Produced by Al Haines.
*THE RED WIDOW*
OR
THE DEATH-DEALERS OF LONDON
BY
*WILLIAM LE QUEUX*
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
1920
*CONTENTS*
CHAPTER
1. Concerns a Man in White
2. Who is Mrs. Braybourne?
3. The "Game"--and its Players
4. Progress of the Plot
5. Contains a Note of Alarm
6. The Locked Room In Hammersmith
7. What Happened in Bridge Place
8. On Loch Lomond
9. A Gentleman named Greig
10. More Mysterious Circumstances
11. Spreading the Net
12. The Person from Upstairs
13. Relates a Strange Conversation
14. On Saturday Night
15. Carries the Mystery Farther
16. Baiting the Trap
17. "News" from Lancaster Gate
18. The Coup and its Consequence
19. What Happened to Gerald
20. The Room of Evil
21. Lost Days
22. From out the Past
23. The Cry in the Night
24. Hard Pressed
25. The Recluse
26. "Get Rid of the Girl!"
27. "The Day After To-Morrow"
28. At the Window
29. On Thin Ice
30. Through the Darkness
Conclusion
*THE RED WIDOW*
*CHAPTER I*
*CONCERNS A MAN IN WHITE*
"I can't understand what it all means. The whole thing is a mystery--_a
great mystery_! I have my suspicions--grave suspicions!" declared the
pretty blue-eyed girl emphatically.
"Of what?" asked the young man strolling at her side along the sunny
towing-path beside the Thames between Kew and Richmond.
"Well--I hardly know," was her hesitating response. "But I don't like
auntie to remain in that house any longer, Gerald. Some evil lurks
there; I'm sure of it!"
Her companion smiled.
"Are you quite sure you are not mistaken, Marigold?" he asked in a
dubious tone. "Are you absolutely certain that you really saw Mr. Boyne
on Thursday night?"
"Why, haven't I already told you exactly what I saw?" asserted the girl
excitedly. "I've related in detail all I know. And I repeat that I
don't like auntie being there any longer."
"Well," said the young man, as they strolled leisurely along near the
water's edge on that Sunday afternoon in summer, their intention being
to take tea at Richmond, "if what you have described is an actual fact,
then I certainly do think we ought to watch the man very closely."
"You don't doubt me--do you?" exclaimed the girl, with quick resentment.
"Not in the least, Marigold," he replied, halting and looking straight
into her clear, almost child-like eyes. "Please do not misunderstand
me. But what you have said is so extraordinary that--well, it seems all
so weird and amazing!"
"That's just it. The affair is extraordinary, and, as I've said, I hope
auntie will leave the place. She has a very good post as housekeeper to
Mr. Boyne. Her affliction is against her, I know, but there is something
in progress at Bridge Place that is too mysterious for my liking."
"Then let us watch and try to discover what it really is," said Gerald
Durrant determinedly.
"Will you really help me?" she asked eagerly.
"Of course. Rely upon me. If I can be of any assistance to you where
your aunt is concerned, Marigold, I shall only be too delighted. Surely
you know that!" he added, looking again into her eyes with an expression
of unspoken admiration and affection.
She murmured her thanks, and the pair--a handsome pair, indeed, they
were--went on along the gravelled path in a silence that remained
unbroken for some minutes.
Marigold Ramsay was just twenty-one, and an uncommonly pretty girl,
though unconsciously so. Men turned to glance a second time at her as
she passed. Though a typical London business girl who carried her
leather dispatch-case on weekdays, she bore an air of distinction which
was unusual in one of her class. Her clear, deep blue eyes, her open
countenance, her grace of carriage, her slim suppleness, and the
smallness of her hands and feet, all combined to create about her an air
of well-bred elegance which was enhanced by a natural grace and charm.
There was nothing loud about her, either in her speech or in her dress.
She spoke softly, and she wore a plain coat and skirt of navy gaberdine,
and a neat little velvet toque which suited her admirably. She was,
indeed, as beautiful as she was elegant, and as intelligent as she was
charming.
Many a young man about Lombard Street--where Marigold was employed in
the head office of a great joint-stock bank--gazed upon her with
admiration as she went to and fro from business, but with only one of
them, the man at her side, had she ever become on terms of friendship.
Though Gerald Durrant had spoken no word of love, the pair had almost
unconsciously become fast friends. He was a tall, good-looking young
fellow, with well-brushed hair and a small moustache carefully trimmed,
in whose rather deep-set eyes was an expression of kindly
good-fellowship. Erect and athletic, his clear-cut features were
typical of the honest, clean-minded young Englishman who, though
well-born, was compelled, like Marigold, to earn his living in the City.
He had served in Flanders through the first year of war, but, being
invalided out, had been since employed as confidential secretary to the
head of a great firm of importers in Mincing Lane.
As, in his well-cut grey tweeds and straw hat, he strode beside her in
silence in the sunshine, he reflected. What she had told him was
utterly amazing. The whole affair was, indeed, a mystery.
Marigold had first met Gerald at a little corner table of a certain
small teashop in Fenchurch Street, where she daily took her frugal
luncheon.
One morning as he sat opposite to her he politely passed the salt. From
that chance meeting they had each day chatted at the Cedar Tea-Rooms,
gradually becoming friends, until one Saturday, he had invited her to
Hampton Court, and they had spent the afternoon in the old-world gardens
of the Palace so reminiscent of Henry the Eighth and Cardinal Wolsey.
