I had turned off from the Edgware Road into a street leading west, the
atmosphere of which had appealed to me. It was a place of quiet houses
standing behind little gardens. They had the usual names printed on
the stuccoed gateposts. The fading twilight was just sufficient to
enable one to read them. There was a Laburnum Villa, and The Cedars,
and a Cairngorm, rising to the height of three storeys, with a curious
little turret that branched out at the top, and was crowned with a
conical roof, so that it looked as if wearing a witch's hat.
Especially when two small windows just below the eaves sprang suddenly
into light, and gave one the feeling of a pair of wicked eyes suddenly
flashed upon one.
The street curved to the right, ending in an open space through which
passed a canal beneath a low arched bridge. There were still the same
quiet houses behind their small gardens, and I watched for a while the
lamplighter picking out the shape of the canal, that widened just above
the bridge into a lake with an island in the middle. After that I must
have wandered in a circle, for later on I found myself back in the same
spot, though I do not suppose I had passed a dozen people on my way;
and then I set to work to find my way back to Paddington.
I thought I had taken the road by which I had come, but the half light
must have deceived me. Not that it mattered. They had a lurking
mystery about them, these silent streets with their suggestion of
hushed movement behind drawn curtains, of whispered voices behind the
flimsy walls. Occasionally there would escape the sound of laughter,
suddenly stifled as it seemed, and once the sudden cry of a child.
It was in a short street of semi-detached villas facing a high blank
wall that, as I passed, I saw a blind move half-way up, revealing a
woman's face. A gas lamp, the only one the street possessed, was
nearly opposite. I thought at first it was the face of a girl, and
then, as I looked again, it might have been the face of an old woman.
One could not distinguish the colouring. In any case, the cold, blue
gaslight would have made it seem pallid.
The remarkable feature was the eyes. It might have been, of course,
that they alone caught the light and held it, rendering them uncannily
large and brilliant. Or it might have been that the rest of the face
was small and delicate, out of all proportion to them. She may have
seen me, for the blind was drawn down again, and I passed on.
There was no particular reason why, but the incident lingered with me.
The sudden raising of the blind, as of the curtain of some small
theatre, the barely furnished room coming dimly into view, and the
woman standing there, close to the footlights, as to my fancy it
seemed. And then the sudden ringing down of the curtain before the
play had begun. I turned at the corner of the street. The blind had
been drawn up again, and I saw again the slight, girlish figure
silhouetted against the side panes of the bow window.
At the same moment a man knocked up against me. It was not his fault.
I had stopped abruptly, not giving him time to avoid me. We both
apologised, blaming the darkness. It may have been my fancy, but I had
the feeling that, instead of going on his way, he had turned and was
following me. I waited till the next corner, and then swung round on
my heel. But there was no sign of him, and after a while I found
myself back in the Edgware Road.
Once or twice, in idle mood, I sought the street again, but without
success; and the thing would, I expect, have faded from my memory, but
that one evening, on my way home from Paddington, I came across the
woman in the Harrow Road. There was no mistaking her. She almost
touched me as she came out of a fishmonger's shop, and unconsciously,
at the beginning, I found myself following her. This time I noticed
the turnings, and five minutes' walking brought us to the street. Half
a dozen times I must have been within a hundred yards of it. I
lingered at the corner. She had not noticed me, and just as she
reached the house a man came out of the shadows beyond the lamp-post
and joined her.
I was due at a bachelor gathering that evening, and after dinner, the
affair being fresh in my mind, I talked about it. I am not sure, but I
think it was in connection with a discussion on Maeterlinck. It was
that sudden lifting of the blind that had caught hold of me. As if,
blundering into an empty theatre, I had caught a glimpse of some drama
being played in secret. We passed to other topics, and when I was
leaving a fellow guest asked me which way I was going. I told him,
and, it being a fine night, he proposed that we should walk together.
And in the quiet of Harley Street he confessed that his desire had not
been entirely the pleasure of my company.
