AGAIN--IN PARK LANE
There was something intolerably strained and anxious in the looks of
Ventris Blake as he sat that night in his study in Park Lane. As a
matter of fact, he had only just left that garret in Queen Victoria
Street after his encounter with Eleanor Kaufmann, yet, no sooner had
he reached the secrecy of his own room, than the bold aggressive front
which he had presented to Paul and Winifred, and later still to the
people in the streets as he drove in his carriage through the West
End, dropped from him like an ill-fitting mask. Now he crouched over
the fire, in the evening clothes which he had hastily donned, a prey
to a low but intense nervous excitement.
Every uncommon sound that penetrated the thickly-curtained and
carpeted apartment seemed to set his nerves on edge. Again and again
he would spring up and advance towards the bell that communicated with
his secretary’s office, but each time he would choke down his fears
and irresolution, and clenching his teeth hard would grimly set
himself to wait.
For what?
Five--ten--fifteen minutes passed thus without the arrival of the
expected intelligence.
Finally, strained it appeared almost beyond endurance by the silence
and the inaction, he rose, and producing from his watch chain a tiny
curiously wrought master key, that at first might be taken for an
ordinary gold-charm, he went towards a corner of the room. Here, where
certain lines of water-colour paintings that had been let into the
wainscot converged was a panel in oils that he had picked up once in
Florence, and which formed a study of one of the most gruesome objects
in Italian street-life--a member of the misericordia who goes about in
a habit like a mediæval Inquisitor, and attends to the sick, the
dying, and the dead.
For a time he gazed at this as though this particular figure had some
strange inward significance to him. Then a hoarse kind of chuckle
broke involuntarily from his lips, and, shrugging his shoulders, he
tapped the corners of the panel with a curious movement as though he
would thus release some hidden finely wrought spring. Indeed, this was
precisely what he was doing, for no sooner had he struck the fourth
blow, than the panel fell forward noiselessly, revealing a small iron
door, which not more than a foot square, yielded to a turn of the key
he was still carrying.
Placing his hand and arm in this safe right up to the shoulder, he
groped about for some seconds until at length his fingers closed over
the object he sought. Then he withdrew his hand with a tiny book, also
heavily locked.
His movements afterwards were quick and decided.
With a touch he shut both door and panel, and then, stepping swiftly
across the room, he locked and bolted both the doors that communicated
with the rest of the house. The next moment he turned to his desk,
and, seating himself thereat, he switched on the light of a small
reading lamp, and then unfastened the locks of the volume and eagerly
glanced at the entries of the pages which had been made in thick bold
characters in red ink.
At first the onlooker would have fancied the different items had been
written by some doctor, for the pages had been ruled as though the
book were a doctor’s case-book with full information in dates and
times as to the progress of various diseases. But, as Ventris Blake
feverishly turned over leaf after leaf, and on each stood out in
startling distinctness the word “Died,” one saw that he was looking at
a register, it was true--a Register of Death! And each page was
stamped with a sign--Three Glass Eyes!
Strangely enough, however, he seemed at length fully satisfied with
the result of his enquiries, for he closed and locked the book, and
leaned back in his chair, thinking deeply, aided by his own watch and
some figures which he had extracted from the register and scribbled on
the flap of an old envelope.
“I think I’m right,” he muttered to himself at last throwing the paper
on the back of the fire. “Twenty minutes is the average time for the
thing to work. Then allow the man five minutes to get to the telegraph
office; give the telegram itself forty minutes to reach Park Lane. Now
if ever I ought to receive the news.” And, replacing the volume in the
safe, he went and unlocked the doors again and marched into Israel
Sawdry’s room.
Sawdry himself was busily engaged just then writing at a table, but
against the walls stood a number of tape telegraph machines which were
recording the news of the world, as gathered by the different news
agencies, and also any private information which his head man in the
City thought it wise to wire through to his principal’s home.
This particular instrument was silent as he approached it, but, as he
had previously calculated, he had not to stand there many seconds
before it began with a wheeze and a whirr to click out this message to
him:
“Grover reports sad affair in Holborn. Outside Gray’s Inn, old friend
of the firm, Eleanor Kaufmann, swayed off the pavement into middle of
the road, was knocked down by cab, and picked up dead.”
“Picked up dead!”
Almost unconsciously the millionaire found himself repeating these
words as all at once his demeanour changed completely, the cloud of
doubt and suspicion seemed to lift from his face like magic and once
again he was the quick alert man of affairs.
