A WOMAN ROUSED
Almost as soon as Mr. Franklyn touched the knocker of the house in
Medina Villas, the door was opened from within, and he found himself
confronted by Miss Strong.
"Oh, Mr. Franklyn, is it you at last?" She saw that some one was
standing at Mr. Franklyn's back. "Cyril!" she cried. Then, perceiving
her mistake, drew back. "I beg your pardon, I thought it was Mr.
Paxton."
The man in the rear advanced.
"Is Mr. Paxton here?" He turned to Mr. Franklyn. "Unless you want
trouble, if he is here, you had better tell me."
Mr. Franklyn answered.
"Mr. Paxton is not here. If you like you may go in and look for
yourself; but if you are a wise man you will take my assurance as
sufficient."
Mr. Hollier looked at Mr. Franklyn, then at Miss Strong, then decided.
"Very well, sir. I don't wish to make myself more disagreeable than I
can help. I'll take your word."
Directly he was in the hall and the door was closed Miss Strong caught
Mr. Franklyn by the arm. He could feel that she was trembling, as she
whispered, almost in his ear--
"Mr. Franklyn, what does that man want with Cyril?"
He drew her with him into the sitting-room. Conscious that he was
about to play a principal part in a very delicate situation, he
desired to take advantage of still another moment or two to enable him
to collect his thoughts. Miss Wentworth, having relinquished her
reading, was sitting up in her armchair, awaiting his arrival with an
air of evident expectancy. He looked at Miss Strong. Her hand was
pressed against her side; her head was thrown a little back; you could
see the muscles working in her beautiful, rounded throat almost as
plainly as you may see them working in the throat of a bird. For the
moment Mr. Franklyn was inclined to wish that Cyril Paxton had never
been his friend. He was not a man who was easily unnerved, but as he
saw the something which was in the young girl's face, he found
himself, for almost the first time in his life, at a loss for words.
Miss Strong had to put her question a second time.
"Mr. Franklyn, what does that man want with Cyril?"
When he did speak the lawyer found, somewhat to his surprise, that his
throat seemed dry, and that his voice was husky.
"Strictly speaking, I cannot say that the man wants Cyril at all. What
he does want is to know if I am in communication with him."
"Why should he want to know that?" While he was seeking words, Miss
Strong followed with another question. "But, tell me, have you seen
Cyril?"
"I have not. Though it seems he is in Brighton, or, rather, he was two
hours ago."
"Two hours ago? Then where is he now?"
"That at present I cannot tell you. He left his hotel two hours ago,
as was thought, to keep an appointment; it would almost seem as if he
had been starting to keep the appointment which he had with you."
"Two hours ago? Yes. I was waiting for him then. But he never came.
Why didn't he? You know why he didn't. Tell me!"
"The whole affair seems to be rather an odd one, though in all
probability it amounts to nothing more than a case of cross-questions
and crooked answers. What I have learnt is little enough. If you will
sit down I will tell you all there is to tell."
Mr. Franklyn advanced a chair towards Miss Strong with studied
carelessness. She spurned the proffered support with something more
than contempt.
"I won't sit down. How can I sit down when you have something to tell
me? I can always listen best when I am standing."
Putting his hands behind his back, Mr. Franklyn assumed what he
possibly intended to be an air of parental authority.
"See here, Miss Strong. You can, if you choose, be as sensible a young
woman as I should care to see. If you so choose now, well and good.
But I tell you plainly that on your showing the slightest symptom of
hysterics my lips will be closed, and you will not get another word
out of me."
If by his attempting to play the part of heavy father he had supposed
that Miss Strong would immediately be brought into a state of
subjection, he had seldom made a greater error. So far from having
cowed her, he seemed to have fired all the blood in her veins. She
drew herself up until she had increased her stature by at least an
inch, and she addressed the man of law in a strain in which he
probably had never been addressed before.
"How dare you dictate how I am to receive any scraps of information
which you may condescend to dole out to me! You forget yourself. Cyril
is to be my husband; you pretend to be his friend. If it is anything
but pretence, and you are a gentlemen, and a man of honour, you will
see that it is your duty to withhold no tidings of my promised husband
from his future wife. How I choose to receive those tidings is my
affair, not yours."
Certainly the lady's slightly illogical indignation made her look
supremely lovely. Mr. Franklyn recognised this fact with a sensation
which was both novel and curious. Even in that moment of perturbation,
he told himself that it would never be his fate to have such a
beautiful creature breathing burning words for love of him. While he
wondered what to answer, Miss Wentworth interposed, rising from her
chair to do so.
