BY WIRELESS
A month had gone by--for Sibell a month of dark anxiety, shattered
hopes, a terrible blank despair, which had shattered her nerves, poor
child.
Constant appeals made to Brinsley had exacted nought, for he had
refused to see her; all her explanatory letters had been returned
unopened, which added to her despondency. A dozen times she had been
to Golder’s Green, but he had always been “out”; frantic telegrams had
had no effect in inducing him to grant her even a moment’s interview.
He had cut her out of his life.
Moyna Lascelles, sniggering and artificial after expressions of
regret, had gone to Yorkshire on a visit to a mythical cousin, while
Gussie Gretton, to whom Sibell wrote telling him of the tragic
_dénouement_ of the incident of the ring, had come quickly to her
side, apologizing most deeply, and trying to console her.
Old Gordon Routh, in whom his ward was compelled to confide, extended
to her his deepest sympathy, and made pretence of writing himself
strongly to Otway.
The girl’s lover, who had been so devoted, remained obdurate. He had
heeded that secret warning sent to him anonymously by one of Etta’s
friends. He had watched the girl enter Gretton’s room, and, with the
hotel valet, had stood concealed outside for over half-an-hour, when
he had caught her creeping back in her nightdress. What further proof
of her infidelity was wanted? He had watched with his own eyes, and,
consumed by most intense hatred for his rival, he would listen to no
extenuating circumstance or excuse.
Little did the poor fellow know of the deep and dastardly conspiracy
on the part of Etta Wyndcliffe and the man Ashe, or that long ago
Gussie Gretton had made the ex-decoy of trans-Atlantic card sharpers a
firm offer of five thousand or more on the day he married Sibell.
The girl had come into money, but that made the sensuous
man-about-town all the more keen, and he had increased his commission.
Therefore it was not surprising that old Routh, suspecting the truth
of the secret arrangement with Etta, welcomed him to Cookham in order
that he should make pretence of sympathy and perhaps bring off the
coup.
Sibell hated the fellow the more she saw of him. Her dire position was
entirely due to him. One afternoon, as he sat in the little cottage
drawing-room, she told him so. Coward that he was, he at once placed
the onus upon her, declaring that it was her fault alone that she had
gone to his room at that hour, when she might have so easily waited
till the morning.
“By the way,” he asked suddenly, “how long have you known that gay
young friend of yours, Moyna?”
“Marigold Ibbetson, an old schoolfellow of mine at Cheltenham,
introduced her to me at Cannes. She was with a friend of
Brinsley’s--an air-pilot named Cranston.”
The tall man, who sat back in the easy-chair with his long legs
crossed before the fire, grunted. A strange thought had arisen in his
mind. He had never told Sibell the truth, that on the day he had met
her at the Cecil he had received a mysterious telegram signed
“Richard,” telling him that if he stayed at the hotel in question that
night he would meet Sibell and a girl friend who were both at a loose
end.
Upon that message he had acted. He was now wondering who his friend
“Richard” might be. He knew many men by that name, and one day he
would no doubt discover the identity of the giver of such welcome
news.
“Why do you ask about Moyna?” inquired the girl, noticing that he
seemed very preoccupied.
Then, of a sudden, and for the first time, those words of the masked
cavalier at Gurnigel, who had uttered that strange warning, recurred
to her.
“Nothing,” he replied. “I merely wondered whether you knew her very
well.”
“It was all a sinister plot!” cried Sibell next moment, starting to
her feet wildly and pushing back her fair hair. “I see it all, now!--a
plot to part Brinsley from me! I was warned--and yet, I never heeded
it. I’ve been an absolute fool!”
“A plot, my dear Sibell! How could it be?” he asked in surprise, also
springing to his feet.
“It was--my God, it was! I was ignorant, but my enemies took advantage
of my innocence, and have brought all this to me! That man who warned
me,” she added. “Oh, if I only could know who he is!” And she wrung
her hands in desperation.
“What man? Dear child, do tell me. Even if you hate me, confide in me.
We’ve been friends for a good many years, haven’t we?”
“A--a man who warned me of the plot. And I’ve been blind to it--blind
until this moment.”
“Well, at least tell me how you received the warning,” Gretton begged
of her.
She stood against a chair, swaying to and fro, for at that moment she
had become half hysterical, and in a few brief sentences related to
him what had happened at the gay masked ball at the winter sports, and
the sudden disappearance of her gallant cavalier.
Gretton questioned her closely, but she knew nothing more than what
has already been related in these pages.
“But if there was a plot, how could that stranger possibly know?”
queried Gretton reflectively. “And, further, why should there be any
plot? If you fell in love with young Otway, that is surely your own
affair, and his. I admit, my dearest Sibell, that for a long time I’ve
been very fond of you, and I am still, but surely you don’t suspect me
of having any hand in any plot?”
