not
a very important one: it is merely to call two or three witnesses who
have just arrived from Scarborough, but who can, I venture to think,
put a totally different complexion to that indicated by my learned
friend.”
“That would certainly give me satisfaction,” replied the magistrate,
slowly. “I own that I too was considerably startled at the line the
prisoner’s advocate thought fit to adopt.”
“Well,” proceeded Langford, “I will first of all call Martha
Shacklock.”
An old country woman of about sixty, clad in a rusty black silk dress,
a shawl, and a bonnet that had probably done duty for the last half
century, now stepped forward, and with a low curtsey to the
magistrate, the solicitors, and even poor Arthur himself, she entered
the witness box and was duly sworn. Her evidence was clear, and
certainly not a little astounding to all the friends of the accused.
She deposed that she kept a small refreshment house in a small hamlet,
about one mile distant from Scarborough. When the town was crowded, it
was quite a common thing for her to let beds to visitors, which she
was able to do at a very cheap rate. As a consequence, she was not
surprised when a man whom she deliberately swore was no other than the
man standing in the dock, came to her house the night before the
murder, and arranged to take a room, which he promptly took possession
of and did not leave until the following evening about six. His
behaviour was so curious, she admitted, that even if he had not gone
then, she would have turned him out. He had nothing to eat all the
time he was in the house, and so far as she knew, he was not seen by a
single person belonging to her household, except herself.
It was in vain that Mr. Spencer Holmes cross-examined her very closely
on this question of the identity of Arthur and the man who stayed at
her house. Her evidence remained unshaken, while even poor Arthur was
left wondering whether, after all, something extraordinary had not
happened to him, and he had really temporarily lost his memory and his
senses.
This sense of confusion was only deepened by the next witness, a
bright, intelligent lad of fifteen, who gave the name of Peter Brian,
and said that he was employed as errand boy at a gardener’s and
florist’s, on some land and greenhouses adjoining the house occupied
by the last witness. He took up the tale of the prosecution at a point
an hour later than the murder was alleged to have been committed. He
explained that he was stopping late that night to bank up some fires
in a distant portion of his employer’s grounds, when he was startled
to see a man run hurriedly through the gloom, in the direction of a
greenhouse that stood by itself, and was, as a rule, not used for any
purpose at all. A moment later, a bright light appeared in the
interior of this place, and creeping stealthily towards it, he reached
the end farthest from the door, and peered through the glass. There he
saw a man bending over a sink, washing some blood off his hands and
waistcoat. That man, he would swear positively, was the prisoner in
the dock, Arthur Hudson. He saw his face distinctly by the light of a
candle that had been fixed in a beer bottle on one of the ledges.
A candle by the way, that was subsequently proved to have been removed
from Mrs. Shacklock’s. For nearly ten minutes, the witness declared
that he watched this man remove traces of his guilt. Amongst other
things, he said, the man changed his clothes, and put on a suit which
he had brought in a bundle in an old copy of a Scarborough paper,
“_The Scarborough Daily Post_.”
Finally, the boy asserted, just as he had finished putting on a fresh
suit, the prisoner happened to turn round and catch sight of his face
peering through the glass, closely watching his movements. With a
savage oath, the man made one wild grab at the candle and the
beer-bottle, and without a moment’s hesitation, he flung it full smash
at the glass, at the point where he stood.
Witness ducked level with the stonework, and the splinters of glass
and the bottle passed harmlessly over his back, but terrified, he did
not stay in that position any longer, but ran as hard as he could, in
the direction of some apple trees, one of which he climbed, but was so
terrified at what had happened, that he dared not come down again
until his master appeared in the garden the next morning, at eight
o’clock, when he told him about the murder.
Together they searched the garden, but of course, they got no sign of
the prisoner. Later, they entered the greenhouse, and took up the
clothes that had been cast aside by the man, after he had washed the
bloodstains off his hands. These bore the name of Arthur Hudson, Esq.,
on a small label, on the band of the trousers, and the inside pocket
of the jacket. Also a number, and the name and address of a firm of
tailors in Bond Street, London.
Unfortunately, cross-examination failed to shake the testimony of this
witness--and with something like an expression of despair, Arthur
heard the next witness called. This proved to be a cattle-drover of
the name of Benjamin Smearthwaite, who swore that he was a
cattle-drover, employed on a farm on the far side of Filey. He
remembered the day of the murder exceedingly well. He was engaged in
driving sheep to a market at Scarborough.