"It is rather curious," he said, "but today there suddenly came to my
remembrance a case that for nearly eleven years I have never given a
thought to. And now, on top of it, comes your description of that
woman's face. I am wondering if it can be the same."
"It was the eyes," I said, "that struck me as so remarkable."
"It was the eyes that I chiefly remember her by," he replied. "Would
you know the street again?"
We walked a little while in silence.
"It may seem, perhaps, odd to you," I answered, "but it would trouble
me, the idea of any harm coming to her through me. What was the case?"
"You can feel quite safe on that point," he assured me. "I was her
counsel--that is, if it is the same woman. How was she dressed?"
I could not see the reason for his question. He could hardly expect
her to be wearing the clothes of eleven years ago.
"I don't think I noticed," I answered. "Some sort of a blouse, I
suppose." And then I recollected. "Ah, yes, there was something
uncommon," I added. "An unusually broad band of velvet, it looked
like, round her neck."
"I thought so," he said. "Yes. It must be the same."
We had reached Marylebone Road, where our ways parted.
"I will look you up to-morrow afternoon, if I may," he said. "We might
take a stroll round together."
He called on me about half-past five, and we reached the street just as
the one solitary gas-lamp had been lighted. I pointed out the house to
him, and he crossed over and looked at the number.
"Quite right," he said, on returning. "I made inquiries this morning.
She was released six weeks ago on ticket-of-leave."
He took my arm.
"Not much use hanging about," he said. "The blind won't go up
to-night. Rather a clever idea, selecting a house just opposite a
lamp-post."
He had an engagement that evening; but later on he told me the
story--that is, so far as he then knew it.
* * *
It was in the early days of the garden suburb movement. One of the
first sites chosen was off the Finchley Road. The place was in the
building, and one of the streets--Laleham Gardens--had only some half a
dozen houses in it, all unoccupied save one. It was a lonely, loose
end of the suburb, terminating suddenly in open fields. From the
unfinished end of the road the ground sloped down somewhat steeply to a
pond, and beyond that began a small wood. The one house occupied had
been bought by a young married couple named Hepworth.
The husband was a good-looking, pleasant young fellow. Being
clean-shaven, his exact age was difficult to judge. The wife, it was
quite evident, was little more than a girl. About the man there was a
suggestion of weakness. At least, that was the impression left on the
mind of the house-agent. To-day he would decide, and to-morrow he
changed his mind. Jetson, the agent, had almost given up hope of
bringing off a deal. In the end it was Mrs. Hepworth who, taking the
matter into her own hands, fixed upon the house in Laleham Gardens.
Young Hepworth found fault with it on the ground of its isolation. He
himself was often away for days at a time, travelling on business, and
was afraid she would be nervous. He had been very persistent on this
point; but in whispered conversations she had persuaded him out of his
objection. It was one of those pretty, fussy little houses; and it
seemed to have taken her fancy. Added to which, according to her
argument, it was just within their means, which none of the others
were. Young Hepworth may have given the usual references, but if so
they were never taken up. The house was sold on the company's usual
terms. The deposit was paid by a cheque, which was duly cleared, and
the house itself was security for the rest. The company's solicitor,
with Hepworth's consent, acted for both parties.
It was early in June when the Hepworths moved in. They furnished only
one bedroom; and kept no servant, a charwoman coming in every morning
and going away about six in the evening. Jetson was their nearest
neighbour. His wife and daughters called on them, and confess to have
taken a liking to them both. Indeed, between one of the Jetson girls,
the youngest, and Mrs. Hepworth there seems to have sprung up a close
friendship. Young Hepworth, the husband, was always charming, and
evidently took great pains to make himself agreeable. But with regard
to him they had the feeling that he was never altogether at his ease.
They described him--though that, of course, was after the event--as
having left upon them the impression of a haunted man.