“Curious thing those Three Glass Eyes!” he went on in the same
monotone. “Somehow, its friends always are picked up dead, but it’s
not often they oblige by swaying first against some passing vehicle.
Well, well, Eleanor was foolish only to herself this time. I certainly
did my best with her, but she would not listen to reason. Now--”
“Now you are safe,” cut in Sawdry, who had crept up unperceived beside
him, and had read the message and overheard his half-whispered
remarks.
Ventris Blake started, but quickly recovered himself.
“Safe!” he repeated with a little touch of scorn, “Is anybody safe in
this cursed London? You know the saying at Scotland Yard, that any
man’s life can be taken, sacrificed here, for a sovereign! Well, it’s
all very well for us to beat down our enemies like this,” tapping the
message on the instrument, “but suppose they try the same tactics on
us, what then?”
“They mustn’t,” returned the Jew firmly, “we must not let them.
“Remember,” he proceeded gravely, “your old faith that ‘money can do
anything.’ Well, haven’t you proved its truth? Where other great
financiers have trusted to bribes and gossip, and failed, you have
never waited for news or action second-hand. If you have wanted to
know what any man, woman, or child was up to you never inquired from
anyone else, you have simply had them watched. Their steps have been
dogged, their servants suborned. All they have said and done you have
collated so that at the right moment you could strike or hold your
hand. Look at Arthur Hudson, for instance, how you are managing him!
look at your own huge fortune. No, this secret service idea you struck
years ago has, in my opinion, been the secret of your business
success--”
“And also The Three Glass Eyes,” put in Blake with a hollow little
laugh.
“And The Three Glass Eyes,” echoed Sawdry nervously, but even he
glanced apprehensively over his shoulder, as though he were fearful
the millionaire had been overheard.
Curiously enough, too, just then there did come an interruption to the
conversation. A footman tapped at the door and entered, and announced
that Vera Langford had called and wished to see Blake on particular
business.
“Shew her into the study,” said Blake, and in a few moments he had
followed the man and entered into conversation with Vera.
This time, however, his manner to her was far from cordial. Underneath
all his words was a deep tone of resentment against her, as though she
had done him some serious injury he was in no sense prepared to
overlook.
“What is it now, Miss Langford?” he asked in a quick commanding voice
as, ignoring her hand, he thrust forward a chair for her to sit upon,
and unpleasantly emphasised the word “now.”
“Something important,” said Vera calmly, although her face was swollen
and her eyes were red as with shed tears. “I happened to be in the
Belsize Theatre this afternoon when you were talking to Mr.
Prendergast about me.”
“Well,” put in the man roughly as though he were anxious to provoke
her, “then there is little doubt you heard something you didn’t like.”
“That is quite true,” she rejoined. “I learned the man whom I believed
in and loved most ardently was false to me and was intent on marrying
quickly, an old woman, a friend of mine, Lady Desborough, so that when
some atrocious scandal came out about him in the Divorce Courts he
should not be ruined.”
“Well, and what of that? Weren’t you thankful that it wasn’t you he
proposed to make a victim of? Weren’t you glad that the friend who was
playing you false was going to be ruined and not yourself?”
“No, that didn’t occur to me,” said Vera reflectively, “my feeling was
quite different to that.”
“Humph,” growled the millionaire, now seating himself and gazing
curiously at Vera. “You girls who are baulked in ruining your lives
are odd creatures. Instead of being thankful that you had been saved
from social ruin and personal degradation, you turn sometimes on the
persons who have saved you, and tear them to tatters. Tell me
now--what is your idea? Do you still love this silly, brainless
poseur, Prendergast?”
“I hate him,” Vera flashed out.
“‘Scorn! to be scorned by one I scorn.
“‘Is that a matter to make me fret!’” quoted the millionaire, with a
sardonic turn of the lip. “Well, and you hate! Good! It’s a nice,
healthy, invigorating feeling to have. But what then?”
“I wish to be revenged,” said Vera thickly, and now her eyes filled
with tears.
“Revenge!” mused Blake swinging round his chair and looking earnestly
into the fire. “Yes, I understand. Revenge! It’s a most powerful force
I know in this poor weak tottering human mechanism of ours.