“Oh, I can’t think! I can’t act--now that I have lost Brin!” cried the
white-faced girl in despair. “I have come into an inheritance which is
accursed. Yes, trebly accursed! Of that I am now confident!”
“How?” he asked.
“Is there not a curse placed upon the Guest House--a curse of many
years ago, probably in the days of Cardinal Wolsey? I am doomed to
live there, and my life wrecked! I hate the very name of the place
after all the terrible things that have happened there. And yet--yet,
if I do not live in that awful place, I lose my inheritance!”
Augustus Gretton, his countenance heavy and thoughtful, crossed the
room and looked gloomily out upon the small garden, with its early
spring flowers discernible in the dusk, and the grey chill river
beyond.
He was bewildered, perhaps for the first time in his hectic life. He
was indeed quiet, seeing light through the cloud of mystery, for he
recollected that Satanic bargain he had made with Sibell’s aunt, the
dance fiend who was a peeress, the bargain which had been raised to
twenty thousand pounds if he married her. He had offered a price for
the girl’s body, as an Arab sheik would offer, because he was wealthy,
and his money could buy all that he desired in the wealth-eager world
of London, wherein religion is to-day surely a mockery, and morals a
ridiculous farce with the curtains drawn down.
“I--I can’t bear you any more, Gussie--please forgive me,” the frantic
girl said, suddenly putting her hands upon his shoulder. “Do go. I beg
of you. If you were a girl you’d know. You are my friend, so you’ll go
and leave me to think. My God! I’d rather drown myself in the river
down there beyond the lawn than carry on any further. I--I’m
desperate! Don’t you see? We were both of us fools, Gussie--idiotic
fools. But I mean to discover who engineered us both into this plight
of which that mysterious man, the cavalier, warned me, a thousand
miles away,” she added determinedly.
“Then you will really forgive me?” said the man, with a true
expression of sympathy. “Do regard me, Sibell, not as the horrible hog
you think me. I’m sorry, awfully sorry that I kissed you in my room,
but--but really you were so sweet and charming that you were
irresistible. And, after all, you never kissed me--you never have.”
“What can I say?” replied the distracted girl, who stood before him in
her smart golfing kit.
“Only say, Sibell, that you forgive me, and let’s cry quits,” the man
said earnestly in a low, persuasive voice.
“Quits! And then?” asked the girl, for she was of strong and
determined will, a fact that her aunt, Etta Wyndcliffe, the seller of
souls, had never realized. The woman, adventuress as she was, had
merely regarded her as a very pretty, fair-haired débutante, to be
sold in the marriage market to the highest bidder, with of course big
profit to herself, just as she had sold others, and as she had decided
with the old hunchback guardian, Routh, beside that calm sea upon
those Belgian dunes in the previous summer.
That same afternoon, as Sibell, in the fast-falling dusk, sat with the
rich, thick-lipped sensualist who coveted her, a strange, tragic scene
was in progress in mid-Atlantic, where in the aftermath of a sudden
storm the sea ran high, causing the great liner on its way from
Southampton to New York to roll heavily.
The captain, a thick-set, round-faced, cheery man, was having his tea
alone in his cabin, as was his wont, when the ship’s doctor suddenly
entered.
“Have a cup, Dayne?” asked the well-known Atlantic commander. “We’re
in for another spell, I think.”
The doctor, a sharp-featured, narrow-faced, black-moustached man, who
had been on the _Ciceronic_ for five years, sank into the other
chintz-covered chair set before the fire and, with a word of thanks,
said:
“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid there’s to be a death on board.”
“A death! That’s unfortunate. A passenger?”
“Yes, sir. A Mr. Rupert Kimball, United States subject of St. Louis.
He was quite well on the first day out. Has a lady friend on board--a
Mrs. Wilcox. Took ill last night with heart, and I’m afraid he won’t
last very long.”
“Any relatives to wireless to?” asked the captain sharply, pouring out
the doctor’s tea.
“I believe the lady is sending a message.”
“Will he last till we get over?” asked the captain, who, like all
seafaring men, hated a death on the voyage. He had a caul on board in
secret, as all men do who go down to the sea in ships. The secret caul
is supposed to give sailors immunity from disaster, even though a
corpse be carried to port. Yet they never speak about it.
“I don’t know. The poor chap seems to be in the last stage of angina,
and of course in such condition one can never tell.”
“Bad luck, doc,” said the captain, filling his big briar pipe, for at
that hour he always indulged in a smoke privately. It was the one hour
of the whole long day which he held sacred to himself, sacred from
passengers, worries, or official complaints. In that daily tea-hour he
became master of himself, as well as of the great thirty-thousand
tonner which carried the mails so regularly between Southampton and
New York. That was his one hour’s leisure in the day’s run.
