It was in his blackest and most grim mood that Hugh Murchison walked to
Eaton Place, for the purpose of paying an afternoon call upon Mrs
Spencer. He had not been near her since the night of the dinner, had
only left cards. And, very fortunately, he had not come across Guy in
the interval.
On that particular night he had reproached himself with indiscretion.
He had availed himself of Fairfax's information to tax her with meeting
Tommie Esmond at Charing Cross Station on the morning of his flight to
the Continent.
And at the moment that he had made that dramatic announcement, the
drawing-room door had opened to admit the unsuspecting husband. Hugh
had left shortly after dinner, on the plea of another engagement. Had
Mrs Spencer tried to take the wind out of his sails by volunteering
some plausible explanation about her meeting with Esmond? She was a
clever young woman; she might try to forestall him. On the other hand,
she might sit tight till he forced her hand. Anyway, he was going to
force it to-day, armed with the new evidence that had been furnished to
him.
Mrs Spencer was not looking well. Her eyes had lost their brightness,
her once charming smile was forced and mechanical.
She rose as he was announced, and advanced to him with outstretched
hands, with an exaggerated air of cordiality.
"I thought you had forgotten us." She seated herself on the
Chesterfield and motioned him to sit beside her. "Major Murchison, I
fear I was a little rude to you the other night, you remember, just
before Guy came in." She clasped her hands nervously together. "I do
trust we are going to be friends."
Hugh looked at her grimly. He had no compassion for this shameless
adventuress who had driven the poor foolish Pomfret to his grave, who
had ensnared Guy Spencer, a man of stronger fibre, but equally powerless
in the hands of an unscrupulous woman.
"Mrs Spencer--to call you by one of the many names by which you are
known--we were not friends the last time I was at this house. To-day we
are bitter enemies."
"What do you mean?" she faltered. "You are speaking in riddles. Why
should you, the old friend of my husband, be the bitter enemy of his
innocent wife?"
"His innocent wife!" repeated Hugh sternly. "Dare you look me in the
face and say that my name, even if you fail to recognise me after these
years, does not recall to you certain tragic episodes at Blankfield?"
"I know nothing of Blankfield." The voice was low but very unsteady.
"You put that question to me the other night in a roundabout sort of
way. My answer is the same--I know nothing of Blankfield."
There was a long pause. Hugh continued to look at her with his steady
and disconcerting gaze. Suddenly she rose, and paced restlessly up and
down the long drawing-room.
"Major Murchison, put your cards on the table. You have come into this
house, an old friend of my husband's; I have done my best to make you
welcome. But you have some spite against me. Of what do you accuse
me?"
"I will put my cards on the table," answered Hugh in his inflexible
voice. "On the night I met you at Carlton House Terrace I had my
suspicions; no two women could be so exactly alike. Since that night I
have been picking up information here and there. I have now got a
complete chain of evidence."
"Evidence of what?" she gasped, still pursuing her restless walk up and
down the room. "Of my having met Tommie Esmond at Charing Cross
Station? Would you like to hear the true history of that?"
"I shall be pleased to hear any explanation you like to offer, with the
reservation that I must please myself as to whether I accept it or not."
"You are very hard, Major Murchison. As you are not prepared to believe
me, perhaps it would be better if I did not embark on this history. But
Tommie Esmond is really my uncle, my mother's brother. When I was in
low water he was very kind to me. I could not turn my back on him in
his distress." She spoke with sudden passion. "Of course, you, with
your pharisaical way of looking at things, would say I should have
forgotten all his previous kindness."
"The Tommie Esmond affair is, comparatively, a trivial one, Mrs
Spencer. I am coming in a moment to graver issues. You still say that
the name of Murchison conveys nothing to you. Oh, think well before you
answer! Remember, I have told you I have overwhelming evidence. And,
believe me, the task I have set out upon is far from a welcome one."
"I still say that the name of Murchison conveys nothing to me." She
spoke with a certain air of assurance, but he could see that she was
quivering all over.
"Carry your memory back to that night at Blankfield when your so-called
brother, George Burton, was arrested on a charge of forgery. You had
been his decoy and accomplice in a gambling-saloon in Paris. You had
inveigled my poor friend, Jack Pomfret, into a clandestine marriage a
few days before. Jack, unable to survive his folly and disgrace, blew
his brains out. If not in the eyes of the law, you were, morally, a
murderess."
