evening scramble for a seat in 'bus, train or tram, is to the business
girl a wearing existence. The tubes, with their queux, the trains with
their packed compartments, the 'buses with their boorish attendants, and
the trams crowded to suffocation with either rain-wet or perspiring
humanity, are part of the life of a London business girl. Yet she is
always merry and bright, for she takes things as they come and thrives
upon a gobbled breakfast or a belated home-coming.
Marigold Ramsay was typical of the London female bank clerk--eager,
reliable, assiduous at her work, which consisted of poring over big
ledgers all day beneath a green-shaded electric light until the
figures--units, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, and
hundreds of thousands--danced before her tired eyes ere she closed her
book and put on her hat to return home.
On the night following the receipt of that gratifying message, she
rushed back to Wimbledon wondering if any further telegram awaited her.
But there was none. In disappointment she sat down to her evening meal,
the one problem in her mind being the whereabouts of the young man who
was her lover and who had so mysteriously left her side and disappeared.
He could not be following Boyne, for the latter was living quite calmly
his usual uneventful life, therefore, if he were not following him, why
could he not write to her and explain?
That point sorely perplexed her.
Meanwhile Ena Pollen telephoned twice a day to Golder's Green to inquire
how her friend Mrs. Morrison progressed, and on each occasion the matron
would answer her, but the news was of increasing gravity.
She sent kind messages, but the matron expressed regret that the patient
was too ill to be given them.
On the evening when Marigold had sped back to Wimbledon hoping for a
further telegram, Miss Propert had, after telling the Red Widow how
critical was Mrs. Morrison's condition, added that some relatives had
come up from Brighton.
"Unfortunately, the doctor will not allow anyone to see her," she went
on. "Only this evening I have had a telegram from her sister in
Scotland saying she is on her way to London, but as she gives no
address, I am unable to stop her, so her journey will be useless."
"Useless? Why?" asked Ena.
"Well--I'm sorry to tell you that the doctor who saw her an hour ago
holds out but little hope of her recovery. She has diphtheria in its
most virulent form."
"Oh! How terrible!" cried Ena. "But is it really so very serious?"
"Yes. There is no use disguising the fact. It is a most critical
case."
"But, surely, there is no immediate danger?" she asked, full of concern.
"The critical period will be within the next twenty-four hours," came
the reply. "If she gets over to-morrow night, she will probably
recover."
Ena Pollen held her breath, while her brows narrowed, and she made a
strange grimace.
"Well, Miss Propert, you won't fail to let me know how my friend
is--will you?"
"Of course not," was the reply. "I hope she will be better to-morrow
morning. But--well, personally, I entertain but little hope. I have
never seen a worse case of diphtheria."
Ena hung up the receiver, and crossing the room, took a long sniff at
her smelling-salts.
Then, going back to the telephone, she rang up Lilla, and said briefly:
"Our poor friend is very bad indeed. I'll let you know how she is in
the morning. Is Bernard there?"
"No; he's just gone back," answered her friend.
"Well, I want you both to dine here to-morrow night. Will you?"
"Why?"
"You know the reason--_surely_!"
"Oh, yes--yes! Very well, dear. At half-past seven."
So that was agreed.
Next morning, just before noon, Boyne called at Pont Street and learned
from Lilla--who had just spoken to Ena--that Mrs. Morrison of Carsphairn
was in an extremely critical condition.
"H'm!" grunted her husband. "Then all goes as it should--eh? No other
acute disease presents so great a liability to sudden death as
diphtheria. I suppose the doctor, whoever he is, has been all along
examining the patient's heart for any indication of an approaching
catastrophe."
"But sudden death can't take place--can it?" asked Lilla.
"Oh, yes," replied her husband in a voice of authority. "The more
insidious forms of sudden death from diphtheria take place through the
nervous system and heart. In such a case the pulse beats only twenty or
thirty a minute--and that is probably what has aroused the doctor's
fears."
"But, according to Ena, she hasn't a very bad throat."
"That may be so," he said, speaking in the way of a medical man. "She
may have an extension of the false membrane into the air passage, which
would block the larynx trachea or bronchi, which is always gradual, and
may be fatal. But if the doctor has come to the conclusion that she's
in a very bad way, I should think that the end will come this evening."
"You'll dine at Ena's--eh?"
"Of course I will. I'll be there just after seven," he said, and, after
leisurely finishing a cigarette, he left her.
