There was no sleep for him that morning, and he felt wretchedly ill and
exhausted when the time came to go to the office. Mr. Ennidge, always
kind, remarked sympathetically upon his looks, and he replied that he
had been kept awake all night by the storm. The day passed without the
expected appearance of the policeman, though he saw in the papers the
first allusion to the disappearance of Mrs. Vanderstein and Miss Turner,
and felt a horrified sinking at the heart when he read that search was
being made, even though he had of course known all along that there must
be a hue and cry.
He could not find any reference to his exploit in Regent's Park, and he
was afraid this meant that the girl had survived, for if he had killed
her surely there would have been some mention of it. Yet if she were
alive it was strange that Miss Turner should still be thought to be
missing. Perhaps it was a dodge of the police to fill him with false
confidence. He could not guess what it meant, anyhow, and at all events
he was thankful for one thing: that he had cleared up and finished with
Scholefield Avenue. If they thought they would catch him there again
they were jolly well wrong. He would never set foot in the place again,
so help him!
He supposed that his confederate had got clear away, and after his work
was over he went to see Julie, to make sure that everything had gone
well.
He found her in despair at her mother's departure, or, rather, at the
manner of it; and it was with the utmost horror and indignation that he
learned that Julie--as she afterwards admitted to Gimblet--had been left
absolutely penniless. All his savings had been willingly given to Madame
Querterot to help her flight, but he had things which could be pawned,
and he pressed Julie to accept his assistance. This she would not do.
Then she showed him the string of pearls, and he recognised it at once
as the necklace Mrs. Vanderstein had worn. He had seen since, in the
newspapers, that these enormous pearls were well known to every jeweller
in Europe, and there had not been wanting forecasts to the effect that,
if they had been stolen, an attempt to sell them would lead to the
arrest of the thieves. He had wondered if Madame Querterot knew this,
and reassured himself by thinking that, if she did not, the friends she
was to consult certainly would. But now, with passionate resentment,
he realised that she had known it very well and had left the necklace
to Julie, careless of the suspicion that might fall on her daughter if
she should be tempted to try and sell it. Nay, it seemed even possible
that she deliberately wished to cast suspicion upon Julie; her action
was otherwise unaccountable. But was it possible that she would risk not
only his safety but her own, in order to gratify her spite against her
daughter?
Before he had fully grasped the meaning of this last manoeuvre on the
part of the woman he hoped to call his mother-in-law, Julie was telling
him of the clothes her mother had given her, and which she had already
sold to a second-hand dealer. In hoarse tones he demanded a description
of the garments, and, when he had received it, burst forth into such
raging comments on the girl's folly in selling them, and such furious
imprecations at the wickedness and stupidity of her mother, that Julie
took offence, and in a fit of anger as hot as his own, though less
justly provoked, told him to leave the house.
He was all penitence in a moment, and she ended by accepting his
grovelling apologies. All the same, the fire of his wrath was not
extinguished, but smouldered with a dull red heat in his heart, ready at
any moment to leap into a fierce flame, burning to consume and devour.
When the night came he could not sleep, in spite, or perhaps because, of
his extreme fatigue and harassed nerves. Not till daylight did he drop
at last into an uneasy slumber, from which a nightmare sent him leaping
up in bed, disturbing the house with his cries. His irate landlady
appeared in his room, in extreme deshabille, and her scathing references
to delirium tremens gave him the idea of the brandy bottle. He bought
one at the nearest public-house the moment he was dressed, and drank a
good wineglassful before he opened the daily paper that he procured at
the same time.
There was nothing new in it, however. Though it contained plenty of
allusions to the missing ladies there was nothing about a girl being
knocked on the head in Regent's Park; and to Bert's fears this silence
appeared ominous as a denunciation. He found the brandy very comforting,
and took it to the office with him. There his appearance--rendered
still more ghastly by want of sleep than it had been on the preceding
days--moved Mr. Ennidge to such genuine concern that, Mr. Pring being
away and not returning till Monday, he told Bert he had better take a
holiday on the next day, which would be Friday.
In the afternoon he was beginning to feel a little better and to hope
that after all things were going right for him somehow, when at the
eleventh hour Mr. Gimblet made his appearance upon the scene. From the
moment when Bert understood who he was and what was his business, he
gave himself up for lost. Some unsuspected gleam of courage came to his
aid now, however--a sort of phantom of the real thing, found, it may be
imagined, in the brandy bottle--and he made up his mind that, if he must
be taken, it should not be due, at all events, to any revelation of his
own.
