in her handbag the treasured message from Folkestone Pier, together with
her powder-puff, her little mirror, and a few hairpins.
She had no idea, however, that at the moment when she was dressing to
dine with her aunt's benefactor, a lady with red-brown hair, having
taken tea at the Pavilion Hotel in Folkestone, was in a first-class
carriage in a boat express for London, and that that same lady had only
arrived in Folkestone a couple of hours before, and on meeting the boat
had handed in the message at the office at the harbour.
She was at Piccadilly tube station quite early, and it was fully ten
minutes before Boyne put in an appearance, smiling and happy.
"I'm so glad you've been able to come, Miss Marigold," he exclaimed, as
he shook hands with her warmly. "Now, we'll just go and have a little
dinner together, and talk about your aunt, eh?"
And he placed his hand upon her arm in a paternal manner, and started to
cross the road to Coventry Street. "There's a little Italian place in
Wardour Street where they do you excellently. A man I know told me of
it the other day, and I dined there a couple of nights ago and found
things very good. Not much of a place to look at, but good, well-cooked
food. So let's go there."
She walked with him, but unable to contain her joy at receiving that
reassuring wire from Gerald. She said, as they walked along Coventry
Street:
"I've had a wire to-night from Mr. Durrant. He's all right."
"Have you really? How excellent!" exclaimed Boyne. "What does he say?"
"He wires from Folkestone pier. He's just arrived back in England, and
he says he's all right. That's all."
"Well, what do you want more? Your boy is back, and no doubt you'll see
him soon. I've always had in my mind that his absence has been due to
some secret mission given to him by his employer. Those food people in
Mincing Lane are profiteering out of all conscience, and Durrant's
absence is only what might well be expected. He will get a big bonus
for carrying out some little bit of delicate diplomacy with regard to
food supplies from abroad."
They turned up Wardour Street, and presently stopped in front of one of
the small, unpretentious little foreign restaurants, where one can
always rely upon good cooking, even though the quality of the food
sometimes leaves a little to be desired.
Not more than half a dozen people were in the white-enamelled little
place, but the proprietor, a well-dressed, prosperous-looking little
Italian, came forward to greet them.
"Table for two--oh! yes. You reserved it, sare--I know! This way,
please." And he conducted them to a cosy spot in a corner where a table
was laid _a deux_.
Marigold, flushed with excitement on account of the telegram in her bag,
threw off her coat, settled her blouse, and sat down opposite the man,
while an elderly waiter was quickly in attendance.
"I've ordered dinner," said Boyne, rather impetuously. "Antonio will
know." And he dismissed him.
"I've told them to get a nice little dinner for us," he said, looking
across at the girl. "Well, now, Miss Marigold," he went on. "First,
I'm delighted that you could come and have dinner with me to-night. Now
that my house is no longer inhabitable, I live in rooms at Notting Hill
Gate. But rooms are not like one's own home, and especially with your
aunt as housekeeper. A more economical woman never lived. She'd save
the egg-shells and turn them into money, if she could!"
And they both laughed.
"Yes; auntie is very saving," replied the girl, whose sole purpose in
accepting the unusual invitation was to try and draw her host, and so
further the plans set by her lover.
"Saving! What I always say is that she's the most perfect housekeeper
anyone ever had. That's why I want to do something for her."
"It's really very good of you, Mr. Boyne," said the girl, "I know now
keenly she has always looked after your interests."
"And I appreciate that, Miss Marigold. Now, my idea is to allow her two
pounds a week till I get settled again."
"Very generous of you, I'm sure," replied Marigold. "With her infirmity,
it's most difficult. Her deafness has increased the last six months,
and she could never get another situation now. I'm sure of that."
"Then you'll look after her if she has two pounds a week
regularly.--eh?"
"Yes. She can come and live with me at Wimbledon," the girl said. "I'm
sure auntie will be very grateful," she added. "Only a couple of days
ago she told me she was wondering what she would do now that the house
is burnt, and she couldn't live with a neighbour for ever."
Boyne was silent for a few seconds. The waiter had placed the little
plates of sardines, olives, and sliced beet upon the table, the usual
hors d'oeuvres of the foreign restaurant.
The girl's host looked her in the face suddenly, and asked:
"Tell me, Miss Marigold, what friends have you?"