There was one occasion in particular. It was about ten o'clock. The
Jetsons had been spending the evening with the Hepworths, and were just
on the point of leaving, when there came a sudden, clear knock at the
door. It turned out to be Jetson's foreman, who had to leave by an
early train in the morning, and had found that he needed some further
instructions. But the terror in Hepworth's face was unmistakable. He
had turned a look towards his wife that was almost of despair; and it
had seemed to the Jetsons--or, talking it over afterwards, they may
have suggested the idea to each other--that there came a flash of
contempt into her eyes, though it yielded the next instant to an
expression of pity. She had risen, and already moved some steps
towards the door, when young Hepworth had stopped her, and gone out
himself. But the curious thing was that, according to the foreman's
account, Hepworth never opened the front door, but came upon him
stealthily from behind. He must have slipped out by the back and crept
round the house.
The incident had puzzled the Jetsons, especially that involuntary flash
of contempt that had come into Mrs. Hepworth's eyes. She had always
appeared to adore her husband, and of the two, if possible, to be the
one most in love with the other. They had no friends or acquaintances
except the Jetsons. No one else among their neighbours had taken the
trouble to call on them, and no stranger to the suburb had, so far as
was known, ever been seen in Laleham Gardens.
Until one evening a little before Christmas.
Jetson was on his way home from his office in the Finchley Road. There
had been a mist hanging about all day, and with nightfall it had
settled down into a whitish fog. Soon after leaving the Finchley Road,
Jetson noticed in front of him a man wearing a long, yellow mackintosh,
and some sort of soft felt hat. He gave Jetson the idea of being a
sailor; it may have been merely the stiff, serviceable mackintosh. At
the corner of Laleham Gardens the man turned, and glanced up at the
name upon the lamp-post, so that Jetson had a full view of him.
Evidently it was the street for which he was looking. Jetson, somewhat
curious, the Hepworths' house being still the only one occupied, paused
at the corner, and watched. The Hepworths' house was, of course, the
only one in the road that showed any light. The man, when he came to
the gate, struck a match for the purpose of reading the number.
Satisfied it was the house he wanted, he pushed open the gate and went
up the path.
But, instead of using the bell or knocker, Jetson was surprised to hear
him give three raps on the door with his stick. There was no answer,
and Jetson, whose interest was now thoroughly aroused, crossed to the
other corner, from where he could command a better view. Twice the man
repeated his three raps on the door, each time a little louder, and the
third time the door was opened. Jetson could not tell by whom, for
whoever it was kept behind it.
He could just see one wall of the passage, with a pair of old naval
cutlasses crossed above the picture of a three-masted schooner that he
knew hung there. The door was opened just sufficient, and the man
slipped in, and the door was closed behind him. Jetson had turned to
continue his way, when the fancy seized him to give one glance back.
The house was in complete darkness, though a moment before Jetson was
positive there had been a light in the ground floor window.
It all sounded very important afterwards, but at the time there was
nothing to suggest to Jetson anything very much out of the common.
Because for six months no friend or relation had called to see them,
that was no reason why one never should. In the fog, a stranger may
have thought it simpler to knock at the door with his stick than to
fumble in search of a bell. The Hepworths lived chiefly in the room at
the back. The light in the drawing-room may have been switched off for
economy's sake. Jetson recounted the incident on reaching home, not as
anything remarkable, but just as one mentions an item of gossip. The
only one who appears to have attached any meaning to the affair was
Jetson's youngest daughter, then a girl of eighteen. She asked one or
two questions about the man, and, during the evening, slipped out by
herself and ran round to the Hepworths. She found the house empty. At
all events, she could obtain no answer, and the place, back and front,
seemed to her to be uncannily silent.
Jetson called the next morning, something of his daughter's uneasiness
having communicated itself to him. Mrs. Hepworth herself opened the
door to him. In his evidence at the trial, Jetson admitted that her
appearance had startled him. She seems to have anticipated his
questions by at once explaining that she had had news of an unpleasant
nature, and had been worrying over it all night. Her husband had been
called away suddenly to America, where it would be necessary for her to
join him as soon as possible. She would come round to Jetson's office
later in the day to make arrangements about getting rid of the house
and furniture.