“But why should you come to me about it?” he turned again and
snapped--“You have already made nearly £10,000 out of me. I have let
you do it--for what? That you should make Winifred Pontifex mine! How
have we fared over that? The girl left your flat and went to that old
toady of mine at St. Sepulchre’s Vicarage, it is true, but she has
just slipped off from there, and now we’re worse off than before.”
“But I can go after her and find her. I can persuade her to live with
me again,” protested Vera eagerly. “I always could manage her. I have
got the knack of appealing to what people call ‘the better feelings’
in her. I can turn her round my little finger with a show of tears,
and an appeal to her loyalty and unselfishness.”
“Could you at a pinch bring her and come yourself, to live here in
this house,” said Blake suddenly, but hardened scoundrel as he was,
even he dared not look at the other girl fully in the face.
“Yes,” replied Vera unblushingly, “but I repeat--I must have revenge.”
“Oh, that is easy enough,” returned Blake rising and facing his
companion. “The day Winifred Pontifex comes to live here with you,
that day Jules Prendergast and Lady Desborough will begin to rue the
day they were led to play you false.”
“Then it shall be this very day,” cried Vera, “if you will set to work
and will find out at once where Winifred is!”
And she returned home to find two surprises--one that Winifred had
arrived already, and the other that Paul Renishaw too had called and
had gone.
Now, as a matter of fact, Paul was painfully anxious to be alone--to
get time to think. A quick passage of arms with Langford had aroused a
new source of interest in him, no other than the identity of the man
who had a better reason for seeing Aimée Blake removed from his path
than had Arthur Hudson. Even indeed as he had launched this chance
shot at Russell Langford, one name of a possible assassin had hammered
itself at his brain clamouring as it were for consideration, although
it seemed so impossible a clue that he had not dared even in
imagination to follow it up.
Now, however, he was alone. There, in the whirl of London’s ceaseless
traffic, his thoughts could not stray and move either in treason to
the man he suspected, or fatally suggestive to the release of his own
friend. Then--and only then, did he seriously ask himself a series of
questions which he realised that once put to himself in that form, he
could never rest until it was settled beyond all doubt or hesitation.
(1) Did Ventris Blake, by some foul strategy, gain possession of the
Register of Marriages at Peterborough, and place within it pages a
false dummy page containing an entry of a ceremony that had never
occurred?
(2) Or had he absolutely personated Arthur Hudson years ago in that
quaint old Northamptonshire city, and been found out by his wife, and
made to take his proper name and place in their married life?
(3) And had he, when his mind was fired with that wild, insane passion
for Winifred Pontifex, again personated Arthur Hudson, and luring the
poor woman, first to Scarborough, and then off to the Filey Road,
cruelly fallen on her and beaten her to death with a hedge stake?
Like a man in a dream Paul paid his driver and taking his ticket for
Scarborough, climbed into a first-class carriage and found himself
quickly whisked along the Great Northern Main Line in the direction of
Grantham, the first stoppage, and Doncaster. To a wonderful degree he
had, by the aid of his work as a sub-editor, sharpened his power of
concentration; and so for nearly two hours his face made no sign of
the terrible mental processes he was passing through, from doubt to
hesitation, from half conviction to theories to be tested and worked
on.
None the less, all that time he was marshalling all that he knew about
this strange case of Arthur Hudson’s. Fact by fact he pieced the truth
together--not as it might seem to prejudiced parties like the
Scarborough police or to Mr. Russell Langford, but as it might be
presented to the mind of a trained expert who was perfectly impartial.
And in the end he was bound to confess to himself that, after all,
this man of millions with the coarse mind of an American ranchman yet
the touch of a Monte Christo, was the one person for the defence to
suspect--to inquire about--and, if necessary, to bend every energy
they possessed to convict!
Exhausted by the conflict, Paul fell asleep, and not until he was
roused at York by the guard, and told that he must change there and
cross to another platform to get into a North-Eastern train for
Scarborough, did he pursue the matter further. Then, finding he had an
hour or so to spare, he went into the refreshment rooms, and only over
a steaming hot supper, in which some fragrant draughts of perfectly
made coffee figured prominently, did he go back to the problem: Was
Ventris Blake the real criminal?