That day's excursion had frequently been repeated, for Marigold's great
blue eyes attracted the young man, until one day he cleverly arranged
that she should meet his sister--with whom he lived out at Ealing--and
the outcome was an invitation to tea on the following Sunday. Thus the
chance-made acquaintance ripened until they found themselves looking
eagerly forward to lunch time on five days each week, when they would
rush to their meeting-place to chatter and enjoy the hour's relaxation
from work. Hence it was not surprising that Gerald had fallen violently
in love with Marigold, though he had never summoned up sufficient
courage to declare his affection.
"What you've told me is a problem which certainly requires
investigation," he remarked reflectively after a long silence. "If your
aunt is in any real danger, then she should, I quite agree, leave the
house. At present, however, I cannot see that she is, or why she should
know anything. It is our duty to watch and to form our own
conclusions."
"Ah!" cried the girl gratefully, "it's really awfully kind of you,
Gerald, to promise to help me. As you know, I have very few men friends,
and not one, save yourself, in whom I would place this confidence."
"You know me, Marigold," he said, with a smile of satisfaction. "You
know that I will do all I can to help you to solve this extraordinary
problem."
The problem which the girl had placed before her admirer was certainly a
most puzzling one--sufficiently puzzling, indeed, to excite the
curiosity of anybody to whom it was presented.
Had Marigold Ramsay but foreseen the terrible vortex of uncertainty and
peril into which their inquiries would lead them, it is probable that
she would have hesitated ere she embarked upon an investigation so full
of personal risk to both.
In her ignorance of the cunningly-devised counter-plot, which shielded
from exposure and justice one of the most diabolical and remarkable
conspiracies of modern times, she and her admirer entered cheerfully
upon a policy which led to many exciting and perilous adventures, some
of which I intend to chronicle in these pages.
That you, my reader, shall clearly understand the cause of Marigold
Ramsay's suspicions, it will be as well to here unfold certain queer
circumstances which had happened on the previous Thursday night.
Mr. Bernard Boyne, whom Marigold viewed with such distinct suspicion,
was a work-a-day man who tramped daily the bustling pavements of
Hammersmith, Chiswick, and Bedford Park as an insurance agent, and was
well known and very highly respected. He lived in a cheaply-furnished,
nine-roomed house in Bridge Place, Hammersmith, a dingy third-class
neighbourhood. The exterior of the place was, in summer, rendered
somewhat more artistic than its neighbours in the same row by the dusty
Virginia creeper which covered its walls and hung untrimmed about its
windows. Upon the railings was fastened a brass plate, always well
polished, which bore the name "Bernard Boyne--Insurance Agent."
Mr. Boyne had resided in that house for some six years. He was well
known to all the tradespeople in the neighbourhood--for he paid his
bills weekly--as well as by the working classes whose policies he was so
frequently effecting, and whose small premiums he so assiduously
collected.
He was agent for several insurance companies of second-class standing.
He was also in touch with two well known underwriters at Lloyd's who
would insure his commercial clients against practically anything--except
bankruptcy.
Year in, year out, he was to be seen, always respectably, and even
nattily dressed, passing actively in and about the neighbourhood, keenly
on the alert for any new clients and any fresh "proposals."
Probably Mr. Boyne was one of the best known of local personalities. He
was a regular attendant at the parish church of St. George the Martyr,
Hammersmith, where he acted as sidesman. Further, he was honorary
secretary to quite a number of charitable organisations and committees
in Hammersmith, and in consequence had become acquainted with most of
the wealthiest residents.
"Busy" Boyne--for that was what the people of Hammersmith called
him--was a widower, and lived in that small unpretentious house, a very
deaf old woman named Mrs. Felmore--the aunt of Marigold Ramsay--looking
after him. For several years she had performed the domestic duties, and
she did them well, notwithstanding her infirmity.
Now this is what happened.
On Thursday night, on his return after a strenuous day at about ten
o'clock, Boyne had entered his small sitting-room and taken his bulky
notebook and papers from his pocket. Then he had thrown off his coat
and sat down to the cold meal which Mrs. Felmore had prepared for him
prior to retiring. Though the house was so dingy, yet everything
appertaining to its master's comfort was well ordered, as shown by the
fact that the evening paper was lying neatly folded, ready for his hand.
Beneath the hissing incandescent gas-jet Bernard Boyne looked very pale,
his eyes deeply set, his brow furrowed and careworn. He seemed weary
and out-of-sorts.
"Fool!" he grunted aloud to himself. "I'm growing nervous! I suppose
it is that big cheque that I had to-day--seven thousand, eight
hundred--the biggest I've ever had. I wonder if I ought to tell Lilla?"
The room was the typical home of a man earning an income on commission
just sufficient to enable him to "rub along" in comfort. It was
certainly not the room of a man who was receiving cheques for such sums
as seven thousand, eight hundred pounds.
At first glance Bernard Boyne, as he stood there in his shirt-sleeves,
was an excellent type of the steady, reliable insurance agent, with no
soul above "proposals" and "premiums." They constituted his sole aim in
life, now that his "dear wife" was dead.
Nobody suspected the man who so piously passed round the bag in St.
George the Martyr on Sundays to be a man of mystery. Nobody, indeed,
would ever have dreamed that the active man in question would be placing
cheques to his account of such value as seven thousand odd pounds.
"I wonder how long I shall remain here?" he whispered to himself. "I
wonder what all these good people would say if they but knew--eh? _If
they knew_! But, happily, they don't know!" He chuckled to himself.