Just before half-past seven he entered Ena Pollen's flat, where Lilla
was already seated in the drawing-room. He wore a simple blue serge
suit, for that night he had come straight from Hammersmith, and had not
dressed to go to a restaurant or the theatre.
"Well?" he asked the Red Widow. "Anything fresh?"
"Nothing. I telephoned to Golder's Green an hour ago, and found Miss
Propert was most despondent."
"Poor dear!" laughed Lilla. "What a pity! Her bill will be paid all
right--so she needn't fret!"
Presently they sat down to a very pleasant little dinner, where, with
sardonic laughter, the trio of death-dealers lifted their glasses of
champagne to "dear Augusta's speedy recovery."
After dinner they returned to the drawing-room, where they took their
liqueurs and coffee, all three being in excellent spirits.
The only serious moment was when the Red Widow suddenly remarked:
"I don't half like the situation concerning that young fellow Durrant!
Do you know, I feel some strange presage of evil--I mean that we may
have made a slip there."
"Slip!" laughed Boyne derisively. "Nothing of the kind, my dear Ena! I
saw to that all right. And surely you can trust me?"
"But suppose we have?"
"No need to worry further about him. He won't trouble us any more."
"The next person to be silenced is that girl," Lilla said in a hard
voice.
"Yes," was Boyne's slow reply. "I think I've formed a plan which will
be just as successful as that we carried out concerning her too
inquisitive lover."
And as he spoke, he blew a cloud of smoke from his lips and watched it
curl towards the ceiling.
Suddenly--it was then about ten o'clock--almost as the words fell from
his lips, the telephone bell rang sharply.
All three started.
"Ah!" gasped Ena, springing up. "There you are! At last!"
"Yes," she replied, taking up the receiver. Then, listening, she
exclaimed: "Oh! you, Miss Propert--well? Oh! How dreadful!--how very
sad! She passed away ten minutes ago! Thank you so much for telling
me. I'm so sorry--so very sorry!"
And she replaced the receiver.
"You look sorry!" laughed Boyne. "Really, it is most distressing to
think that we shall very soon draw ten thousand pounds!" he added
mockingly, whereat the two women laughed gaily, for the coup so
elaborately prepared had at last been brought off!
*CHAPTER XIX*
*WHAT HAPPENED TO GERALD*
The days passed, and Marigold, hearing nothing further from Gerald,
called again at Mincing Lane, and there learned that they had not heard
again from young Durrant.
A clerk had been sent over to Ealing to inquire about him, but had
returned with the information that, instead of being ill, he had not
been seen by his sister.
"The firm at once suspected something wrong with the books," said the
female clerk of whom she made the inquiry, "but Mr. Durrant was such an
honest, straightforward young man that we all ridiculed the idea."
"Have the books been examined?" asked Marigold breathlessly.
"Oh, yes; and nothing has been found wrong."
The girl drew a sigh of relief.
She then showed the clerk the telegram she had received from Birmingham,
and she, in turn, promised to show it to the principal when he came in.
Marigold Ramsay walked down Mincing Lane to Fenchurch Street in gloom
and despair. She returned to the bank and sat at her books, unable to
work, unable to do anything, save to wonder why Gerald had so suddenly
left her. Yet he had bidden her not to worry over him and had promised
to return.
That evening she went over to Hammersmith, and her aunt, noticing how
pale and worried she looked, inquired the reason, asking:
"Have you heard yet from Mr. Durrant?"
"No, auntie. Unfortunately, I haven't, but I'm expecting to hear every
day."
"Funny he went away like that, wasn't it?" the deaf old woman remarked,
though inwardly she suspected that there had been some quarrel between
them, and that he had left her in consequence.
"Yes," replied the girl faintly. Then she asked after Mr. Boyne.
"Oh! he's been away four days now. He said he was going into Wales on
some insurance business, and would be away a week or perhaps ten days."
"Unusual for him to go away, isn't it?" Marigold remarked.
"Yes. He's never been away for more than a week together in all the
time I've been with him."
The girl left Hammersmith early, and, returning to Wimbledon Park, sat
at her window and wept for a long time before retiring to rest. To her
the world was empty and hopeless without Gerald.
What had she done, she wondered, that he should have left her in that
fashion. That he was following Boyne was a mere excuse, she felt sure.
It irritated her to think that he should try to deceive her. What was
he doing in Birmingham? If there were reasons why he did not wish to
return to London, then why did he not give her his address, and then she
could easily have run up to see him.
The more she thought it over the more mystified did she become.