"You are mad, raving mad!" she cried, but her voice seemed strangled as
she made the bold denial.
"Not mad, Mrs Spencer, but very sane, as I will show you in a few
seconds. As I told you, I recognised you that night at the Southleigh
dinner-party, in spite of the pains you had taken to camouflage
yourself. But I waited for corroborative evidence. The detective who
arrested your so-called brother, George Burton, has seen you and is
prepared to swear to your identity as Norah Burton."
Then suddenly she gave way, fell on her knees before him, and stretched
out appealing hands.
"Oh, you are very clever; I see you have found it all out. But you will
be merciful, you will not drive an unhappy woman to despair, just when
she has got into safe harbour. Will you be kind enough to listen to my
miserable history?"
"I will listen to anything you have got to say."
"My childhood and girlhood were most wretched and unhappy. At a time
when most girls are tasting the sweets and joys of life, I had to live
by my wits. I fell under the influence of a good-natured, but very
wicked man."
"In other words, George Burton?" queried Hugh.
"In other words, George Burton," she repeated in the low, strangled
voice that did not move Hugh very much. "I was starving when he met me
and took me up. He was genuinely sorry for me. Mind you, I knew
nothing of his nefarious schemes. He hid those very carefully away from
me."
"But you were his decoy, if not his confederate, in the gambling-saloon
in Paris?"
"His decoy, perhaps, unconsciously, but never his confederate."
"And when did Tommie Esmond appear on the scene?" queried Hugh.
"Oh, much later. George got into low water and had not enough for
himself. I then hunted up my uncle, who received me with open arms."
Hugh was developing the instincts of a cross-examiner. "And Tommie
Esmond, I suppose, introduced you to the card-sharping crew at the
Elsinore flat, and you were launched as the cousin of Mrs L'Estrange,
who presided over this delectable establishment?"
"I was a distant cousin of Mrs L'Estrange on my dear mother's side,"
was the answer.
She was lying terribly, he felt assured. But he had a card or two up
his sleeve yet. Still, it was wise to see how far she would go.
"And when did you part with the so-called brother, George Burton?"
"Oh, very shortly after he came out of prison. I had one interview with
him; I could not do less after his kindness to me. And in the meantime
I had hunted up poor old Tommie Esmond."
"And what did you do after that night at Blankfield? I think you
cleared out the next day. I heard you had paid everything up."
"Thank Heaven, yes. There was just a little money left. My life after
that was a nightmare. Amongst other humiliations, I was a waitress in a
tea-shop." A smile of vanity broke over the charming face. "The wages
were very small, but I got a lot of tips." Perhaps in this particular
instance she was not lying, if it was true that she had been in a
tea-shop at all.
There was a little pause, and then Murchison spoke in his stern,
inflexible voice:
"And how long is it since you saw George Burton?"
She had answered the question before, but he was hoping to entrap her
into some unguarded admission. He could see that she was considerably
thrown off her balance, clever and ready as she was, by the extent of
his knowledge.
"I told you just now, soon after he came out of prison."
And then Hugh rose in his wrath. And then she, seeing in his face that
he had another and a stronger card to play, got up from her kneeling
position and watched him with an agonised countenance.
"I am sorry to use such harsh words to a woman, even such a woman as you
are, Mrs Spencer. But when you say that you are lying miserably, and
you know it as well as I do." Her face went livid. She assumed a tone
of indignation, but her voice died away in a sob. "How dare you say
that?"
"I am not the sort of man to make a statement unless I can prove it up
to the hilt. Your so-called cousin, George Dutton, keeps a bucket-shop
in the City; from certain evidence in my possession, I should say it was
not a very paying business."
Stella did not attempt to reply to this last shot, but she recognised
that he had gone about the business very thoroughly.
"George Dutton, the bucket-shop keeper, is George Burton, the forger,
come to life again, still, I take it, on the same criminal tack, perhaps
in a lesser degree. Do you admit," he cried vehemently, "that George
Burton and George Dutton are one and the same?"
"Yes, since you seem to have proof, I admit it," was the somewhat sullen
answer.
"That is as well; it clears the ground, up to a certain point. You say
you parted from Burton soon after his release from prison, and have not
seen him since. When was that--how long ago? You met him frequently as
George Dutton at Elsinore Gardens."