He was silent for a moment as he crossed to rearrange the dusty old
Venetian blinds.
Then he turned to a half-open cupboard beside the fireplace, and from it
took a small wire cage from which he released a tame white rat, which
instantly ran up his arm and settled upon his shoulder.
"Poor little Nibby!" he exclaimed, tenderly stroking its sharp pink
snout with his forefinger. "Have I neglected you? Poor little
fellow!--a prisoner all day! But if I let you out when I'm away some
nasty terrier might get you--eh? Come let me atone for my neglect."
And he placed his pet upon the table, over which the rodent ran to
investigate the remains of the meal.
Boyne stood watching his pet nibbling at a scrap of sausage.
"Ah!" he gasped in a whisper. "If they knew--but they will never know.
They _can't_!"
A few minutes later his actions were, to say the least, strange.
He flung himself into the old armchair from which the flock stuffing
protruded from the worn-out American cloth, and unbuttoning his dusty
boots, took them off. Then, in his socks, he crept upstairs, and on the
landing listened at the deaf old woman's door. Sounds of heavy snoring
apparently satisfied him.
Back again he returned to the parlour, and with a key opened the
opposite cupboard beside the fireplace, from which he took a very long,
loose coat which seemed to be made of white alpaca. This he shook out
and submitted to close scrutiny. It was shaped like a monk's habit,
with a leather strap around the waist--a curious garment, for it had a
hood attached, with two slits in it for the eyes.
After careful examination of the strange garment, he put it on over his
head, drawing down the hood over his eyes, which gave him a hideous
appearance--like the ghost of an ancient Inquisitor of Spain, or a
member of the mediaeval Misericordia Society of Italy, dressed in white
instead of black.
Thus attired, he fumbled beneath in his pocket, and then noiselessly
ascended the two flights of stairs to an attic door upon which was the
circular brass plate of a Yale lock. This he opened, and passing
within, closed the door softly behind him.
Bernard Boyne naturally believed himself alone in the house with old
Mrs. Felmore sound asleep--but, truth to tell, _he was not_!
As he ascended the stairs, Marigold's pale face peered around the
corner. The shock of seeing such a hideous ghostly form moving silently
upstairs proved almost too much for her. But clinging on to the
banisters, she managed to repress the cry of alarm which rose to her
lips, and she stood there rooted to the spot--full of wonder and
bewilderment. She listened breathlessly, still standing in the dark
passage which led to the kitchen stairs. Then she detected the sound of
the key going into the lock of the upstairs room where she knew Mr.
Boyne kept his private papers.
But was it Mr. Boyne? Or was it an intruder who had adopted that garb
in order to frighten any person he might encounter? Besides, why should
Mr. Boyne assume such a strange disguise before entering the room where
his business papers were stored?
Now upon that summer night Marigold had called about nine o'clock to
visit her aunt, who had in years past been as a mother to her, to have a
snack of supper, as she often did. Afterwards she had helped her aunt
to prepare Mr. Boyne's frugal meal. Then old Mrs. Felmore, feeling
rather unwell, had gone to bed, leaving her niece in the kitchen to
write an urgent letter to Gerald, which she wanted to post before
midnight.
As she finished the letter, she had heard someone enter, and not
desiring that Mr. Boyne should know of her presence there at that hour,
she had moved about quietly, and was just about to escape from the house
when she had seen that strangely-garbed figure ascending the stairs.
The girl's first impulse had been to waken her aunt and raise an alarm
that an intruder had entered the place. But on seeing that the supper
had been eaten, and that Mr. Boyne's hat and coat lay upon the sofa, she
at once decided that the figure that had ascended the stairs to the
locked room was actually that of the master of the house.
"Why is he dressed like that?" she asked herself in a whisper, as she
stood in the front parlour. "What can it mean?"
She glanced around the room. The cupboard beside the fireplace, which
stood open, and from which Boyne had taken his strange disguise, caught
her eye. She had never before seen that cupboard open, for her aunt had
always told her that Mr. Boyne kept some of his important insurance
papers there. Therefore, with curiosity, the girl approached it, finding
it practically empty, save for a woman's big racoon muff, and with it a
photograph--that of a handsome, well-preserved woman of about forty,
across the front of which had been scrawled in a thin, feminine hand the
signature, "Lilla, January, 1919."
Who was Lilla? She wondered.
Mr. Boyne she knew as a pleasant, easy-going man, full of generosity so
far as his limited means allowed. He was a widower, who frequently
referred to his "poor dear wife," and would descant upon her good
qualities and how affectionately they had lived together for ten years.
The photograph, which she examined beneath the light, was quite a new
one, and dated--hence it could not be that of the late Mrs. Boyne.
"I'll come back and tell auntie to-morrow," she said to herself. "She
ought to know--or one night she'll see him and get a shock like I've
had. And her heart is not too strong. Yes--I must warn her--then no
doubt she'll watch."
With those words she dabbed her hair in front of the cheap mirror over
the mantelshelf, and then treading on tiptoe, went to the front door and
let herself out.
This was the strange story Marigold had related to Gerald Durrant on
that sunny afternoon beside the Thames--a story which had aroused his
curiosity and held him fascinated.
*CHAPTER II*
*WHO IS MRS. BRAYBOURNE?*
Bernard Boyne was certainly a mystery man in Hammersmith, yet nobody
suspected it. In all the years he had lived in the neighbourhood his
actions had never aroused a single breath of suspicion.