The story seemed to reasonably account for the stranger's visit, and
Jetson, expressing his sympathy and promising all help in his power,
continued his way to the office. She called in the afternoon and
handed him over the keys, retaining one for herself. She wished the
furniture to be sold by auction, and he was to accept almost any offer
for the house. She would try and see him again before sailing; if not,
she would write him with her address. She was perfectly cool and
collected. She had called on his wife and daughters in the afternoon,
and had wished them good-bye.
Outside Jetson's office she hailed a cab, and returned in it to Laleham
Gardens to collect her boxes. The next time Jetson saw her she was in
the dock, charged with being an accomplice in the murder of her husband.
* * *
The body had been discovered in a pond some hundred yards from the
unfinished end of Laleham Gardens. A house was in course of erection
on a neighbouring plot, and a workman, in dipping up a pail of water,
had dropped in his watch. He and his mate, worrying round with a rake,
had drawn up pieces of torn clothing, and this, of course, had led to
the pond being properly dragged. Otherwise the discovery might never
have been made.
The body, heavily weighted with a number of flat-irons fastened to it
by a chain and padlock, had sunk deep into the soft mud, and might have
remained there till it rotted. A valuable gold repeater, that Jetson
remembered young Hepworth having told him had been a presentation to
his father, was in its usual pocket, and a cameo ring that Hepworth had
always worn on his third finger was likewise fished up from the mud.
Evidently the murder belonged to the category of crimes passionel. The
theory of the prosecution was that it had been committed by a man who,
before her marriage, had been Mrs. Hepworth's lover.
The evidence, contrasted with the almost spiritually beautiful face of
the woman in the dock, came as a surprise to everyone in court.
Originally connected with an English circus troupe touring in Holland,
she appears, about seventeen, to have been engaged as a "song and dance
artiste" at a particularly shady cafe chantant in Rotterdam, frequented
chiefly by sailors. From there a man, an English sailor known as
Charlie Martin, took her away, and for some months she had lived with
him at a small estaminet the other side of the river. Later, they left
Rotterdam and came to London, where they took lodgings in Poplar, near
to the docks.
It was from this address in Poplar that, some ten months before the
murder, she had married young Hepworth. What had become of Martin was
not known. The natural assumption was that, his money being exhausted,
he had returned to his calling, though his name, for some reason, could
not be found in any ship's list.
That he was one and the same with the man that Jetson had watched till
the door of the Hepworths' house had closed upon him there could be no
doubt. Jetson described him as a thick-set, handsome-looking man, with
a reddish beard and moustache. Earlier in the day he had been seen at
Hampstead, where he had dined at a small coffee-shop in the High
Street. The girl who had waited on him had also been struck by the
bold, piercing eyes and the curly red beard. It had been an off-time,
between two and three, when he had dined there, and the girl admitted
that she had found him a "pleasant-spoken gentleman," and "inclined to
be merry." He had told her that he had arrived in England only three
days ago, and that he hoped that evening to see his sweetheart. He had
accompanied the words with a laugh, and the girl thought--though, of
course, this may have been after-suggestion--that an ugly look followed
the laugh.
One imagines that it was this man's return that had been the fear
constantly haunting young Hepworth. The three raps on the door, it was
urged by the prosecution, was a pre-arranged or pre-understood signal,
and the door had been opened by the woman. Whether the husband was in
the house, or whether they waited for him, could not be said. He had
been killed by a bullet entering through the back of the neck; the man
had evidently come prepared.
Ten days had elapsed between the murder and the finding of the body,
and the man was never traced. A postman had met him coming from the
neighbourhood of Laleham Gardens at about half-past nine. In the fog,
they had all but bumped into one another, and the man had immediately
turned away his face.