"Daisy is quite right, Mr. Franklyn. Don't play the game which the cat
plays with the mouse by making lumbering attempts to, what is called,
break it gently. If you have bad news, tell it out like a man! You
will find that the feminine is not necessarily far behind the
masculine animal in fibre."
Mr. Franklyn looked from one young woman to the other, and felt
himself ill-used. He had known them both for quite a tale of years;
and yet he felt, somehow, as if he were becoming really acquainted
with them for the first time now.
"You misjudge me, Miss Strong, and you, Miss Wentworth, too. The
difficulty which I feel is how to tell you, as we lawyers say, without
prejudice, exactly what there is to tell. As I said, the situation is
such an odd one. I must begin by asking you a question. Has either of
you heard of the affair of the robbery of the Duchess of Datchet's
diamonds?"
"The affair of the robbery of the Duchess of Datchet's diamonds?"
Miss Strong repeated his words, passing her hand over her eyes, as if
she did not understand. Miss Wentworth, however, made it quickly plain
that she did.
"I have; and so of course has Daisy. What of it?"
"This. An addle-headed detective, named John Ireland, has got hold of
a wild idea that Cyril knows something about it."
Miss Wentworth gave utterance to what sounded like a half-stifled
exclamation.
"I guessed as much! What an extraordinary thing! I had been reading
about it just before Mr. Paxton came in last night, and when he began
talking in a mysterious way about his having made a quarter of a
million at a single coup--precisely the amount at which the diamonds
were valued--it set me thinking. I suppose I was a fool."
For Miss Wentworth's quickness in guessing his meaning Mr. Franklyn
had been unprepared. If she, inspired solely by the evidence of her
own intuitions, had suspected Mr. Paxton, what sort of a case might
not Mr. Ireland have against him? But Miss Strong's sense of
perception was, apparently, not so keen. She looked at her companions
as a person might look who is groping for the key of a riddle.
"I daresay I am stupid. I did read something about some diamonds being
stolen. But--what has that to do with Cyril?"
Mr. Franklyn glanced at Miss Wentworth as if he thought that she might
answer. But she refrained. He had to speak.
"In all probability the whole affair is a blunder of Ireland's."
"Ireland? Who is Ireland?"
"John Ireland is a Scotland Yard detective, and, like all such gentry,
quick to jump at erroneous conclusions."
They saw that Miss Strong made a little convulsive movement with her
hands. She clenched her fists. She spoke in a low, clear, even tone of
voice.
"I see. And does John Ireland think that Cyril Paxton stole the
Datchet diamonds?"
"I fancy that he hardly goes as far as that. From what I was able to
gather, he merely suspects him of being acquainted with their present
whereabouts."
Although Miss Strong did not raise her voice, it rang with scorn.
"I see. He merely suspects him of that. What self-restraint he shows!
And is that John Ireland on the doorstep?"
"That is a man named Hollier, whom John Ireland was good enough to
commission to keep an eye on me."
"Why on you? Does he suspect you also?"
Mr. Franklyn shrugged his shoulders.
"He knows that I am Cyril's friend."
"And all Cyril's friends are to be watched and spied upon? I see. And
is Cyril arrested? Is he in prison? Is that the meaning of his
absence?"
"Not a bit of it. He seems, temporarily, to have disappeared."
"And when he reappears I suppose John Ireland will arrest him?"
"Candidly, Miss Strong, I fear he will."
"There is something else you fear. And which you fear too!"
Miss Strong swung round towards Miss Wentworth with an imperious
gesture. Her rage, despite it being tinged with melodrama, was in its
way sublime. The young lady's astonishing intensity so carried away
her hearers that they probably omitted to notice that there was any
connection between her words and manner and the words and manner of,
say, the transpontine drama.
"You fear, both of you, that what John Ireland suspects is true. You
feel that Cyril Paxton, the man I love, who would not suffer himself
to come into contact with dishonour, whose shoestrings you are neither
of you worthy to unloose--you fear that he may have soiled his hands
with sordid crime. I see your fear branded on your faces--looking from
your eyes. You cravens! You cowards! You unutterable things! To dare
so to prejudge a man who, as yet, has had no opportunity to know even
what it is with which you charge him!"
Suddenly Miss Strong devoted her particular attention to Miss
Wentworth. She pointed her words with a force and a directness which
ensured their striking home.
"As for you, now I know what it was you meant last night; what it was
which in your heart you accused him of, but which your tongue did not
dare to quite bring itself to utter. And you have pretended to be my
friend, and yet you are so swift to seek to kill that which you know
is dearer than life to the man whom I love and hold in honour. Since
your friendship is plainly more dangerous than your enmity, in the
future we'll be enemies, openly, avowedly, for never again I'll call
you friend of mine!"