"Relatives, you mean? Well, practically none who count, except auntie
and my sister," she replied, little dreaming that the man had put that
question with an ulterior motive--and a very sinister one, too.
"And also Mr. Durrant," he laughed.
Marigold blushed.
"Don't fear. He'll soon be back with you, and no doubt explain
matters."
The girl made no reply. It was her own secret that his absence was due
to the inquiries he was making concerning the past career of the
plausible and hard-working man who was at that moment her host.
The soup was served, a clear _pot-au-feu_, hot, and as the waiter turned
away, Boyne drew handkerchief from his trouser pocket, and next moment a
number of coins fell upon the floor.
Instantly Marigold drew her chair away from the table and bent down to
see where they were. At that moment Bernard Boyne executed a clever
trick which he had done before. He flicked into the girl's hot soup a
piece of very soft gelatine that had been extracted only half an hour
before from one of those mysterious blue glass tubes he had obtained
from the idiot-scientist hiding in Harpur Street.
The piece of gelatine fell into the soup unnoticed by the girl, whose
eagerness was centred upon the picking up of the lost coins, and the
other diners only glanced across for a second, and did not notice the
dropping of that fatal dose.
"Don't bother," he said airily next moment. "The waiter will find it.
They are really only coppers. I was foolish to put my handkerchief
there. Please don't bother. Your soup will be cold."
And, thus reassured, the girl drank her soup with her spoon and greatly
enjoyed it--for it was excellent.
Boyne watched her with complete satisfaction and confidence.
The other courses were served: fillets of sole, and a chicken _en
casserole_, with mushrooms, in true Continental style. Then a cup in
which were fruit, ice-cream, and champagne, and black coffee afterwards.
The dinner Marigold agreed was excellent. Boyne smoked cigarettes and
chatted merrily the whole time, until at last he paid the bill and
walked back with her.
They shook hands, and she thanked him heartily. Then they parted, Boyne
promising to see old Mrs. Felmore and pay her the amount he suggested.
As he strode along down the Haymarket, however, on his way back to Pont
Street, he laughed aloud and muttered to himself:
"I don't think we shall be troubled with you, young lady, after a few
more days!"
*CHAPTER XXVII*
*"THE DAY AFTER TO-MORROW"*
Three days passed. Marigold, on rising in the morning of the third day,
felt hot and feverish. Her sister had suggested that she should
telephone to the bank excusing herself.
"I think I've got a chill," Marigold remarked. "I felt rather queer
yesterday."
"Then stay at home, dear."
"I can't," the girl declared as she put on her hat. "We're so awfully
busy just now. Miss Meldrum and Miss Page are both away with influenza.
I'm bound to go."
So she went, but feeling very ill. At the bank one or two of the girls
remarked how unwell she looked, and as the morning wore on the pains in
her head became worse. She could eat no lunch, and at two o'clock she
was compelled to return home to Wimbledon.
She went straight to bed, but her friends troubled little, for it was
evident that she was run down by the eternal anxiety over Gerald's
absence, and that she had caught a severe cold.
Next morning she seemed worse, therefore her sister went for Doctor
Thurlow, who lived in Kenilworth Avenue; but he was so busy that it was
not possible for him to put in an appearance until nearly seven o'clock
that evening.
He examined the girl, and though he could not diagnose the cause
immediately, he at once recognised that she was decidedly ill. He
prescribed a mixture, gave certain instructions, and promised to call
early next morning.
This he did and found that her temperature had risen, and that she was
much worse and a little delirious. In her delirium she called
constantly for Gerald in a pathetic, piteous voice.
"Will my Gerald never come back to me?" she cried. "Will he never
return?"
"She is ill--very ill," declared the doctor gravely to her sister. "We
shall have to be extremely careful of her."
Marigold was coughing badly, for already a large area of her lungs had
become involved and consolidated. Hence the doctor carried a portion of
the sputum to his surgery, and that afternoon discovered the presence of
the deadly streptococcus. On establishing the actual disease he at once
telephoned for some anti-pneumococcic serum, and this he injected into
the patient early next morning.
Having done so, he turned to her sister, and said:
"I am extremely sorry to tell you that this is our last hope. She is, I
fear, collapsing fast. The organism I have found is most deadly, and I
think it only right to tell you that my personal opinion is that the
disease has gone too far."
"What, Doctor?" gasped the young woman, pale and anxious. "Will she
die?"