About the soft felt hat there was nothing to excite attention, but the
long, stiff, yellow mackintosh was quite unusual. The postman had
caught only a momentary glimpse of the face, but was certain it was
clean shaven. This made a sensation in court for the moment, but only
until the calling of the next witness. The charwoman usually employed
by the Hepworths had not been admitted to the house on the morning of
Mrs. Hepworth's departure. Mrs. Hepworth had met her at the door and
paid her a week's money in lieu of notice, explaining to her that she
would not be wanted any more. Jetson, thinking he might possibly do
better by letting the house furnished, had sent for this woman, and
instructed her to give the place a thorough cleaning. Sweeping the
carpet in the dining-room with a dustpan and brush, she had discovered
a number of short red hairs. The man, before leaving the house, had
shaved himself.
That he had still retained the long, yellow mackintosh may have been
with the idea of starting a false clue. Having served its purpose, it
could be discarded. The beard would not have been so easy. What
roundabout way he may have taken one cannot say, but it must have been
some time during the night or early morning that he reached young
Hepworth's office in Fenchurch Street. Mrs. Hepworth had evidently
provided him with the key.
There he seems to have hidden the hat and mackintosh and to have taken
in exchange some clothes belonging to the murdered man. Hepworth's
clerk, Ellenby, an elderly man--of the type that one generally
describes as of gentlemanly appearance--was accustomed to his master
being away unexpectedly on business, which was that of a ships'
furnisher. He always kept an overcoat and a bag ready packed in the
office. Missing them, Ellenby had assumed that his master had been
called away by an early train. He would have been worried after a few
days, but that he had received a telegram--as he then supposed from his
master--explaining that young Hepworth had gone to Ireland and would be
away for some days. It was nothing unusual for Hepworth to be absent,
superintending the furnishing of a ship, for a fortnight at a time, and
nothing had transpired in the office necessitating special
instructions. The telegram had been handed in at Charing Cross, but
the time chosen had been a busy period of the day, and no one had any
recollection of the sender. Hepworth's clerk unhesitatingly identified
the body as that of his employer, for whom it was evident that he had
entertained a feeling of affection. About Mrs. Hepworth he said as
little as he could. While she was awaiting her trial it had been
necessary for him to see her once or twice with reference to the
business. Previous to this, he knew nothing about her.
The woman's own attitude throughout the trial had been quite
unexplainable. Beyond agreeing to a formal plea of "Not guilty," she
had made no attempt to defend herself. What little assistance her
solicitors had obtained had been given them, not by the woman herself,
but by Hepworth's clerk, more for the sake of his dead master than out
of any sympathy towards the wife. She herself appeared utterly
indifferent. Only once had she been betrayed into a momentary emotion.
It was when her solicitors were urging her almost angrily to give them
some particulars upon a point they thought might be helpful to her case.
"He's dead!" she had cried out almost with a note of exultation. "Dead!
Dead! What else matters?"
The next moment she had apologised for her outburst.
"Nothing can do any good," she had said. "Let the thing take its
course."
It was the astounding callousness of the woman that told against her
both with the judge and the jury. That shaving in the dining-room, the
murdered man's body not yet cold! It must have been done with
Hepworth's safety-razor. She must have brought it down to him, found
him a looking-glass, brought him soap and water and a towel, afterwards
removing all traces. Except those few red hairs that had clung,
unnoticed, to the carpet. That nest of flat-irons used to weight the
body! It must have been she who had thought of them. The idea would
never have occurred to a man. The chain and padlock with which to
fasten them. She only could have known that such things were in the
house. It must have been she who had planned the exchange of clothes
in Hepworth's office, giving him the key. She it must have been who
had thought of the pond, holding open the door while the man had
staggered out under his ghastly burden; waited, keeping watch,
listening to hear the splash.
Evidently it had been her intention to go off with the murderer--to
live with him! That story about America. If all had gone well, it
would have accounted for everything. After leaving Laleham Gardens she
had taken lodgings in a small house in Kentish Town under the name of
Howard, giving herself out to be a chorus singer, her husband being an
actor on tour. To make the thing plausible, she had obtained
employment in one of the pantomimes. Not for a moment had she lost her
head. No one had ever called at her lodgings, and there had come no
letters for her. Every hour of her day could be accounted for. Their
plans must have been worked out over the corpse of her murdered
husband. She was found guilty of being an "accessory after the fact,"
and sentenced to fifteen years' penal servitude.
