"Where is that sweetheart now?"
"Where, indeed?"
"You know about her disappearance?"
"You have just informed me of it."
"Yes, she is gone--without a trace. She went about a fortnight before Mr.
Constant's murder."
"Murder? How do you know it was murder?"
"Mr. Grodman says so," said Denzil, startled again.
"H'm! Isn't that rather a proof that it was suicide? Well, go on."
"About a fortnight before the suicide, Jessie Dymond disappeared. So they
tell me in Stepney Green, where she lodged and worked."
"What was she?"
"She was a dressmaker. She had a wonderful talent. Quite fashionable
ladies got to know of it. One of her dresses was presented at Court. I
think the lady forgot to pay for it; so Jessie's landlady said."
"Did she live alone?"
"She had no parents, but the house was respectable."
"Good-looking, I suppose?"
"As a poet's dream."
"As yours, for instance?"
"I am a poet; I dream."
"You dream you are a poet. Well, well! She was engaged to Mortlake?"
"Oh, yes! They made no secret of it. The engagement was an old one. When
he was earning 36s. a week as a compositor, they were saving up to buy a
home. He worked at Railton and Hockes who print the _New Pork Herald_. I
used to take my 'copy' into the comps' room, and one day the Father of
the Chapel told me all about 'Mortlake and his young woman.' Ye gods! How
times are changed! Two years ago Mortlake had to struggle with my
calligraphy--now he is in with all the nobs, and goes to the 'At Homes'
of the aristocracy."
"Radical M.P.'s," murmured Wimp, smiling.
"While I am still barred from the dazzling drawing-rooms, where beauty
and intellect foregather. A mere artisan! A manual labourer!" Denzil's
eyes flashed angrily. He rose with excitement. "They say he always _was_
a jabberer in the composing-room, and he has jabbered himself right out
of it and into a pretty good thing. He didn't have much to say about the
crimes of capital when he was set up to second the toast of 'Railton and
Hockes' at the beanfeast."
"Toast and butter, toast and butter," said Wimp, genially. "I shouldn't
blame a man for serving the two together, Mr. Cantercot."
Denzil forced a laugh. "Yes; but consistency's _my_ motto. I like to see
the royal soul immaculate, unchanging, immovable by fortune. Anyhow, when
better times came for Mortlake the engagement still dragged on. He did
not visit her so much. This last autumn he saw very little of her."
"How do you know?"
"I--I was often in Stepney Green. My business took me past the house of
an evening. Sometimes there was no light in her room. That meant she was
downstairs gossiping with the landlady."
"She might have been out with Tom?"
"No, sir; I knew Tom was on the platform somewhere or other. He was
working up to all hours organising the eight hours' working movement."
"A very good reason for relaxing his sweethearting."
"It was. He never went to Stepney Green on a week night."
"But you always did."
"No--not every night."
"You didn't go in?"
"Never. She wouldn't permit my visits. She was a girl of strong
character. She always reminded me of Flora Macdonald."
"Another lady of your acquaintance?"
"A lady I know better than the shadows who surround me, who is more real
to me than the women who pester me for the price of apartments. Jessie
Dymond, too, was of the race of heroines. Her eyes were clear blue, two
wells with Truth at the bottom of each. When I looked into those eyes my
own were dazzled. They were the only eyes I could never make dreamy." He
waved his hand as if making a pass with it. "It was she who had the
influence over me."
"You knew her, then?"
"Oh, yes. I knew Tom from the old _New Pork Herald_ days, and when I
first met him with Jessie hanging on his arm he was quite proud to
introduce her to a poet. When he got on he tried to shake me off."
"You should have repaid him what you borrowed."
"It--it--was only a trifle," stammered Denzil.
"Yes, but the world turns on trifles," said the wise Wimp.
"The world is itself a trifle," said the pensive poet. "The Beautiful
alone is deserving of our regard."
"And when the Beautiful was not gossiping with her landlady, did she
gossip with you as you passed the door?"
"Alas, no! She sat in her room reading, and cast a shadow--"
"On your life?"
"No; on the blind."
"Always one shadow?"
"No, sir. Once or twice, two."
"Ah, you had been drinking."
"On my life, not. I have sworn off the treacherous wine-cup."
"That's right. Beer is bad for poets. It makes their feet shaky. Whose
was the second shadow?"
"A man's."
"Naturally. Mortlake's, perhaps."
"Impossible. He was still striking eight hours."
"You found out whose shadow? You didn't leave a shadow of doubt?"
"No; I waited till the substance came out."
"It was Arthur Constant."
"You are a magician! You--you terrify me. Yes, it was he."
"Only once or twice, you say?"
"I didn't keep watch over them."
"No, no, of course not. You only passed casually. I understand you
thoroughly."
Denzil did not feel comfortable at the assertion.
"What did he go there for?" Wimp went on.
"I don't know. I'd stake my soul on Jessie's honour."
"You might double your stake without risk."
"Yes, I might! I would! You see her with my eyes."
"For the moment they are the only ones available. When was the last time
you saw the two together?"
"About the middle of November."
"Mortlake knew nothing of the meetings?"
"I don't know. Perhaps he did. Mr. Constant had probably enlisted her in
his social mission work. I knew she was one of the attendants at the big
children's tea in the Great Assembly Hall early in November. He treated
her quite like a lady. She was the only attendant who worked with her
hands."
"The others carried the cups on their feet, I suppose."