About two miles out of that town, he found the flock rather
troublesome, and his dog rather lazy, so he pulled up a great stake,
out of the hedge, and made use of that, particularly when the sheep
were frightened by the passage through their midst of several
exceedingly noisy motor cars. Finally, the flock quieted down, and the
dog took up his work as usual, and he was just about to throw the
stick away, when a man, he would swear positively was the prisoner,
appeared over a hedge and asked him if he would mind selling him the
stake he was carrying.
He admitted he thought the request was an odd one, but thinking he
might as well get a pot of beer for nothing, as well as anybody else,
he took threepence for the stake, and wishing the stranger good-night,
he went on his way rapidly towards Scarborough. Not until he saw a
report of the murder in the Scarborough paper did he think any more of
the occurrence. Then he made a point of getting to see the stick with
which the woman had been beaten, and he could swear most solemnly that
that stick was the one he had sold to the prisoner for threepence.
“There is only one more witness, your worship,” now explained Russell
Langford, bending down, and turning over the pages of his brief, very
quickly, “that is, Mr. Israel Sawdry:” and he beckoned to a
smart-looking man of about thirty-five, with a strong, Hebrew cast of
countenance, who had been seated on one of the benches reserved for
witnesses, and who now stepped eagerly into the box.
“You are,” said Langford, addressing the witness, “the private
secretary of Mr. Ventris Blake, who was usually considered the husband
of the dead woman.”
“I am,” returned Sawdry, “I have been so for the last forty-eight
months.”
“Look at that photograph,” proceeded Langford, handing the Jew a
beautifully executed cabinet photograph of the murdered woman. “Do you
recognise it?”
“Yes,” said the witness, after a careful inspection of the portrait,
which was subsequently handed to the magistrate. “I do recognise it. I
recognise it as the portrait of a girl I knew very well when I was
employed at Peterborough as clerk in the offices of a large firm of
brickmakers. For a time, she tried to make a living painting portraits
and selling pictures, but it was a very up-hill fight, and I was not
surprised when one day she came to me and told me that she was going
to be married to a Mr. Arthur Hudson, who was very well off, and was
in business with his uncle, a house-agent, in Cheapside. As a matter
of fact, I congratulated her very warmly, and then it was she asked me
to be a witness of her marriage the next morning before the
Superintendent Registrar of Marriages in Peterborough. To this I
consented, and the next morning I attended, as she had requested, and
saw her wedded in true legal form to this Mr. Arthur Hudson, who I
will swear is positively the same man as the man in the dock.”
“That, I think,” said Russell Langford triumphantly, “will dispose of
any question as to whether the deceased was really married to the
prisoner or not.”
“Indeed it won’t,” suddenly exclaimed a woman’s voice at the back of
the court, “you wait. At the right moment you will see as this will
prove to be one of the wickedest conspiracies ever engineered against
an innocent man.”
Unfortunately, although the court was searched high and low by the
officers connected with the case, not a trace of the woman who had
made that startling declaration could be found. Everybody, it is true,
heard the voice. Everybody was agreed as to the exact words she had
made use of when she shouted that Arthur was innocent and that the
case was founded on a diabolical conspiracy: but nobody in the whole
of that crowded assembly could turn and say definitely that the words
had been spoken by any woman or girl who happened to be standing near
them.
Indeed, after several minutes’ quick and vigilant search, the only
satisfactory piece of evidence on the point that proved to be
forthcoming was that of a constable; and curiously enough, this man
had not been in the court at the time the interruption had occurred.
On the contrary, he had been stationed outside the door by which the
general public were admitted to a kind of rough pen at the back of the
building, but he was able to explain, that just when he caught the hum
of suppressed excitement that followed this extraordinary
interruption, the door of the public gallery was suddenly snatched
open, and a woman in black stepped hurriedly out of the court, and
with a muttered explanation that she had suddenly turned faint,
stepped swiftly out of sight, down the corridor. He could not,
however, give any description of her features or her clothes.