That brought the story up to eleven years ago. After the trial,
interested in spite of himself, my friend had ferreted out some further
particulars. Inquiries at Liverpool had procured him the information
that Hepworth's father, a shipowner in a small way, had been well known
and highly respected. He was retired from business when he died, some
three years previous to the date of the murder. His wife had survived
him by only a few months. Besides Michael, the murdered son, there
were two other children--an elder brother, who was thought to have gone
abroad to one of the colonies, and a sister who had married a French
naval officer. Either they had not heard of the case or had not wished
to have their names dragged into it. Young Michael had started life as
an architect, and was supposed to have been doing well, but after the
death of his parents had disappeared from the neighbourhood, and, until
the trial, none of his acquaintances up North ever knew what had become
of him.
But a further item of knowledge that my friend's inquiries had elicited
had somewhat puzzled him. Hepworth's clerk, Ellenby, had been the
confidential clerk of Hepworth's father! He had entered the service of
the firm as a boy; and when Hepworth senior retired, Ellenby--with the
old gentleman's assistance--had started in business for himself as a
ships' furnisher! Nothing of all this came out at the trial. Ellenby
had not been cross-examined. There was no need for it. But it seemed
odd, under all the circumstances, that he had not volunteered the
information. It may, of course, have been for the sake of the brother
and sister. Hepworth is a common enough name in the North. He may
have hoped to keep the family out of connection with the case.
As regards the woman, my friend could learn nothing further beyond the
fact that, in her contract with the music-hall agent in Rotterdam, she
had described herself as the daughter of an English musician, and had
stated that both her parents were dead. She may have engaged herself
without knowing the character of the hall, and the man, Charlie Martin,
with his handsome face and pleasing sailor ways, and at least an
Englishman, may have seemed to her a welcome escape.
She may have been passionately fond of him, and young Hepworth--crazy
about her, for she was beautiful enough to turn any man's head--may in
Martin's absence have lied to her, told her he was dead--lord knows
what!--to induce her to marry him. The murder may have seemed to her a
sort of grim justice.
But even so, her cold-blooded callousness was surely abnormal! She had
married him, lived with him for nearly a year. To the Jetsons she had
given the impression of being a woman deeply in love with her husband.
It could not have been mere acting kept up day after day.
"There was something else." We were discussing the case in my friend's
chambers. His brief of eleven years ago was open before him. He was
pacing up and down with his hands in his pockets, thinking as he
talked. "Something that never came out. There was a curious feeling
she gave me in that moment when sentence was pronounced upon her. It
was as if, instead of being condemned, she had triumphed. Acting! If
she had acted during the trial, pretended remorse, even pity, I could
have got her off with five years. She seemed to be unable to disguise
the absolute physical relief she felt at the thought that he was dead,
that his hand would never again touch her. There must have been
something that had suddenly been revealed to her, something that had
turned her love to hate.
"There must be something fine about the man, too." That was another
suggestion that came to him as he stood staring out of the window
across the river. "She's paid and has got her receipt, but he is still
'wanted.' He is risking his neck every evening he watches for the
raising of that blind."
His thought took another turn.
"Yet how could he have let her go through those ten years of living
death while he walked the streets scot free? Some time during the
trial--the evidence piling up against her day by day--why didn't he
come forward, if only to stand beside her? Get himself hanged, if only
out of mere decency?"
He sat down, took the brief up in his hand without looking at it.
"Or was that the reward that she claimed? That he should wait, keeping
alive the one hope that would make the suffering possible to her?
Yes," he continued, musing, "I can see a man who cared for a woman
taking that as his punishment."