In pious black he passed the collection bag around to the congregation
of St. George the Martyr each Sunday morning, and afterwards, with a
deep bow, handed the bag to the rubicund vicar of his parish.
Often he had been approached to serve upon the municipality of the
borough, but he had always declined because of stress of work and for
"family" reasons. Mr. Boyne could have achieved the highest local
honours, aldermanic and otherwise, had he cared for them, but
notwithstanding his great popularity, he was ever retiring, and even
anxious to efface himself.
When that night he descended the stairs of his house in Bridge Place,
all unconscious that he had been observed ascending them, he entered his
little parlour, where he divested himself of the ugly white overall and
locked it away, together with the woman's muff and the photograph. Then
he paced the room in indecision, ignorant that Marigold had only vacated
it a few minutes before.
He caught his pet, Nibby, after several attempts, and having replaced
him in his cage, again stood with knit brows, still apparently uncertain
how to act. He was in a bad humour, for now and then he uttered
imprecations beneath his breath. Whatever had occurred upstairs had no
doubt upset him. A further imprecation fell from his lips as he cursed
his luck, and then, with sudden resolve, he resumed his boots, took his
felt hat and stick, turned out the gas, and, going out into the narrow
hall, extinguished the light and left the house.
He was in a bad temper on that warm summer's night as he strode
hurriedly to the Hammersmith Broadway station, whence he took ticket to
Sloane Square.
"Rotten luck! Lionel is a fool!" he declared to himself viciously, as
he approached the pigeon-hole to take his ticket. "But one can't have
all the good things of life. One must fail sometimes. And yet," he
added, "I can't think why I've failed. But so long as it isn't a bad
omen, I don't care! Why should I?"
And he took his ticket and descended the stairs to the train.
On arrival at Sloane Square he walked along to Pont Street to a large,
red-brick house, into which he admitted himself with the latchkey upon
his chain, a key very similar to that of the locked room in Bridge
Place.
In the well-furnished hall he encountered a smart, good-looking French
lady's maid.
"Ah! Good-evening, Annette. Is Madame at home?" he asked.
"Oui, monsieur," the girl promptly replied. "Madame is upstairs in the
boudoir."
Boyne, who was evidently no stranger there, hung up his hat and passed
upstairs to a room on the second floor, a cosy, tastefully-furnished
apartment, where, at a table upon which stood a reading-lamp with a
green silk shade, a handsome, dark-haired woman in a pearl-grey evening
frock sat writing a letter.
"Hallo, Lilla! I'm glad you haven't gone to bed!" he exclaimed. "I
want to have a chat with you. I met Annette downstairs. A pity that
infernal girl hasn't gone to her room. I don't want her to overhear
anything. Recollect Celine!"
"I'll send the girl to bed," said the woman, pressing an electric
button. "Anything wrong?"
"Nothing very seriously wrong," was his reply.
And at his words the woman, who had betrayed alarm at sight of him, gave
a sigh of relief.
Bernard Boyne flung himself into a silk-covered easy-chair, and,
clasping his hands behind his head, gazed around the luxurious little
room. It was, indeed, very different to his own surroundings in drab,
work-a-day Hammersmith. Here taste and luxury were displayed on every
hand; a soft, old-rose carpet, with hangings and upholstery to match--a
woman's den which had been furnished regardless of expense by one of the
best firms in the West End. Truth to tell, that elegant West End house
was his own, and the handsome woman, Lilla, though she passed as Mrs.
Braybourne, and was very popular in quite a good set, was his own wife.
Husband and wife lived apart. They did so for a purpose. Bernard was a
hard-working insurance agent, a strict Churchman, perfectly upright and
honest, though he lived his struggling life in Hammersmith. Truly, the
_menage_ in Pont Street was both unusual and curious. Boyne, known to
the servants as Mr. Braybourne, was very often away for weeks at a time.
Then suddenly he would return and spend a week with his wife, being
absent, however, all day. Neither dear old Mrs. Felmore nor all his wide
circle of Hammersmith friends ever dreamed that he kept up another
establishment in one of the best streets in London, a thoroughfare where
a few doors away on either side were the legations of certain important
European States.
"My dear Lilla, we can't be too careful," he said, with a kindly smile.
"Our business is a very ticklish one. Ena agrees with me that Annette,
your maid, has picked up too much English, and in consequence is a
danger."
"Rubbish, my clear old Bernard!" laughed the handsome woman, upon whose
fingers sparkled several valuable rings. "All that we need is to
exercise due discretion."
"I know. When the game is crooked one has to be all the more careful."
"You don't seem to be in the sweetest of tempers to-night," remarked his
wife, rather piqued. His visit was unexpected, and to her it portended
unpleasantness. Not because discord ever existed between them. On the
contrary, they were bound together by certain secrets which neither one
nor the other dared to disclose. Lilla Boyne feared her husband to
exactly the same extent that he feared her.
In that house in Pont Street, Mr. Boyne kept his well-cut suits, his
evening clothes, his opera hat, and his expensive suit-case marked
"B.B.," for on entry there he at once effaced his identity as the humble
insurance agent, and became Bernard Braybourne, a man of means, and
husband of the good-looking woman who in the course of five or six years
had been taken up by quite a number of well-known people.
"I didn't expect you to-night," she remarked rather wearily. "I thought
you'd have been here yesterday."
"I couldn't come. Sorry!" he replied.