Strangely enough, the more that he pondered over this theory, the more
convinced was he of its probable truth. For one thing, the motive so
supplied was obvious. At the stroke an impediment was removed in the
shape of a wife, and a rival was taken off in the person of Arthur
Hudson. The whole plot of the crime, of course, seemed more than
human--fiendish in fact--but then, as Paul had often observed from the
comparative quiet seclusion and remoteness of the office of a
responsible newspaper, men who dabbled in City finance were never men
who stuck at trifles. There seemed something in the handling of huge
sums of money that contaminated--unless the virus were let off by
bewildering outbursts of quixotism, philanthropy, or speculative pomp
and foolishness--and, as he knew, Ventris Blake had never spent a
copper except for his own aggrandisement and personal satisfaction,
and then he had never stuck at thousands.
“Altogether this idea is well worth following up,” said he as the slow
local train rumbled off at break of day towards the coast: “I am sure
to have two or three days to spare in Scarborough waiting for the
inquest to finish and the police-court proceedings to be adjusted, and
I am certain that I can’t do better than to start an inquiry of my own
into the crime, not with the intention of proving Arthur innocent,
that will be the business of Mr. Spencer Holmes, his lawyer, but with
the hope that I can show Mr. Ventris Blake is the real criminal. After
all, my mind has not quite forgotten its cunning when I had to write
special accounts of mysterious crimes about which the police would
vouchsafe no line of information. I can, I do believe, see as far as
most detectives: and in this I should be sharpened by my affection for
the poor old fellow they have got in their clutches!” And again his
face grew hard and stern, for, manlike, he would not even admit to
himself how cut to the heart he was by Arthur’s miseries.
His close mental review of the case had, however, reminded him of one
omission. That was the report from the private inquiry agency who had
been instructed to watch the Charltons when they removed from the
garret in Queen Victoria Street, and particularly to learn the
antecedents of the wife--Rebecca Charlton--who was supposed to have
witnessed the marriage at Peterborough. He now saw how vital these
investigations might prove, and, blaming himself for his own
foolishness in not getting possession of the documents before, he
hurried out of the carriage directly the train stopped at Scarborough,
and went to the platform telegraph office and wired to Arthur’s
inquiry clerk, Perkins, with whom he had a nodding acquaintance:--
“Please have all Mr. Hudson’s letters opened. Send on to me any
bearing on this dreadful charge, particularly the report of the
private detectives who are engaged in watching the caretakers, named
Charlton. Register, as matter is important.
“Paul Renishaw,
“Crown Hotel, Scarborough.”
Arthur’s solicitor, Spencer Holmes, was the first man Paul met as he
stepped out of the station into the bleak, eager, January air, fresh
from the Yorkshire sea and moors.
“Ah!” said he, warmly grasping his hand, “I thought somehow you would
catch this train, so I got the boots of my hotel to call me early and
hurried up to meet you.”
“No fresh news, I suppose?” asked Paul, throwing back his shoulders
and marching out sturdily in the direction of the South Cliff, where
he was told his hotel would be found.
His companion’s face clouded.
“I don’t know exactly what you mean by ‘fresh,’” said he, with a
nervous little cough. “Only things could not be well darker than they
are. That wretch Blake, not content with the evidence he’s got, has
actually imported the cleverest detective they have in New York--a man
who happened to be seeing him on business in London--a loud-mouthed,
boastful, and aggressive Yankee, who answers to the name of Silas Q.
Pinkerton.”
“Well, and what has he accomplished?” queried Paul lightly. “I should
have thought the cut of his clothes, to say nothing of the vile
character of his accent, would have paralysed every decent
Yorkshireman!”
“Not a bit of it,” returned Holmes, sharply, but catching sight of a
man in the distance he stopped. “Ah, as I guessed. He’s shadowed me.
The fact is, he has done little else since I’ve been down here now.
I’ll introduce you to him, and then you’ll know him and his ugly
carriage, and you’ll be able to steer clear of him.” And raising his
voice he shouted, “Pinkerton! Pinkerton!”
The man stopped, pretended to fumble with a boot-lace, then came
towards them. As he drew nearer and his features became more distinct,
Paul started violently, muttered something, then caught Holmes
excitedly by the arm.
“Here,” he cried in a hoarse whisper, “who did you tell me that was?”
“Why, Silas Q. Pinkerton, the great New York detective,” responded the
solicitor.
“Rubbish,” energetically returned Paul. “Why, I know that man as well
as I know myself, and he’s no more a New Yorker or a detective, or a
creature named Pinkerton, than he is His own Most Gracious Majesty,
King Edward the VII.”