Now that his interest in the case had been revived he seemed unable to
keep it out of his mind. Since our joint visit I had once or twice
passed through the street by myself, and on the last occasion had again
seen the raising of the blind. It obsessed him--the desire to meet the
man face to face. A handsome, bold, masterful man, he conceived him.
But there must be something more for such a woman to have sold her
soul--almost, one might say--for the sake of him.
There was just one chance of succeeding. Each time he had come from
the direction of the Edgware Road. By keeping well out of sight at the
other end of the street, and watching till he entered it, one might
time oneself to come upon him just under the lamp. He would hardly be
likely to turn and go back; that would be to give himself away. He
would probably content himself with pretending to be like ourselves,
merely hurrying through, and in his turn watching till we had
disappeared.
Fortune seemed inclined to favour us. About the usual time the blind
was gently raised, and very soon afterwards there came round the corner
the figure of a man. We entered the street ourselves a few seconds
later, and it seemed likely that, as we had planned, we should come
face to face with him under the gaslight. He walked towards us,
stooping and with bent head. We expected him to pass the house by. To
our surprise he stopped when he came to it, and pushed open the gate.
In another moment we should have lost all chance of seeing anything
more of him except his bent back. With a couple of strides my friend
was behind him. He laid his hand on the man's shoulder and forced him
to turn round. It was an old, wrinkled face with gentle, rather watery
eyes.
We were both so taken aback that for a moment we could say nothing. My
friend stammered out an apology about having mistaken the house, and
rejoined me. At the corner we burst out laughing almost
simultaneously. And then my friend suddenly stopped and stared at me.
"Hepworth's old clerk!" he said. "Ellenby!"
* * *
It seemed to him monstrous. The man had been more than a clerk. The
family had treated him as a friend. Hepworth's father had set him up
in business. For the murdered lad he had had a sincere attachment; he
had left that conviction on all of them. What was the meaning of it?
A directory was on the mantelpiece. It was the next afternoon. I had
called upon him in his chambers. It was just an idea that came to me.
I crossed over and opened it, and there was his name, "Ellenby and Co.,
Ships' Furnishers," in a court off the Minories.
Was he helping her for the sake of his dead master--trying to get her
away from the man. But why? The woman had stood by and watched the
lad murdered. How could he bear even to look on her again?
Unless there had been that something that had not come out--something
he had learnt later--that excused even that monstrous callousness of
hers.
Yet what could there be? It had all been so planned, so cold-blooded.
That shaving in the dining-room! It was that seemed most to stick in
his throat. She must have brought him down a looking-glass; there was
not one in the room. Why couldn't he have gone upstairs into the
bathroom, where Hepworth always shaved himself, where he would have
found everything to his hand?
He had been moving about the room, talking disjointedly as he paced,
and suddenly he stopped and looked at me.
"Why in the dining-room?" he demanded of me.
He was jingling some keys in his pocket. It was a habit of his when
cross-examining, and I felt as if somehow I knew; and, without
thinking--so it seemed to me--I answered him.
"Perhaps," I said, "it was easier to bring a razor down than to carry a
dead man up."
He leant with his arms across the table, his eyes glittering with
excitement.
"Can't you see it?" he said. "That little back parlour with its fussy
ornaments. The three of them standing round the table, Hepworth's
hands nervously clutching a chair. The reproaches, the taunts, the
threats. Young Hepworth--he struck everyone as a weak man, a man
physically afraid--white, stammering, not knowing which way to look.
The woman's eyes turning from one to the other. That flash of contempt
again--she could not help it--followed, worse still, by pity. If only
he could have answered back, held his own! If only he had not been
afraid! And then that fatal turning away with a sneering laugh one
imagines, the bold, dominating eyes no longer there to cower him.
"That must have been the moment. The bullet, if you remember, entered
through the back of the man's neck. Hepworth must always have been
picturing to himself this meeting--tenants of garden suburbs do not
carry loaded revolvers as a habit--dwelling upon it till he had worked
himself up into a frenzy of hate and fear. Weak men always fly to
extremes. If there was no other way, he would kill him.