"To-night I went to dine at Lady Betty's. You accepted, you know. So I
apologised and said you had been called suddenly to Leeds last night,"
she said. "That idea of your candidature at Leeds at the next election
works famously. You have to go and meet your committee, I tell them,
and it always satisfies the curious. All of them hope you'll get in at
the by-election when old Sammie dies, as he must very soon. They say
the doctors have only given him three months more."
"Then before that date I'll have to retire from the contest," remarked
her husband, with a grin.
"Oh! I'll watch that for you all right. Have you got that cheque?"
"Yes--to-day. It came from my new solicitor--seven thousand, eight
hundred!"
"Good! I'm glad they've paid up. I began to fear that there might be
some little hitch. They were so long-winded."
"So did I, to tell you the truth. But it's all right, and the new
lawyer, a smart young fellow in the City, suspects nothing. I've
already sent him his fee--so that's settled him."
"Will you employ him again?"
"I never employ a solicitor a second time, my dear Lilla. That would be
a fatal mistake," was his reply. "But what I came to tell you mainly is
that I've had a failure--a mysterious failure! Things haven't turned
out exactly as I expected they would."
"Failure!" gasped the woman, with disappointment upon her dark, handsome
face. "Then we must postpone it? How annoying!"
"Yes. But perhaps it's all for the best, Lilla. There was an element of
danger. I told you that from the first."
"Danger! Rubbish!" declared his wife, with boldness, the diamonds
flashing upon her fingers. "There's no danger! Of that I'm quite
convinced. There was much more in that other little affair last winter.
I was full of apprehension then--though I never told you of it."
"Well, at any rate, I haven't succeeded in the little business I've been
attempting this last fortnight, so we'll have to postpone it."
"Perhaps your failure is due to the presence of your deaf old lady in
the house," laughed his wife. "I passed the place in the car about a
fortnight ago. Ugh! What a house!" and she shuddered.
"Yes, you might say so if you lived there and ate Mrs. Felmore's cold
sausage for your supper, as I have to-night. Yet it must be done. If
one makes money one has to make some sacrifice, especially if the money
is made--well, not exactly on the square, shall we say?" And he
grinned.
* * * * *
Away in North Wales three days later.
A beautiful moonlit evening by the Irish Sea. Over the Great Orme the
moon shone brilliantly across the calm waters lazily lapping the bay of
Llandudno, which was filled at the moment with an overflowing crowd of
holiday folk, mostly from Yorkshire and Lancashire.
All the hotels and boarding houses were crowded out, and there were
stories of belated trippers, many of whom were on their first seaside
holiday after the stress of war, being compelled to sleep in bathing
machines.
The lamps along the promenade were all aglow, the pier blazed with
light, and across the bay came the strains of the orchestra playing
selections from the latest revue.
In the big lounge of the Beach Hotel, which faces the sea in the centre
of the bay, sat a well-preserved, middle-aged woman in a striking black
dinner gown, trimmed with jade-coloured ninon, and wearing a beautiful
jade bangle and ear-rings to match. The visitor, whose hair was
remarkable because of its bright chestnut hue--almost red, indeed--had
been there for three weeks. She was a widow, a Mrs. Augusta Morrison,
hailing from Carsphairn, in Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland, whose late
husband had great interests in a big shipbuilding works at Govan.
Of rather loud type, as befitted the widow of a Scotch shipbuilder who
had commenced life in the shipyard, she dressed extravagantly, greatly
to the envy of the bejewelled wives of a few Lancashire war
millionaires, who, unable to gain admittance to that little piece of
paradise, the Oakwood Park Hotel, beyond Conway, were compelled to mix
with the holiday crowd on the seashore of Llandudno.
The hotel lounge was at the moment almost empty, for most of the
visitors were either on the pier or had gone out for a stroll in the
moonlight. But Mrs. Morrison sat near the door chatting with Charles
Emery, a young Manchester solicitor who had only been married since he
had been demobilised six months before, and who had come to Llandudno
with his wife, as is the custom of young married folk of Lancashire.
Once or twice the rich widow--who had hired a car for her stay in North
Wales--had invited Emery and his wife to go for runs with her to Bangor,
and across the Menai Bridge to Holyhead, or to Carnarvon, Bettws-y-coed,
St. Asaph, and other places. From time to time she had told them of her
loneliness in her big country house in one of the wildest districts in
Scotland, and her intention to go abroad that winter--probably to Italy.
"My wife has gone to the theatre with Mr. and Mrs. Challoner," Emery was
saying, as he lazily smoked his cigarette. "I had some letters to
write--business letters that came from the office this morning--so I
stayed in."
"Have you finished them?" asked the handsome widow, whose hair was
always so remarked, and her eyes large and luminous.
"Yes," he replied. "I suppose I shall soon have to be back in harness
again in Deansgate. But we shall both cherish the fondest memories of
your great kindness to us, Mrs. Morrison."
"It's really nothing, I assure you," laughed the widow merrily. "You
have taken compassion upon me in my horribly lonely life, and I much
appreciate it. Ah!" she sighed. "You can never imagine how lonely a
woman can be who goes about the world aimlessly, as I go about. I
travel here and there, sometimes on trips abroad, by sea, or by rail,
often to the south of Europe, but I make no friends. Possibly it is my
own fault. I may be too exclusive. And yet I never wish to be."
"I really don't think that!" he said gallantly. "At any rate, you've
given us both a real ripping time!"
"I'm so glad you've enjoyed the little runs. But not more, I'm sure,
than I have myself. I cannot live without movement. I love crowds.