“She was just a woman in black,” he mumbled confusedly when he was
pressed rather closely by the magistrate. “In age, she might have been
anything between twenty-five and thirty-five. The impression she gave
me was that she was an actress who had just lost her husband, but I
was really so interested in getting to hear what was going on inside
the court to cause all that hub-bub, that I didn’t really take much
notice of her. I am sure I couldn’t identify her if she were put
before me this very moment.” And, with this final shot, the poor
badgered officer was permitted to leave the box.
The magistrate, however, looked exceedingly grave, “I feel it my
duty,” he said with great seriousness, “to complain that there has
been a good deal of improper matter introduced into this case at this
early stage. I do not, of course, know what facts are in possession of
my friend, Mr. Spencer Holmes, but he has certainly taken a most
singular line in proceedings that are only formal, and can have no
more bearing on the actual result of the case than the merest
formalities connected with the arrest of any prisoner, even on a
simple charge of being drunk.
“As for that interruption, to which we have just listened with so much
grief and astonishment, I can only say, that I regard it as most
improper. Never in the whole of my judicial experience have I known
anybody dare to make so odious a reflection in an open court. English
justice is not the travesty of justice one sees in other civilised
countries; it is pure, it is fair, it is free to all. The prosecution
of this man in the dock will not be conducted by any partizan of the
murdered woman, or by any secret enemy of his, but by that most
impartial body, the Treasury, who will have no interest in securing
his conviction, or in the triumph of false evidence, but who will
approach the matter from an absolutely impartial stand-point, anxious
only that a very brutal crime, which has been committed in our midst
should be traced to the wrong-doer.
“As for that wretched woman who spoke hysterically of conspiracy and
so forth,” added the magistrate, shaking a warning finger in the
direction of the public, “I can only assure her that the Treasury will
welcome any evidence she may give to prove her own most amazing
contention. She need not fear that any blame will be attached to her
in connection with the contempt of court she has shown this afternoon.
I am quite willing to overlook that gross breach of decorum, if she
will make the only amend for it that is in her power--that is, by
going secretly to the law officers of the Crown, and telling them, in
plain and unmistakable terms what she knows that has induced her to
make so amazing a declaration.”
He stopped, and turning to his note-book again, he motioned to
Arthur’s solicitor, Mr. Spencer Holmes, to make any observations he
felt necessary, before the proceedings terminated.
There was a pause, during which the advocate held a quick but animated
discussion with his client in the dock, and then the lawyer turned and
briefly addressed the magistrate. He said that he had to admit quite
frankly that he could not resist such an overwhelming flood of sworn
testimony as that which had been presented that day, to prove that his
client had been in Scarborough at the time of the crime; had taken a
bed in the neighbourhood; had purchased the bludgeon with which the
murder had been committed; and had been finally observed to wash his
hands free from some fatally incriminating blood-stains, and to leave
behind him a suit of clothes, plainly marked with his name.
“None the less,” he proceeded, “I shall, I believe, at the right
moment, be prepared with a perfect alibi. Strange as it may sound, I
could at this moment, offer equally overwhelming testimony that my
client at the time he has been sworn to have been in Scarborough was
actually here in London, indeed, at the very house occupied by the
learned counsel for the prosecution. More than that, I could at this
very moment put into the box this distinguished journalist who is
sitting by my side and instructing me Mr. Paul Renishaw, who was
actually with the prisoner here in town when the man was supposed to
be lurking about some lonely roads and gardens near Scarborough.
“The matter, however, is one that is bound to be thrashed out in a
superior court to this, and so I will not occupy any further time,
except to say with all the impressiveness I can, that this is in truth
one of the most extraordinary cases ever heard at Bow Street, and that
it will prove to be either one of the most shameless attempts to evade
a well-merited punishment, or,” and here his voice sank into a low
whisper, “as that woman has just told us, one of the foulest
conspiracies ever engineered against an honest and upright man on
either side of the Atlantic.”
The magistrate looked up and frowned, but made no further protest.
“The prisoner will be remanded to the care of the Scarborough police,”
he said gruffly. “The next case, please.” And the next moment, Arthur
found himself caught by the arm, and conducted by the warder who was
seated next to him, to the cells beneath, where, as a special favour,
he was quickly joined by Paul and his solicitor.
“There is nothing to be done,” the latter said, “until the case comes
up before the bench in Yorkshire. I think I possess now all the main
features of the defence, and I will get to work on them at once.