The mystery was increased three days later when, on returning from the
City, she found a telegram on the table in the narrow hall.
Her heart leapt as she tore it open.
It had been sent from Paris, of all places, and read:
"_Sorry could not write, dear. Do not worry. Shall be back soon. Have
wired to the office. Love._--GERALD."
"Love!--Gerald!" she repeated aloud to herself. "Oh! why does he not
give me an address, so that I can write to him? It's cruel--very cruel
of him to keep me in suspense like this!" she cried in a frenzy of
despair.
She ate sparingly in the little dining-room of the jerry-built
villa--for nowhere is the jerry-builder more in evidence than in
Wimbledon Park, with his white-painted gables and his white-painted
balconies to his six-roomed houses. But let us not misunderstand. It is
best for the workers--the brains and backbone of England--to live in
smiling houses, even though jerry-built, than in many of those grey,
rain-sodden houses of the Midlands and the North, where the "knocker-up"
pursues his calling each dawn and the factory hooter sounds all too
early.
Personally, the writer here declares that he has no love for the
capitalist. The latter has too often, ever since the Early Victorian
days, been either a swindler or an aristocrat of bad intentions, and the
jerry-builder was the natural outcome of his parting with his estate.
Poor Marigold! She could go no farther in the maze of doubt and
uncertainty.
A dozen times that night she re-read the mysterious, but unconvincing,
message. She was a girl of high intelligence, or she would not have
been employed by the bank. The whole affair puzzled her, as it would
indeed have puzzled anybody.
Next day after her luncheon she went round again to Mincing Lane, and
made inquiry regarding the missing man.
The same girl told her that the principal had received a mysterious wire
from Paris.
"I saw the telegram," she said. "It was from Paris, and was quite
abrupt, saying that he would probably return in a week or so."
"But what does it all mean?" asked the distressed girl.
"I really don't know," replied the other girl. "Mr. Durrant's gone away,
and that's all!"
That night Marigold went over to Ealing, and to Gerald's sister she
showed the telegram. It puzzled her sorely.
"Whatever can Gerald be doing in Paris?" she exclaimed. "Why could he
not write to us, eh?"
"I don't know," was the reply of the unnerved girl. "I think he ought
to send us some address."
"But he may do so later," replied his sister. "Gerald is a man of
business. He would realise how troubled we all are."
"He seems to have faded out of existence," said the girl, seated in the
front parlour of the neat little villa of the neat suburban road.
"Yes," said his sister. "He certainly does. I await a letter each
morning, but none comes."
"But what can he be doing in Paris?" queried Marigold. "Without a
doubt, he has lost the confidence of his firm. He pretended to be lying
ill here, and they have found out that he isn't ill at all!"
"Yes. The other day a middle-aged man came to see him, but I was forced
to admit that he wasn't here--that he was missing," replied Gerald's
sister.
Marigold went home utterly dispirited. What could she do? It was
useless to go to the police and raise a hue and cry regarding a man who,
from time to time, telegraphed to his employers and to her that he was
on the point of returning. So she was compelled to wait.
Gerald Durrant had disappeared. He had sent her messages, it is true,
messages of comfort, yet when she argued within herself, she saw that he
ought, at least, to have given her some address to which she could reply
by letter or by telegram.
True, Boyne was absent. But he had only been absent for a few days,
while her lover had been missing very much longer.
Four more days of blank despair crept slowly by. Seated beneath her
green-shaded light at the bank, with her great ledger before her,
Marigold reckoned up the columns of figures mechanically, and handed
them to be checked. They were accounts of all classes of merchants,
mostly of profiteers, firms who had made fortunes out of the valour and
blood of the gallant fellows who had given their lives for Britain. She
felt so unhappy without her lover. Gerald, who had directed those
investigations concerning the hooded man who was her aunt's employer,
had disappeared with startling suddenness, yet he had assured her that
he was following some mysterious clue.
The latter she had proved, by reason of the knowledge of Boyne's
movements, to be non-existent. Was her lover deceiving her? That
suspicion caused her the greatest irritation and annoyance.
That evening she sauntered along Pont Street, and looked up at the
red-brick house which Boyne had entered on that well-remembered night.
But the place was in complete darkness, save for a light in the
servants' quarters.
Then again she went to Bridge Place, and learned from the old deaf woman
that her master had not yet returned.
"He's having a very nice long holiday," said Mrs. Felmore. "And he
deserves it, too--a-tramping about Hammersmith all day and in all
weathers, as he does."