Miss Wentworth moved forward, exclaiming--
"Daisy!"
But Miss Strong moved back.
"Don't speak to me! Don't come near to me! If you touch me, woman
though I am, and woman though you are, I will strike you!"
Since Miss Strong seemed to mean exactly what she said, Miss
Wentworth, deeming, under certain given circumstances, discretion to
be the better part of valour, held her peace. Miss Strong, having
annihilated Miss Wentworth, one could but hope to her entire
satisfaction, redirected her attention to the gentleman.
"And you pretended to be Cyril's friend! Heaven indeed preserve us
from our friends, it is they who strike the bitterest blows! This only
I will say to you. You have the courage of your opinions when there's
no courage wanted, but were Cyril Paxton this moment to enter the room
you would no more dare to hint to him what you have dared to hint to
me, than you would dare to fly."
Then, recollecting herself, with exquisite sarcasm Miss Strong
apologised for having confused her meaning.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Franklyn, a thousand times. I said exactly the
contrary of what I wished to say. Of course, if Cyril did enter the
room, there is only one thing which you would dare to do, dare to fly.
I leave you alone together, in the complete assurance that I am
leaving you to enjoy the perfect communion of two equal minds."
Miss Strong moved towards the door. Mr. Franklyn interposed.
"One moment, Miss Strong. Where are you going?"
"To look for Cyril. Do you object? I will try to induce him not to
hurt you, when I find him."
"You understand that you will have to endure the ignominy of having
the man outside following you wherever you may go."
"Ignominy, you call it! Why, the man may actually be to me as a
protection from my friends."
"You use hard words. I enter into your feelings sufficiently to
understand that, from your own point of view, they may not seem to be
unjustified. But at the same time I am sufficiently your friend, and
Cyril's friend, to decline to allow you, if I can help it, to throw
dust in your own eyes. That Cyril has been guilty of actual theft, I
do not for a moment believe. That he may have perpetrated some
egregious blunder, I fear is possible. I know him probably as well as
you do. I know John Ireland too, and I am persuaded that he would not
bring a charge of this kind without having good grounds to go upon.
Indeed, I may tell you plainly--slurring over the truth will do no
good to any one--Cyril is known to have been in actual possession of
one of the missing jewels."
"I don't believe it."
"Best assured you will do good neither to Cyril's cause nor to your
own by a refusal to give credence to actual facts. It is only facts
which a judge and jury can be induced to act upon. Satisfactorily
explain them if you can, but do not suppose that you will be able to
impress other people with the merits of your cause by declining to
believe in their existence. I do entreat you to be advised by me
before, by some rash, if well-meaning act, you do incalculable
mischief to Cyril and yourself."
"Thank you, Mr. Franklyn, but one does not always wish to be advised
even by one's legal adviser. Just now I should be obliged by your
confining yourself to answering questions. Perhaps you will be so good
as to tell me where I am most likely to find John Ireland, that
immaculate policeman?"
"When I left him he was just going to Makell's Hotel to make inquiries
as to Cyril's whereabouts upon his own account."
"Then I will go to Makell's Hotel to make inquiries of John Ireland
upon my account."
"In that case you must excuse me if I come with you. I warn you again,
that if you are not careful you may do Cyril more mischief than you
have any notion of."
"I shall come too."
This was Miss Wentworth. Miss Strong bowed.
"If you will, you will. Evidently the man on the doorstep is not
likely to serve me as an adequate protection against my friends."
Miss Strong put on her hat and mackintosh in what was probably one of
the shortest times on record. Miss Wentworth generally dressed more
quickly than her friend; on such an occasion she was not likely to be
left behind. The curious procession of three passed through the door
and down the steps in Indian file, Miss Strong first, Mr. Franklyn
last.
At the bottom of the steps stood Mr. Hollier. The leader looked him up
and down.
"Is your name Hollier?"
The man touched his hat.
"That's my name, miss."
"I am Daisy Strong, Mr. Cyril Paxton's promised wife." She seemed on a
sudden to be fond of advertising the fact. "I am going to look for Mr.
Paxton now. You may, if you choose, play the part of spy, and follow
me; but let me tell you that if he comes to harm through you, or
through any of your associates, there'll be trouble."
"I see, miss."
Mr. Hollier grinned, hurting, as it seemed, the lady's sense of
dignity.
"I don't know what you see to smile at. A woman has given a man
sufficient cause for tears before to-day. You may find, in your own
case, that she will again."