"No; how could that be? My meaning is that all the other attendants were
real ladies, and Jessie was only an amateur, so to speak. There was no
novelty for her in handing kids cups of tea. I dare say she had helped
her landlady often enough at that--there's quite a bushel of brats below
stairs. It's almost as bad as at friend Crowl's. Jessie was a real brick.
But perhaps Tom didn't know her value. Perhaps he didn't like Constant to
call on her, and it led to a quarrel. Anyhow, she's disappeared, like the
snowfall on the river. There's not a trace. The landlady, who was such a
friend of hers that Jessie used to make up her stuff into dresses for
nothing, tells me that she's dreadfully annoyed at not having been left
the slightest clue to her late tenant's whereabouts."
"You have been making inquiries on your own account apparently?"
"Only of the landlady. Jessie never even gave her the week's notice, but
paid her in lieu of it, and left immediately. The landlady told me I
could have knocked her down with a feather. Unfortunately, I wasn't there
to do it, or I should certainly have knocked her down for not keeping her
eyes open better. She says if she had only had the least suspicion
beforehand that the minx (she dared to call Jessie a minx) was going,
she'd have known where, or her name would have been somebody else's. And
yet she admits that Jessie was looking ill and worried. Stupid old hag!"
"A woman of character," murmured the detective.
"Didn't I tell you so?" cried Denzil, eagerly. "Another girl would have
let out that she was going. But no, not a word. She plumped down the
money and walked out. The landlady ran upstairs. None of Jessie's things
were there. She must have quietly sold them off, or transferred them to
the new place. I never in my life met a girl who so thoroughly knew her
own mind or had a mind so worth knowing. She always reminded me of the
Maid of Saragossa."
"Indeed! And when did she leave?"
"On the l9th of November."
"Mortlake of course knows where she is?"
"I can't say. Last time I was at the house to inquire--it was at the end
of November--he hadn't been seen there for six weeks. He wrote to her, of
course, sometimes--the landlady knew his writing."
Wimp looked Denzil straight in the eyes, and said, "You mean, of course,
to accuse Mortlake of the murder of Mr. Constant?"
"N-n-no, not at all," stammered Denzil, "only you know what Mr. Grodman
wrote to the _Pell Mell_. The more we know about Mr. Constant's life the
more we shall know about the manner of his death. I thought my
information would be valuable to you, and I brought it."
"And why didn't you take it to Mr. Grodman?"
"Because I thought it wouldn't be valuable to _me_."
"You wrote _Criminals I have Caught_?"
"How--how do you know that?" Wimp was startling him to-day with a
vengeance.
"Your style, my dear Mr. Cantercot. The unique, noble style."
"Yes, I was afraid it would betray me," said Denzil. "And since you know,
I may tell you that Grodman's a mean curmudgeon. What does he want with
all that money and those houses--a man with no sense of the Beautiful?
He'd have taken my information, and given me more kicks than ha'pence for
it, so to speak."
"Yes, he is a shrewd man after all. I don't see anything valuable in your
evidence against Mortlake."
"No!" said Denzil in a disappointed tone, and fearing he was going to be
robbed. "Not when Mortlake was already jealous of Mr. Constant, who was a
sort of rival organiser, unpaid! A kind of blackleg doing the work
cheaper--nay, for nothing."
"Did Mortlake tell you he was jealous?" said Wimp, a shade of sarcastic
contempt piercing through his tones.
"Oh, yes! He said to me, 'That man will work mischief. I don't like your
kid-glove philanthropists meddling in matters they don't understand.'"
"Those were his very words?"
"His _ipsissima verba_."
"Very well. I have your address in my files. Here is a sovereign for
you."
"Only one sovereign! It's not the least use to me."
"Very well. It's of great use to me. I have a wife to keep."
"I haven't," said Denzil, with a sickly smile, "so perhaps I can manage
on it after all." He took his hat and the sovereign.
Outside the door he met a rather pretty servant just bringing in some tea
to her master. He nearly upset her tray at sight of her. She seemed more
amused at the _rencontre_ than he.
"Good afternoon, dear," she said coquettishly. "You might let me have
that sovereign. I do so want a new Sunday bonnet."
Denzil gave her the sovereign, and slammed the hall-door viciously when
he got to the bottom of the stairs. He seemed to be walking arm-in-arm
with the long arm of coincidence. Wimp did not hear the duologue. He was
already busy on his evening's report to headquarters. The next day Denzil
had a body-guard wherever he went. It might have gratified his vanity had
he known it. But to-night he was yet unattended, so no one noted that he
went to 46 Glover Street, after the early Crowl supper. He could not help
going. He wanted to get another sovereign. He also itched to taunt
Grodman. Not succeeding in the former object, he felt the road open for
the second.
"Do you still hope to discover the Bow murderer?" he asked the old
bloodhound.
"I can lay my hand on him now," Grodman announced curtly.
Denzil hitched his chair back involuntarily. He found conversation with
detectives as lively as playing at skittles with bombshells. They got on
his nerves terribly, these undemonstrative gentlemen with no sense of the
Beautiful.
"But why don't you give him up to justice?" he murmured.
"Ah--it has to be proved yet. But it is only a matter of time."
"Oh!" said Denzil, "and shall I write the story for you?"
"No. You will not live long enough."
Denzil turned white. "Nonsense! I am years younger than you," he gasped.
"Yes," said Grodman, "but you drink so much."