Three weeks went past, but no further word had come from Gerald, either
to his principal, his sister, or to his well-beloved.
Gerald Durrant had, truth to tell, met with some strange and startling
adventures since the night of his disappearance.
In the darkness on that well-remembered night he was walking along the
Kensington Road towards Knightsbridge, following Boyne at a respectful
distance, and keeping a wary eye upon him, without arousing any
suspicion as he naturally believed.
While passing the railings of Kensington Gardens, close to Queen's Gate,
he saw a female figure lying upon the pavement with a lady bending over
her concernedly.
Hastening up, he found both ladies to be well dressed, and inquired what
had occurred.
"Oh, dear!" cried the elder lady, in great distress. "My sister has
just slipped down on a piece of banana peel, I think, and she's broken
her ankle. She can't move, and she doesn't speak. She has fainted.
I--I wonder, sir, if you would be so kind as to call me a taxi."
"Certainly I will," replied Gerald, with his usual gallantry. "If
you'll stay here, I'll go back to the rank. I passed it a few minutes
ago, and there was a taxi there."
So he dashed back, got into the cab, and was soon on the spot where the
lady, who had recovered consciousness, was standing on one foot, unable
to put the other to the ground.
"It's so extremely kind of you," said the elder lady, while the injured
one expressed faint thanks. Then, assisted by the driver, the lady was
seated in the conveyance.
"I really don't know how I shall get her up the stairs," exclaimed the
elder woman. "We live in a flat up at Hampstead and we have no
hall-porter."
Gerald reflected a second, and suddenly recollected that Boyne was now
out of sight, so that by that unfortunate accident he was prevented from
further following him.
"I shall be very pleased to accompany you, and give you what assistance
I can," he said. "May I get in?"
"Certainly. It's too kind of you," the injured lady declared. "I fear
we are encroaching upon your time, but the taxi can bring you back to
wherever you want to go."
So Gerald got in, while the elder lady gave the man an address at
Hampstead--some mansions, the name of which he did not catch, for, at
the moment, he was in conversation with her sister. All he recollected
were the words:
"It's close to Hampstead tube station."
Next moment they drove off, whereupon the elder lady introduced herself
as Mrs. Evans, and her sister she said was Miss Mayne.
"We live together," she went on. "My husband was unfortunately killed
on the Somme, so we are companions for each other."
Meanwhile Miss Mayne was evidently suffering extreme pain.
"I'm so sorry, dear," her sister exclaimed. "But as soon as we get
home, I'll ring up for Doctor Trueman. He'll no doubt soon set it
right."
"Can you move your ankle, Miss Mayne?" asked Gerald, who had, in turn,
already given the two ladies his name.
"Unfortunately, no--not in the least. To try to move it causes me
excruciating pain. I really don't know what I shall do."
"Oh! Surgeons nowadays are wonderful," exclaimed Gerald cheerily.
"Probably it is only a simple sprain. At least, let us hope so."
So completely engaged in conversation was Gerald, that he did not notice
along what thoroughfare they were travelling. Indeed, the driver had
taken an intricate route behind Regent's Park, a district quite unknown
to the young man.
From the ladies he learned that they had been dining with a lady living
in Phillimore Place, and were on their way back to Knightsbridge tube
station on their return home when the accident happened. That they were
refined, well-bred ladies was unquestionable, therefore he was genuinely
concerned.
At last the taxi stopped before the entrance to a large block of
inartistic-looking flats, and with difficulty Miss Mayne descended.
Then, assisted by the driver and Gerald, she, with great difficulty,
ascended to the first floor, while her sister opened the door with her
latch-key, and switched on the light.
Within it was a cosy, well-furnished abode, just as one would expect to
be the home of two refined women of good position.
Mrs. Evans paid the driver, giving him half a sovereign over his fare,
and saying:
"I shall want you to take this gentleman back to the West End presently.
So wait!"
"Very well, mum," replied the man, pleased with his tip, who then
retired.
Then, turning to Gerald, she said:
"You'll stay a few minutes, won't you? I'll telephone to the doctor."
This she did, the telephone being out in the hall, and while he sat with
Miss Mayne in the small drawing-room, he heard her sister in
conversation with Doctor Trueman.
"He'll be here in about a quarter of an hour!" she exclaimed, as she
re-entered the room. "How fortunate, dear, to find him in!"
"Yes. I---- Oh! I do hope he'll give me something to dull this
terrible pain'" replied the other.