"That I cannot say, but I never like to deceive my patients' friends in
cases so critical as this. To me she seems to be growing weaker. I
will be back at noon."
And the busy, white-headed doctor went out and drove away in his car.
Now on that same morning about eleven o'clock a tall, gaunt, hollow-eyed
young man in a shabby tweed suit and golf cap walked quickly up from the
Empress Dock at Southampton and across Canute Road to the
railway-station, where he bought a third-class ticket for Waterloo.
"Back in England at last!" he muttered to himself as he entered an empty
compartment. "I shall soon see Marigold again! Then we will get even
with our enemies."
The unshaven man was Gerald Durrant, changed indeed from the spruce
young secretary of Mincing Lane. He looked ten years older, for his
face was pinched though bronzed, and the suit he wore was certainly
never made for him.
The truth was that the steamer _Pentyrch_, of Sunderland, ran into very
bad weather in the Bay of Biscay, and during a great storm off the
Morocco coast Captain Bowden thought it wise to put in for shelter at
the little port of Agadir. One night, just before the vessel weighed
anchor to leave, Gerald dived into the sea and succeeded in swimming
ashore.
His absence was not noticed until three hours later, when the vessel was
well out to sea, and Captain Bowden, having lost so much time, did not
deem it worth while to bother about a man who was no doubt half a
lunatic.
Gerald, however, succeeded, with the aid of a friendly English trader,
in getting by road from Agadir to Mogador, where he told his strange
story to the British vice-consul, who in turn arranged a passage for him
on a small steamer homeward bound, and gave him a little money,
sufficient to pay his railway fare from Southampton to London.
Truly, his had been an astounding adventure, and now he was eagerly
looking forward to the happy reunion with the girl he loved so
passionately.
All his belongings were in the small brown paper parcel on the rack
above him. At the station he had bought a packet of cigarettes, and as
he smoked he gazed reflectively out of the carriage window. The train
was an express, but in his mood it seemed to be the slowest in the
world.
What would Marigold think of his long absence? He had once or twice
thought of telegraphing to her from Mogador, or from Brest, where they
had touched, but he had deemed it best to return to her suddenly and
then wreak vengeance upon those who had so cleverly plotted to inveigle
him to that flat on that never-to-be-forgotten night.
Waterloo--the new station with its bustle and hurry! He sprang from the
carriage and took the next train back to Wimbledon and then on to
Wimbledon Park.
At last he halted before the neat little villa with its white painted
balcony, and knocked.
Marigold's sister opened the door.
"Good heavens!" she gasped. "Mr. Durrant, is it really you?"
"It is! I'm back again. Where is Marigold?"
"Come in," she said. "I-I-hardly know what to say. Marigold is--she's
not very well."
And then in a few brief words as he stood in the narrow hall she told
him of his beloved's sudden illness.
A second later he dashed upstairs, and then in silence, treading,
noiselessly, he advanced to the bedside of the delirious girl, who with
flushed face was calling for "her Gerald."
Tenderly he placed his cool hand upon her brow.
"But surely she will live!" he cried in blank despair.
"The doctor has grave doubts," her sister replied. "She had such deep
and constant anxiety regarding your absence, Mr. Durrant, that her
constitution has become undermined. And now she has caught this
terrible chill which has developed into acute pneumonia."
"But people get over pneumonia!" he exclaimed. "Surely Marigold will
recover."
"The doctor told me this morning that the malady is of the most virulent
type. There are few recoveries."
"Few recoveries!" he echoed, while at the same time the poor girl was
murmuring something incoherent regarding "Gerald."
"Yes. He said that if she got well again it could be only by a miracle.
The serum might do its work, but--well, Mr. Durrant, I must tell you
what he really said--he told me that he regarded the case as hopeless.
The crisis will be the day after to-morrow."
"The day after to-morrow," he said. "And she will not recognise me till
then!"
All that the poor fellow had been through--the tortures and horrors of
that bondage in which everyone believed him to be mentally
irresponsible--were as nothing. He loved Marigold Ramsay with the whole
strength of his gallant manhood. His soul was hers. They were
soul-mates, and yet she was slowly slipping away from him just at the
moment of his return and his intended triumph.
Her sister led him downstairs. In the modest, well-kept little
dining-room below they had a further conversation.