The courage of despair seemed to come to her, and she ceased to tremble.
"I will answer no more questions. Tell me what you allege and I will
admit or deny. Of course, you have employed a detective; you have had
me watched."
"Of course. I should not presume to cope single-handed with a clever
woman like yourself. You have met George Dutton, alias George Burton,
four times within the last fortnight at obscure restaurants in the City,
and there is a strong presumption that you were handing to him envelopes
containing money." She seemed now to recognise that the game was up.
Her self-possession returned to her. She sat down, and motioned to him
to seat himself.
"You are much too clever for me, Major Murchison. You have handled the
matter very well, so well that you have turned your vague suspicions
into absolute certainty. Well, what action are you going to take? As a
matter of course, you intend to turn me out of my husband's house?"
"If not at the moment, very speedily. You will admit, I think, with
your clever brain, that you should not remain under the roof of such an
honourable English, gentleman as he is a day longer than necessary."
"I will admit it, from your point of view, if you like. Oh, believe me,
I can see your side," replied this remarkable young woman. "But you
will forgive me, Major Murchison, if I say that, from my point of view,
I would have preferred that you had never been born. Guy is very happy;
he believes in me and trusts me. It will be a great blow to him as to
me."
"I know. I wish it were in my power to spare him this misery. But, in
common honesty, I cannot."
"And have you thought of what is to become of me when I am turned out of
my husband's house?" she inquired in a composed voice. Her adroit mind
had evidently adapted itself to the altered circumstances, and was now
busied in turning them, as far as possible, to her own advantage.
"You have George Dutton to fall back upon, also Tommie Esmond," was
Murchison's retort.
She snapped her fingers in a fashion that was almost vulgar, and she was
so free from vulgar actions.
"George is thankful that I can, from time to time, fling him a ten-pound
note; his luck has deserted him. Tommie Esmond, I believe, saved a bit
out of the wreck, but he has not more than enough to keep body and soul
together."
"Guy is not a man to behave ungenerously, however deeply he has been
wronged," said Hugh, after he had reflected a few moments. He added
more hesitatingly, "And if Guy should take an obdurate attitude, it is
possible I might come to your assistance. I have hunted you down, but I
do not want to drive you into the gutter."
"But a man must support his wife, even if her past has not been quite so
respectable as it might have been," she cried defiantly.
Hugh directed upon her a searching look. "Mrs Spencer, it is in my
mind that you may not be Guy's wife after all. If I probed a little
deeper, I might get at your real relations with this George Dutton, or
rather Burton."
"Oh, this time you are really pursuing a will-o'-the-wisp, I assure you.
George has never been anything to me but brother or cousin, as the
occasion demanded."
She paused a second, and there was a terrified look in her eyes as she
added, "But even if your suspicions were correct, which they are not,
you would not go back from your own promise. If Guy proved obdurate,
you would not drive me to the gutter. You promised me that."
"I shall keep my promise, Mrs Spencer, and I will give it you in
writing, if you wish."
"It would be as well. And you will want something from me in writing
also, I expect," she concluded shrewdly.
"Certainly I shall," said Hugh steadily. "I shall draw up a full
confession for you to sign, to prevent you from ever troubling your
husband again--if, as I suggested just now, he is your husband."
Mrs Spencer rose. It seemed that there was a sense of relief in the
fact that the interview was ending so amicably.
"I would have preferred to remain as I am, but, on the whole, the life
doesn't suit me, luxurious as it is. I am very fond of Guy really, he
has been so good to me, but I have alienated him from his friends. And
I have to sit here hour after hour by myself, with only my thoughts for
company."
"Let us say one week from now I will have that confession ready to
sign."
"And you will bring it here?" suggested Stella.
"I think not. It will take some time to read through, and we might be
interrupted," was Hugh's answer.
"At your hotel, then, I suppose?" was the young woman's next suggestion.
"The same objection applies."
He scribbled down an address on a piece of paper. "Meet me there this
day week at the hour I have appointed. Nobody will interrupt us, I will
take care of that."
And Mrs Spencer lay awake half the night, working out a problem that
had suggested itself to her in a flash.
The next day she lunched with George Dutton in the City. The detective
might be watching her, but did it matter? Whatever happened at the end
of the week, she had burned her boats.