"No doubt he will," said Gerald encouragingly. "It is too bad of people
to throw fruit peel about the pavements. I've had more than one narrow
escape from falling myself."
"It's positively criminal!" declared Mrs. Evans, with warmth. "Of
course you'll stop now, and see what he says. Mr. Durrant," she went
on, "I'm only too happy to have been of service to you."
"You'll have something?" she suggested. "I'm just going to get my
sister a little brandy, and I'll get you a whisky and soda."
"No, thanks--all the same," Gerald replied. "The fact is I never drink
whisky."
"Then a glass of port wine," she laughed gaily. "You won't refuse
that--have it, to please me, won't you?"
He tried to protest, but she overruled him, and in the end he was forced
to accept the glass of wine which a few minutes later she brought him
upon a small silver salver, together with her sister's liqueur glass of
old brandy.
She took nothing herself, but stood chatting as Durrant and her sister
sipped their glasses.
"That's some very old port that was lately given to me by a friend," she
explained. "Being a woman, I know nothing of wines, but we had a man
dining here with us the other night who pronounced it first-class."
"Yes," Gerald said. "It is excellent, though I, too, have no knowledge
of wines, which I always think is generally pretended save in the case
of men with acute palates who are in the import trade. The man who
to-day can sip a glass and tell its vintage is a _rara avis_," he
declared.
Mrs. Evans agreed with him.
She watched him drain his glass with satisfaction, and then urged him to
have a second one. But he refused, for, as a matter of fact, he found a
strange sensation creeping over him. Though he did not mention it,
being too polite, he felt across his eyes a slow, but increasing,
blindness. Objects seemed to be receding from his gaze. The muscles of
his throat seemed to be contracting, and he felt his cheeks hot and
flushed.
He tried to stir himself in his chair, but he seemed paralysed. He
could not move!
He endeavoured to speak, to tell the two ladies of his sudden seizure,
but his tongue refused to articulate a word.
In his desperate efforts to ask them to call assistance, his hands pawed
the air convulsively, and then, of a sudden, he felt himself collapsing,
and all became blank.
Meanwhile the two women were watching him intently, and the instant they
satisfied themselves that he was unconscious, Miss Mayne--who was really
Lilla Braybourne, sat where she was, while Mrs. Evans, who was Ena
Pollen, the Red Widow--jumped up from her chair, saying eagerly:
"All's well up till now! I must tell Bernie."
She dashed to the telephone, and, asking for a number, spoke rapidly:
"Lilla speaking," she said. "Bernie. He's here, and he's been taken
suddenly ill. You'd better come round at once."
She listened. Then she said:
"Right--you'll get here in a quarter of an hour. He's asleep now!"
Then the pretended invalid and her pseudo-sister, leaving Gerald in the
drawing-room, where he had collapsed so suddenly after drinking the
glass of "doctored" port, went into the dining-room and mixed themselves
a stiff brandy and soda each.
Afterwards the Red Widow, descending to where the taxi was waiting, gave
the man another ten shillings, and said:
"The gentleman has changed his mind. He's staying here."
"All right, mum," the man replied. "Thank you very much. Good-night."
Starting his engine, he drove away well satisfied.
*CHAPTER XX*
*THE ROOM OF EVIL*
A quarter of an hour later Bernard Boyne stood in the room where Gerald
Durrant lay back in the arm-chair, pale as death, quite unconscious.
"So you tried to get the better of me, my young friend, did you?" he
laughed, as he stood before the inanimate figure. "But you dropped into
the trap just as I intended. I could easily put you out of the way, you
infernal young prig, but it might be dangerous."
"No, no!" cried Ena anxiously. "The body would be found. And Scotland
Yard may possibly find traces of us. No! Carry out your
plan--telegrams, a motor-car journey, a pretty story--and good-bye-ee!"
"Yes. But this fellow, and the girl who is in love with him, are
distinct dangers, remember!"
"True. But it was the girl who aroused his suspicions. Send her
underground, if you like, and as soon as you like, for none of us have
any love for her, have we?"
"Ena," he said, his manner suddenly changing; "an idea regarding the
girl, Marigold, has just occurred to me--one that cannot be
investigated, and nothing can be brought up against us. Leave her to
me!"
"Oh, we will, Bernie! But recollect, she must have a dose--and go out.
That's the only way to put the tombstone over this affair. We don't
want any unwelcome inquiries, or any resistance by the insurance
company."