"She was, of course, from time to time reassured by your telegrams. By
them she knew that you were alive. And they renewed her hope that you
would return."
"Telegrams!" echoed the man, who looked more like an unkempt tramp than
a business man. "I sent no telegrams! What do you mean, Mrs. Baynard?"
"Why, the messages you sent. She has them all in her handbag."
"But I was unable to communicate with her. I was declared to be mad,
and was sent upon a sea voyage for the benefit of my health. I now know
that it was for the benefit of Bernard Boyne!"
"I'll get her bag and show you. Marigold has kept them all," her sister
said, and she left the room for a few moments, returning with the dying
girl's black silk vanity bag, from which she drew several telegrams
carefully folded.
These he opened and examined, standing aghast as he read them.
"Why! I never sent a single one of them!" he said. "They're all
forgeries!"
"What?" cried Marigold's sister and Hetty in one breath--for her
sister-in-law had entered the room and greeted the man who had returned.
"I tell you I never sent any message to her," he said. "Somebody has
done this. Who?"
"Who can it be?" asked Hetty.
"I think I know," replied Gerald in a hard voice. "If I am not mistaken
my enemies have been revenged upon me."
"Enemies! What enemies?" asked Marigold's sister. "Surely you have no
enemies. I'm sure Marigold hasn't."
"Wait and we shall discover the truth," said the young man. "Marigold
must get well. I have certain questions to put to her. She can tell us
much that is still mysterious concerning Mr. Boyne."
Hetty looked him full in the face and said:
"Jack, my husband, was over at Hammersmith two days ago. The place is
all boarded up."
"What place?"
"Mr. Boyne's house in Bridge Place. There's been a fire there, and all
the upper part has been burned out. Marigold was staying with her aunt
that night, and they both escaped just in the nick of time."
"Repeat that," he said, half dazed.
Hetty repeated what she had said.
"Ah! So the place has been burnt up, has it? That's more than curious,
isn't it?"
"Why?"
"Because of the mystery surrounding that man Boyne," he said.
"Marigold ten days ago said that she didn't believe that Mr. Boyne was
as honest and sincere as people believed, but really, I have never taken
any notice of her suspicions. We all of us suspect one of our friends."
"Marigold spoke the truth! I agree entirely with her. There are
certain facts--facts which I have established--which show that this man
Boyne--most modest of men--is an adventurer of a new and very
extraordinary type. He is engaged in some game that is very sly, and by
which he somehow enriches himself by very considerable sums."
Gerald Durrant an hour later went up to Waterloo and on to Hammersmith,
where in the evening he stood before the boarded-up ruins of the fire.
He saw that the top floor had been destroyed.
"So the secret of that top room has been wiped out," he remarked to
himself. "Why? Did Boyne suspect us of prying? If he did, then what
more likely than he should put his slow, but far-reaching, fingers upon
us both. That I should have been drugged and placed on board a ship
bound for the other side of the world, and branded as a semi-lunatic, is
only what one might expect of such a master-brain!"
At a public-house in King Street, a few doors from the end of Bridge
Place, he got into conversation with the landlord, who told him of the
events of that night when the house caught fire.
"It's an awful thing for poor old Boyne," he added. "Although he is an
insurance agent, it seems that, though he insured other people, he never
insured himself. So he's ruined--so he told Mr. Dale, the corndealer in
Chiswick High Road, a week ago."
Gerald smiled but said nothing. His thoughts were upon the hooded
recluse who lived on the top floor of that dingy house. What could have
been the real secret of that obscure abode?
A few other inquiries led him to the sombre house with smoke-grimed
curtains where deaf old Mrs. Felmore had taken refuge, a few doors from
the smoke-blackened, half-destroyed house.
As he sat with the old woman he spoke to her with difficulty, moving his
lips slowly.
"Yes," replied the old woman in her high-pitched voice, for all the deaf
speak loudly. "It is all very curious--most curious! They've never
found out how it caught fire."
From Bridge Place Gerald walked direct to the Hammersmith police-station
and, demanding to see someone in authority, was ushered upstairs to that
same room into which Marigold had been shown, and there sat the same
detective-inspector, rosy-faced, quiet and affable.
He listened to the roughly-clad young man's story, until presently he
said:
"Oh, you are Gerald Durrant, are you?"
"Yes," was his visitor's astonished reply. "Why?"