Meanwhile, you must keep up a stout heart,” and with a bright nod, he
hurried off and left the two friends alone.
Directly he did so, Arthur turned impetuously to Paul. “There is one
thing, old chap,” he said very earnestly, “that has worried me during
those proceedings in the court, more than anything I can tell you. It
isn’t a matter that concerns myself at all, as it happens. It is just
the safety of poor Winifred. Who, for instance, has told her that I
have been seized by the police, and forced to take my trial on the
most awful charge that can be preferred against any man, that of wife
murder? And, is it not rather curious, that ever since she visited me
at my office in Cheapside, and told me that she was going to take that
situation at St. Sepulchre’s Vicarage, I have not heard a word from
her? Remember, that there she is under none of the restrictions she
was when she was staying with the Langfords’. Practically any hour she
could send a message to me, or a telegram, and yet, I have had nothing
from her, not even one hurriedly penned little note.”
“It is indeed most curious,” agreed Paul, commencing to stride up and
down the cell. “I confess, I can’t make it out. I certainly expected
that when the news of your arrest leaked out, she would have got leave
of absence from Mrs. Kilroy, and would have insisted on coming down
here and comforting you herself, and would certainly have strained
every nerve to be present at the proceedings in court. I forgot
though, to tell you, that I went myself to St. Sepulchre’s Vicarage,
when you were arrested to break the news to her.”
“And what did she say?” cried Arthur eagerly. “Wasn’t she sure it was
all some hideous trap of Ventris Blake?”
“Alas! I didn’t see her. I rang several times at the door, and finally
a disagreeable housemaid came and told me sharply that Miss Pontifex
was engaged in the nursery, and had left word that she must on no
account be interrupted.”
“That sounds odd,” remarked Arthur, rather startled.
“Very odd,” echoed Paul, and the strange character of his reception
assumed a much more unfavourable aspect than it had done when he had
turned and left Mr. Kilroy’s house.
“Well, at all events, our duty is quite clear,” proceeded Arthur
firmly. “We must make a point of seeing her for ourselves, and telling
her precisely how black everything looks, but none the less, she has
got to keep up a stout heart. Somehow, I have got a terrible feeling
that some danger is threatening her. I can’t explain it--I can’t
understand it--no, I can’t even realise it myself, but there it is,
hanging on my mind with a weight like lead, and I am sure I shall
never rest until I find out it is groundless, or you help me to take
steps to get this sense of calamity removed.
“As you know, Ventris Blake has set his mind on marrying Winifred. He
is not the man to have any nice sense of honour, to feel that because
his wife is only just three or four days dead he should have his mind
set on thoughts other than marrying and giving in marriage again. No,
he is just that cold, determined brute that he will set to work at
once to force the poor girl to repudiate me and to accept him. Indeed,
he is not likely to let anything stand in his way to accomplish this
almost at once, particularly as he has now got me safe under lock and
key, and he feels that Winifred herself has not a friend in the
world.”
“Don’t worry, old chap,” said Paul, warmly. “I quite appreciate all
the difficulties of her position, and of yours; and I can quite
understand what a grave, ever-increasing load of anxiety this ominous
silence of hers must prove to you. Never mind, I will go and see her
myself, directly I leave Bow Street.
“For the time, let me beg you not to harass yourself about it, but to
think very seriously for the next few days how it has come about that
the Scarborough police have been able to present so concise, so
complete, and withal so utterly damning a case against you. Surely, if
you will only get your mind free of its present troubles, you will be
able to pierce the heart of this mystery, and will be able to find out
who it is that has got some extraordinary grudge against you, or who
it is that so nearly resembles you, that without much effort, he can
make up to deceive ninety-nine people out of a hundred that he is not
the man he really is but none other person than yourself.”
“I will try,” said Arthur, now looking very grave. “I will try very
hard, indeed. But like every other man in my position, I have made
dozens of friends and acquaintances during the last few years--and
maybe, dozens of enemies.” Then, somehow, a sudden light seemed to
break upon him.
“By Jove,” he said quickly, “I had forgotten one man, who just five
years ago warned me he would do me the ugliest turn that ever one man
did to another, and yes, now I come to think of it, he is a brother of
the very man poor Winifred is staying with at St. Sepulchre’s
Vicarage.”