"Can't you hear the silence? After the reverberations had died away!
And then they are both down on their knees, patting him, feeling for
his heart. The man must have gone down like a felled ox; there were no
traces of blood on the carpet. The house is far from any neighbour;
the shot in all probability has not been heard. If only they can get
rid of the body! The pond--not a hundred yards away!"
He reached for the brief, still lying among his papers; hurriedly
turned the scored pages.
"What easier? A house being built on the very next plot. Wheelbarrows
to be had for the taking. A line of planks reaching down to the edge.
Depth of water where the body was discovered four feet six inches.
Nothing to do but just tip up the barrow.
"Think a minute. Must weigh him down, lest he rise to accuse us;
weight him heavily, so that he will sink lower and lower into the soft
mud, lie there till he rots.
"Think again. Think it out to the end. Suppose, in spite of all our
precautions, he does rise? Suppose the chain slips? The workmen going
to and fro for water--suppose they do discover him?
"He is lying on his back, remember. They would have turned him over to
feel for his heart. Have closed his eyes, most probably, not liking
their stare.
"It would be the woman who first thought of it. She has seen them both
lying with closed eyes beside her. It may have always been in her
mind, the likeness between them. With Hepworth's watch in his pocket,
Hepworth's ring on his finger! If only it was not for the beard--that
fierce, curling, red beard!
"They creep to the window and peer out. Fog still thick as soup. Not a
soul, not a sound. Plenty of time.
"Then to get away, to hide till one is sure. Put on the mackintosh. A
man in a yellow mackintosh may have been seen to enter; let him be seen
to go away. In some dark corner or some empty railway carriage take it
off and roll it up. Then make for the office. Wait there for Ellenby.
True as steel, Ellenby; good business man. Be guided by Ellenby."
He flung the brief from him with a laugh.
"Why, there's not a missing link!" he cried. "And to think that not a
fool among us ever thought of it!"
"Everything fitting into its place," I suggested, "except young
Hepworth. Can you see him, from your description of him, sitting down
and coolly elaborating plans for escape, the corpse of the murdered man
stretched beside him on the hearthrug?"
"No," he answered. "But I can see her doing it, a woman who for week
after week kept silence while we raged and stormed at her, a woman who
for three hours sat like a statue while old Cutbush painted her to a
crowded court as a modern Jezebel, who rose up from her seat when that
sentence of fifteen years' penal servitude was pronounced upon her with
a look of triumph in her eyes, and walked out of court as if she had
been a girl going to meet her lover.
"I'll wager," he added, "it was she who did the shaving. Hepworth
would have cut him, even with a safety-razor."
"It must have been the other one, Martin," I said, "that she loathed.
That almost exultation at the thought that he was dead," I reminded him.
"Yes," he mused. "She made no attempt to disguise it. Curious there
having been that likeness between them." He looked at his watch. "Do
you care to come with me?" he said.
"Where are you going?" I asked him.
"We may just catch him," he answered. "Ellenby and Co."
* * *
The office was on the top floor of an old-fashioned house in a
cul-de-sac off the Minories. Mr. Ellenby was out, so the lanky
office-boy informed us, but would be sure to return before evening; and
we sat and waited by the meagre fire till, as the dusk was falling, we
heard his footsteps on the creaking stairs.
He halted a moment in the doorway, recognising us apparently without
surprise; and then, with a hope that we had not been kept waiting long,
he led the way into an inner room.
"I do not suppose you remember me," said my friend, as soon as the door
was closed. "I fancy that, until last night, you never saw me without
my wig and gown. It makes a difference. I was Mrs. Hepworth's senior
counsel."
It was unmistakable, the look of relief that came into the old, dim
eyes. Evidently the incident of the previous evening had suggested to
him an enemy.
"You were very good," he murmured. "Mrs. Hepworth was overwrought at
the time, but she was very grateful, I know, for all your efforts."