"Well, we had a young lady inquiring about you a little while ago. She
said you were missing, and asked us to make inquiry. But as you had
wired to her several times we considered that you had gone off on your
own account."
"Was Marigold here?" he asked, surprised.
"Yes, she came one night and told us of your disappearance. Where have
you been?"
"Abroad. I only returned to-day."
"That's what I told the young lady. You promised in your telegrams to
come back."
"But I never sent any telegrams; they were all forged."
The detective regarded him steadily and with an air of doubt.
"Then why did you go away? What was your motive in frightening the poor
girl?" he asked.
"I went involuntarily. I--well, I suppose I must have been drugged and
put on board a ship at Hull."
"H'm! What ship?"
Gerald gave the name of the ship and of its captain, which the detective
scribbled down.
"Yes. You'd better tell me the whole of your story. It seems rather a
curious one."
"It is," declared Durrant, and he proceeded to describe what happened on
that fateful night when he met the two ladies in distress outside
Kensington Gardens.
The detective listened attentively, but noting Gerald's unkempt
appearance and rough dress, together with his excited manner, he came to
the conclusion that what he was relating was a mere exaggerated tale
concocted with some ulterior motive, which to him was not apparent.
At last, when Durrant began to describe Bernard Boyne's strange doings
in Bridge Place, the inspector interrupted him.
"The house has been burned, as I dare say you know."
"Yes," replied Gerald vehemently, "purposely burned for two reasons.
First, to destroy evidence of whatever was contained in that upstairs
room, together with its occupant----"
"Then you think someone lived up there--eh?"
"I feel absolutely sure of it."
"You only believe it," said the officer. And after a pause he asked:
"And what was the second motive?"
"To get rid of Miss Ramsay--for that night, after visiting you, she went
back and slept there in order to keep her aunt company."
The detective smiled. Then, after a pause, he said:
"Mr. Boyne is very well-known and popular in Hammersmith, you know.
Everyone has a good word for him. He is honest, hard-working, and often
shows great kindness to poor people whose insurance policies would lapse
if he did not help them over the stile. No, Mr. Durrant; Bernard Boyne
is certainly not the daring and relentless criminal you are trying to
make him out. Indeed, I hear that, by the fire at his house, he's lost
nearly all he possessed. He wasn't insured."
"Why is it that by day he collects insurance premiums here, and yet at
night puts on an evening suit and dines at the most expensive
restaurants in the West End?" demanded Gerald, furious that his story
was being dismissed by the police.
"Ah! He may have some motive. Many men who earn their money in a hard
manner by day go into the West End at night dressed as gentlemen. He may
have some motive. He may have some rich clients, for all we know."
"I see you are dubious of the whole affair!" exclaimed Gerald. "I've
only come here to tell you what I know."
"And I thank you for coming," replied the detective. "But we cannot act
upon your mere suspicions. You must bring us something more tangible
than that before we institute inquiries. I regret it," he added; "but
we cannot help you. If you had any direct evidence of incendiarism it
would be different."
And, thus dismissed, Gerald Durrant descended the stairs with heavy
heart and hopeless foreboding, and walking out, made his way back to
Wimbledon Park, where Marigold lay dying.
*CHAPTER XXVIII*
*AT THE WINDOW*
On that same afternoon the Red Widow was seated with Boyne in Lilla's
pretty drawing-room in Pont Street.
She had come there hurriedly in response to a telephone message from
Boyne's wife, and they were now holding a council of war to decide upon
their actions in future.
"The only danger that can possibly threaten us is that infernal French
girl and her lover," Boyne assured them, as he leaned back lazily in a
silken easy chair, and puffed at his cigarette. He was smartly dressed
with a white slip in his waistcoat, fawn spats, and patent leather
shoes. "At the present moment they hold their tongues in the hope of
squeezing more money from us. Meanwhile we shall collect the sum
assured upon dear Augusta, and quietly leave England for a little while.
A pity the sum is not larger," he added.
"I was only thinking the same the other day," said Ena. "But how about
that girl Ramsay?"
"Oh, the end ought to be to-day, or at least to-morrow. I've made
secret inquiries in Wimbledon Park, and I hear that the doctor gave her
up a day or so ago," he said grimly.
"That will be another distinct peril removed," remarked Lilla. "It
serves the girl right for being too inquisitive."
"And the man Durrant cannot be back yet, eh?" asked Ena.