That's why I love cities--Manchester, London, Paris, and Rome. Where I
live, up in Kirkcudbrightshire, it is one of the wildest and least
explored districts of Great Britain. Between Loch Ken and Loch Doon,
over the Cairnsmuir, the people are the most rural in all our island,
quiet, honest folk, with no soul above their sheep and their cows. You
and your wife must come north one day to Carsphairn and stay with me."
"I'm sure we should both be only too delighted to accept your
hospitality, Mrs. Morrison," he said. "I'm afraid we can never repay you
for your kindness to us. We are leaving next Monday."
"Oh, you have four more days! I'm motoring to Bettws-y-coed again
to-morrow. You must both come with me, and we'll lunch at the Waterloo,
as we did before. There has been rain these last few days, and the
Swallow Falls will no doubt be grand."
And so it was arranged.
Next day all three went in the car up the beautiful valley of the
Conway, with the wild hills on either side, through Eglwys Bach and
Llanrwst, past Gwydyr Castle, and on by the Falcon Rock to that gem of
North Wales, Bettws-y-coed.
To Mrs. Emery the widow was exceedingly amiable, and the day passed most
pleasantly.
As they were motoring back through the mountains, purple in the sunset,
between Capel Curig and Bangor, the widow, turning to Emery, suddenly
said:
"I wonder, Mr. Emery, if you would advise me upon a little point of
business? I'm rather perturbed, and I would so much like your
professional advice. Can I see you after dinner to-night?"
"Most certainly," was his reply. "Any advice I can give you I will do
so to the best of my ability," said the sharp young lawyer, well pleased
at the prospect of a wealthy client.
That night at dinner Mrs. Morrison, radiant and handsome, wore a
striking gown of black-and-gold, with a gold band in her red hair, and
her string of fine pearls. In the big white-and-gold dining-room she
was the most remarked of all the women there, but she pretended to take
no notice of the sensation caused by her entrance into the room. Yet
that gown had cost her sixty guineas in Dover Street, and, in secret,
she was amused at the excitement its appearance had caused among the
moneyed folk of Lancashire-by-the-Sea, who, after all, be it said, are
honest people and who are more thorough than the shallow "Society" of
post-war London.
After dinner, while Mrs. Emery went into the lounge and joined a woman
and her daughter whom she knew, her husband went to Mrs. Morrison's
sitting-room, where he found coffee awaiting him.
She produced a big silver box of cigarettes, and when she had served him
with coffee and liqueur she lit a cigarette and settled herself to talk.
"The fact, Mr. Emery, is this," the woman with the wonderful hair
commenced, when he had seated himself. "My late husband was a
shipbuilder at Govan. Only recently I discovered that some twenty years
ago he was guilty of some sharp practice in a financial deal which,
while he and his friends enriched themselves, a man named Braybourne and
his wife were both ruined. Braybourne died recently, but his widow is
living in London. Now knowledge of this affair has greatly upset me,
for I had the greatest faith in my dear husband's honesty."
"Naturally," remarked the young lawyer. "The knowledge of such a stigma
attaching to his name must grieve you."
"Exactly. And I want somehow to make reparation. Not while I am
alive--but after my death," she said. "I have been wondering what
course would be best to pursue. I don't know Mrs. Braybourne, and
probably she is in ignorance of my existence. Yet I should much like to
do something in order to relieve my conscience. What would you advise?"
The young solicitor was silent for a few moments. At last he replied:
"Well, there are several courses open. You could make her an anonymous
gift. But that would be difficult, for with a little inquiry she could
discover the source of the payment."
"Ah! I don't want her to know anything!"
"I quite agree with that. You could, of course, make a will in her
favour--leave her a legacy."
Mrs. Morrison remained silent for a while.
"Yes," she said at last, "that would be a way of easing my conscience
regarding my husband's offence."
"Or, another way, you could insure your life in her favour. Then, at
your death, she would receive the money unexpectedly," he suggested.
"That's rather a brilliant suggestion, Mr. Emery!" she replied eagerly.
"But I know nothing about insurance matters. How can I do it? What
have I to do and where shall I go to insure?"
"Well, Mrs. Morrison, I happen to be agent for a first-class life
assurance company, the Universal, whose head offices are in Cornhill,
London. If you so desire, I would be very happy to place a proposal
before them," he said enthusiastically, for it meant a very substantial
commission.
"I shall be very glad indeed, Mr. Emery, if you can carry the business
through for me."
"With the utmost pleasure," was the young man's reply. "Er--what amount
do you propose?"
"Oh! I hardly know. Some really substantial sum, I think. My husband,
I have learned, got some twenty thousand pounds out of Mr. Braybourne.
At least I would like to give her back half that sum."
"Ten thousand! How extremely generous of you, Mrs. Morrison. Of
course, it's a large sum, and will mean a special premium, but no doubt
the company will, providing you pass the medical test, issue the
policy."
She thanked him for his promise to take up the matter for her. Then he
went down to the writing-room to pen a letter to the Universal Assurance
Company, while the handsome red-haired widow passed along the lounge
and, with her merry chatter, rejoined his wife.
*CHAPTER III*
*THE "GAME"--AND ITS PLAYERS*
On the following morning Mr. Emery, the young solicitor, entered Mrs.
Morrison's sitting-room at Llandudno with a telegram in his hand.
"I've just had this from the manager of the Universal. They are
prepared to do the business and are writing me full particulars. I
shall get them by to-morrow morning's post. I've wired to my clerk,
Wilson, to post me a proposal form and some other papers."