Both he and the doctor were near neighbors and lived with their wives
in Southampton, and naturally began to chat about home affairs, when
of a sudden there came a knock at the cabin door, and the head purser
entered, saying:
“Sorry, sir. May I speak a moment with you, doctor?”
Dayne rose instantly, swallowed the tea the captain had poured out,
and walked unsteadily outside, for the ship was rolling heavily.
“I’m afraid that gentleman, Mr. Kimball, is very bad,” said the man in
uniform with a strong American accent. “The lady has just sent for
you. She says he’s dying!”
The ship’s doctor, hurrying along the deck, swiftly descended to the
sick man’s stateroom, where he found the dark-eyed, well-dressed woman
standing beside her sick friend’s bed, as she had done for the past
forty hours.
“I believe poor Rupert is dead!” she whispered, her face blanched and
staring. “A few moments ago he raised himself with a great effort and
insisted upon kissing me. Then fell back--and I’m afraid he’s gone!”
And, unable to control herself, she burst into a torrent of tears.
It did not take Dr. Dayne long to ascertain the truth. Rupert Kimball
was dead. He had succumbed to heart disease!
Tenderly, after making certain that life no longer existed, he drew
the sheet across the dead man’s face, and then led the deceased’s
friend silently from that little white enamelled stateroom, with its
narrow brass bed.
The woman staggered away, but he, turning the other way, did not
observe that the look on her face was more of horror than of distress.
Half an hour later the wireless operator tapped out a message to an
address at St. Louis in the United States, announcing the sudden death
of the passenger, but the truth was kept from everyone on board at the
captain’s request to Mrs. Wilcox, therefore dinner and dancing
proceeded, with the usual nightly gaiety, as it ever does on a
trans-Atlantic liner.
Etta Wyndcliffe dared not venture into the saloon, but commanded her
meal to be brought to her in her cabin, where alone she sat, her mouth
half-open, staring at her closed porthole, in front of which that
little silken curtain of pale-green swayed with the ship’s roll.
“I wonder! I wonder!” she whispered to herself in a low voice, scarce
above a whisper. She had not dressed for dinner, and passed the
tempting dishes untouched. The man who had come between herself and
fortune lay dead in the stateroom above.
Albert Ashe was anxiously awaiting news. She knew he was waiting for
the result of their clever scheme, the removal of their enemy by means
which should leave no trace.
She pretended to eat, and then at last, after the sweets were served,
she rose and placed both hands into her hair in desperation.
“Yes!” she cried aloud hoarsely. “I must arouse no suspicion. I must
remain calm! I must play my part as his friend--yes, play it to the
end.”
So, putting on her coat, she left her cabin and ascended to the
wireless office, where the young operator sat with the telephones upon
his ears.
He smiled, and, removing one of the ’phones from his ear, heard her
say in a low, tremulous voice.
“I--I want to send a very urgent message.”
“Yes, madam,” replied the polite young Marconi operator in uniform,
indicating the desk and pad of forms.
Upon one she wrote a message which she addressed to:
“Thomas, Regent Palace Hotel, London. Poor Rupert has died suddenly
from heart disease. Am desolate. Inform mother. Have wired St.
Louis.--Wilcox.”
And within a few minutes the operator, with his hand upon his key,
tapped out the anxiously awaited news to Albert Ashe, who was
purposely at the hotel in question under the name of Sidney Thomas.
The sinister plot of the Guest House and its weird influence was
perhaps unequalled in the annals of the world’s crimes.
Only Etta and her accomplice knew. The truth was on the day before she
and Rupert Kimball sailed, she had, still posing as Mrs. Wilcox, hired
a car from a garage and driven her unwanted friend down to Hampton
Court, taking him, out of curiosity, to the Guest House, about which
there had been so much gossip.
Previously she had related to him the strange stories, and gave him to
read the article in the _Richmond and Twickenham Times_. It had
intrigued him; hence their visit there.
They passed through the house by permission of the foreman of the
decorators, and his only comment was:
“Well, it seems a very charming old house for any newly-married couple
to live in. That blue and grey scheme in the drawing-room is really
very artistic. An old house like this would be snapped up at a very
huge price in America, wouldn’t it? I’m glad to have seen it.”
Then, after remaining there half an hour, during which time they
visited all the rooms, they re-entered the hired car and drove back by
way of Kew and Hammersmith to London.
Poor fellow! Rupert Kimball, whatever might have been his past, never
in all his innocence dreamed of the poison shadows that had fallen
upon him--that mysterious evil which only five days later resulted in
his death from natural causes.