Emery, his one thought being the big commission upon the business,
entered Mrs. Morrison's room twenty-four hours later with a number of
papers in his hand.
He sat down with the rich widow, and put before her the proposal form--a
paper which had printed upon it a long list of questions, mostly
inquisitorial. The bed-rock question of that document was "Who are you,
and are you subject to any of the ills that human flesh is heir to?"
Question after question she read, and her answers he wrote down in the
space reserved for them. Once or twice she hesitated before replying,
but he put down her hesitation to a natural reserve.
The filling up of the form took some time, after which she appended her
signature in a bold hand, and this completed the proposal.
"I fear it will be necessary for you to go to London to pass the
doctor," he said. "When would that be convenient?"
"Any time after next Wednesday," she replied. "As a matter of fact, I
have some shopping to do in town before I return to Scotland, so I can
kill two birds with one stone."
"Excellent! They will, of course, make it as easy for you as possible.
You will hear from Mr. Gray at the head office. Where shall you stay in
town?
"With a friend of mine--a Mrs. Pollen." And she gave him an address in
Upper Brook Street which he wrote down.
Before eleven o'clock Mrs. Morrison had dispatched a telegram addressed
to "Braybourne, 9b, Pont Street, London," which read:
_"All preliminaries settled. Shall be in London end of week._--AUGUSTA
MORRISON."
Meanwhile, the solicitor, greatly elated at securing such a remunerative
piece of work, sent the completed proposal to the head office of the
company in London, and on the following day, accompanied by his wife,
returned to his home in Manchester, after what had turned out to be a
very profitable as well is beneficial holiday.
Before leaving, Mrs. Morrison arranged that he should carry the whole
matter through, her parting injunction being:
"Remember--tell the Company to write to me at Upper Brook Street, and
not to Scotland. And always write to me yourself to London."
Now that same evening, after Emery's departure, there arrived at the
Beach Hotel, wearing rimless pince-nez, a dark, strongly-built man, well
dressed, and with a heavy crocodile suit-case which spoke mutely of
wealth. He signed the visitor's form as Pomeroy Graydon, and gave his
address as "Carleon Road, Roath, Cardiff, Shipbroker."
He was late, and ate his dinner alone. Afterwards he went out for a
stroll on the esplanade in the direction of the Little Orme, when, after
walking nearly half a mile, he suddenly encountered the red-haired
widow, who was attired plainly in navy blue with a small hat, having
evidently changed her dress after dinner.
"Well, Ena!" he exclaimed, lifting his soft felt hat politely. "I'm
here, you see! I thought it best to come up and see you. I'm at your
hotel as Mr. Graydon of Cardiff."
"I'm awfully glad you've come, Bernie," she said. "I rather expected
you."
"As soon as Lilla got your wire I started, and was fortunate to get to
Euston just in time for the Irish mail--changed at Chester, and here I
am!"
The pair strolled to a convenient seat close to where the waves lazily
lapped upon the wall of the esplanade--for the tide was up--and the
night a perfect one with a full white moon.
"Everything going well?" asked the smartly dressed man, whose pose in
Hammersmith was so entirely different. He spoke in an eager tone.
"Yes, as far as I can see it's all plain sailing. I'm doing my part, and
leave you and Lilla to do the rest. I've met here a very nice young
fellow--as I intended--a useful solicitor named Emery, of Manchester. He
is carrying the matter through for me. He's agent of the Universal."
"A first-class office."
"Well, I'm insuring with them in Lilla's favour."
"Have you carried out the plan we discussed?"
"To the very letter! Trust me, my dear Bernie."
"I always do, Ena," he declared, gazing across the moonlit sea. They
were alone on the seat, and there was none to overhear:
"Ten thousand is a decent sum. Let's hope it will be all over soon. I
sometimes have bad quarters of an hour--when I think!" he remarked.
"The sums assured have been higher and higher," she said. "We started
with five hundred--you recollect the woman Bayliss?--and now we are
always in thousands. Only you, Bernard, know how the game should be
played. I do my part, but it is your brain which evolves all this
business for which the companies are so eager, and which is so
wonderful."
"True, our plan works well," Boyne admitted, still gazing over the sea.
"We've all of us made thousands out of it--haven't we?"
"Yes. I can see no loophole by which the truth might leak out--save
one," she said very seriously.
"And what's that?"'
"Your visits to your wife," was her reply. "Suppose somebody watched
you, and saw you leave your frowsy little house in Hammersmith, go to
Lilla in Pont Street, and blossom forth into a gentleman of means; it
would certainly arouse a nasty suspicion. Therefore you should always be
most careful."
"I am. Never fear," he said. "Recollect, nobody in Hammersmith knows
that Lilla Braybourne is my wife."
"They don't know. But they might suspect things, which may lead
eventually to an awkward inquiry, and then----?"
"Oh! my dear Ena, don't contemplate unpleasant things!" he urged, with a
shrug of the shoulders. "I know you are a clever woman--more clever by
far than Lilla herself--therefore I always rely upon your discretion and
foresight. Now, tell me--what has happened up to date?"
In reply she told him briefly of her meeting with the young solicitor
Emery--which she had prearranged, by the way--and how she had
entertained the newly-married pair.
"They, of course, believe you to be Mrs. Augusta Morrison, of
Carsphairn, widow of old Joe Morrison, the great shipbuilder of Govan?"
he remarked, smiling.
"Exactly. As you know, I paid a visit in secret to Carsphairn six weeks
ago, and found out quite a lot. This I retailed to the Emerys, and they
took it all in. I described Carsphairn to them, and showed them the
snapshots of the place which I took surreptitiously when I was up there.
Indeed, I gave a couple of them to Mrs. Emery--to make evidence."
"Excellent!" he exclaimed. "You never leave anything undone, Ena."
"One must be thorough in everything if one desires success."
"And what is your address?"
"I gave it to my own flat in Upper Brook Street--care of Ena
Pollen--widow."
"So you will come to London?"
"Yes--I have to go there shopping before I return to Scotland," she
replied grimly. "I am staying with Mrs. Pollen."
"Good! It will be far the best for their London doctors to examine you.
If you were examined up here they might resist the claim. If they did
that--well, it would open up the whole business, and we certainly can't
afford to arouse the very least little bit of doubt."
"Hardly," she laughed. "Well, I've played the game properly, my dear
Bernie. My name is Morrison, and I am the widow of old Joe Morrison,
the woman with the red hair, and I live at Carsphairn,
Kirkcudbrightshire, the fine sporting estate left me by my late husband.
All that is upon the records of the Universal Life Assurance
Corporation."
"Excellent! You've established an undeniable identity--red hair and
everything!" he said, again gazing reflectively out across the rippling
waters. "You have taken the first step."
"The second move is that Mrs. Morrison goes to London on a shopping
visit, prior to going abroad," the widow said.
"Really, you are marvellous, Ena!" declared the humble insurance agent
of Hammersmith. "Your foresight always carries you to success."
"In a number of cases it has done so, I admit," the woman laughed.
"When one's identity is not exactly as one represents, one has to have
one's eyes skinned day and night. Men--even the shrewdest lawyers--are
always easily gulled. Why? Because of the rapacious maws the legal
profession have for fees. Women are always dangerous, for they are too
frequently jealous of either good looks or pretty frocks. A man I can
usually manage--a woman, seldom, unless she is in love. Then I side
with her in her love affair and so gain her confidence."
"Ena, I repeat I hold you in admiration as one of the cleverest women I
have ever known. Nothing deters you--nothing perturbs you! You fix a
plan, and you carry it through in your own way--always with profit to
our little combination."
"And very substantial profit, I venture to think, eh?"
"I agree," he said, with a grim laugh.
"All thanks to you, my dear Bernie," the red-haired woman said. "But
really I am growing just a little apprehensive. Why--I don't know, I
cannot tell. But somehow I fear we may play the game once too often.
And what then--eh?"
"Funnily enough, I've experienced the same curiously apprehensive
feeling of late," he said. "I always try, of course, to crush it out,
just as I crush out any other little pricks of conscience which occur to
me when I awake in the mornings."
"Very strange that we should both of us entertain apprehensive
feelings!" she remarked very thoughtfully. "I hope it's no ill omen!
Do you think it is?"
"No," he laughed. "Don't let us seek trouble--for Heaven's sake. At
present there is not the slightest danger. Of that I feel confident.
Let us go forward. When shall you go up to London?"
"To-morrow. I go to visit my dear friend, Mrs. Pollen--as I have told
you."
He laughed.
"So really you are going on a visit to yourself--eh? Excellent! Really
you are unique, Ena!"
"Well--it is the only way, and it will work well."
Then the strange pair, who were upon such intimate terms, rose and
strolled leisurely side by side back towards the opposite end of the
promenade, chatting merrily the while.
When approaching the Beach Hotel they halted, and the woman bade the man
good-bye. Afterwards he sank upon a seat in one of the shelters, while
she walked on and entered the hotel.
Not until half an hour later, after he had taken a stroll along to the
end of the pier, where the band was still playing, did he return to the
hotel. Mrs. Morrison was at the moment sitting in the lounge chatting
with two men visitors. The eyes of the pair met as he passed, but
neither gave any sign of recognition.
To those in the lounge the two were absolutely strangers to each other.
Little did the other visitors dream of the dastardly, even demoniacal,
plot that was being so skilfully woven in their midst.
Next afternoon Bernard Boyne stepped from out of the Holyhead express
upon Euston platform and drove in a taxi to Pont Street, where he was
greeted warmly by his wife, who had been informed of his advent by
telegram from Chester.
"Well?" she asked, when the door of the luxurious drawing-room was
closed and they were alone. "And how did you find Ena?"
"She's splendid! All goes well," was his enthusiastic reply. "She's
got hold of a young Manchester solicitor who is carrying the policy
through all right. He happens to be an agent of the Universal. She's on
her way back to London now. I wasn't seen with her in the hotel, of
course."
"When is she coming here?"
"To-night at nine. She wants to see you."
"I think the less she sees of me just now the better, don't you,
Bernie?"
"I quite agree. We don't want anyone to recognise you as friends when
the time comes," replied Boyne. "As soon as she gets passed by the
doctors--both of them unknown to any of us--which is a blessing--she'll
have to go up to Scotland."
"To New Galloway again?"
"No. To Ardlui, that pretty little village at the head of Loch Lomond.
The inquiries I have been making of the servants at Carsphairn show that
it is the lady's intention to go with her maid to Ardlui for a
fortnight, and thence to Edinburgh for another fortnight."
"Really, Bernie, you are wonderful in the way you pry into people's
intentions."
"Only by knowing the habits and intentions of our friends can we hope to
be successful," was his reply, as he flung himself back among the silken
cushions of the couch and lazily lit a cigarette.
"So Ena will have to go to Scotland again?"