The agony of mind endured during the hours which followed is not to
be described in mere words. The dread, the suspense, the feeling
of physical weakness which nearly overcame him as he witnessed the
detective's search, and the final horrible moment when he saw the body
of the poor lady drawn from the grave where he had thought it hidden for
ever from his own, if not from every other eye, would have strained the
nerve of any man. It was, indeed, a heaping of horror upon horror.
What unthinkable clairvoyance, what supernatural omniscience had led
Gimblet to pick out that house, of all the dwellings in the great city
and its suburbs, for his investigations, was as much beyond Bert's
imagination as the means by which he himself succeeded in refraining
from revealing, then and there, the part he had taken in the ghastly
business.
To his almost incredulous astonishment no one seemed to suspect him, and
instead of being removed in irons, as he expected, he found himself free
to return to his lodgings, there to recuperate from the shocks he had
sustained, in a deep, brandy induced sleep.
The next morning he was out early, and the first poster gave him the
news that Mrs. Vanderstein was found, and staying at Boulogne. He bought
the paper, and, even as he read the paragraph in which the news was
related, made up his mind to spend the holiday given him by Mr. Ennidge
in running over to Boulogne to see Madame Querterot. He had no definite
idea in doing so. But his rage at her treatment of her daughter was
still red-hot, and now was added to it a furious resentment at her
departure from the conduct they had agreed she should observe. What
possessed her not to stay quietly in her room? It was madness to have
gone out; yes, actually to have gone to the Casino, the place of all
others where she was most likely to be seen by some acquaintances of
Mrs. Vanderstein's. Did she want to lose them all by her folly and
recklessness?
And in any case he could not rest till he had told her what he thought
of her.
He went out to a pawnbroker's, and by pawning his watch and some odds
and ends of jewellery that had belonged to his mother collected enough
money for the return journey. Then he took a taxi for the first time in
his life, and drove to Whitehall. He had seen Gimblet's address on the
card he sent in to Mr. Ennidge.
Higgs told him, in answer to his inquiries, that the inquest would not
be till the next day, so that there was nothing to prevent him from
taking the ten o'clock train from Charing Cross. There was time before
it started to put on his false beard, in an empty waiting-room, and to
gulp down a strong dose of brandy at the bar of the refreshment-room. He
felt safer when he had taken these precautions, for he had been haunted
by an uneasy feeling that Higgs might have followed him from the flat.
The journey was uneventful, the sea as smooth as a pond. He hardly knew
how the time passed before they arrived at Boulogne pier.
He walked round the harbour, asking the way by the simple repetition of
the words "Hôtel de Douvres," and following the direction in which the
fingers of those who answered him were pointed.
Soon he came upon the hotel on the Digue, facing the sea. The name in
golden letters a yard long danced before his eyes, but with a great
effort of the will he steadied himself, and passed through the door into
the hall.
As luck would have it there was no one about, and the only person to
come forward at his entrance was a small page or lift boy.
Yes, Madame Vanderstein was in her room. Would Monsieur go up?
Certainly Monsieur would; and he was ushered into the lift and carried
aloft.
He heard Madame Querterot's voice say "Come in" in response to the boy's
knock, and in another minute he was in the room, with the door closing
behind him.
For a moment he thought there must be some mistake, and, if she had not
spoken, would have turned and fled. Surely he had never seen before the
beautifully dressed, dark-haired lady who was bending over a box at the
end of the room.
But at the sound of her voice he knew her again, though the difference
in her appearance caused by her dyed hair and painted complexion was
truly marvellous. She wore her elaborate dress with quiet assurance, and
jewels sparkled at her throat, in her ears, on her fingers, her wrists.
"What in the world are you doing here?" she said, in a tone of the
deepest disapproval.
Bert's voice shook as he took the paper from his pocket and held it out
to her.
"Have you seen this?" he asked. "Every one in London knows you are here.
It is madness to stay."
"Of course I have seen it," she answered coolly. "And of course I shall
not stay. I do but finish my packing. In ten minutes I shall ring to
have my luggage taken downstairs. There is a train in half an hour."
"You will never escape now," he said gloomily. "Do you know, too, that
they have found the body of Mrs. Vanderstein?"
This time she was startled.
"What do you say?" she cried. "What _bêtise_ is this?"
"It is true," he said. "They found it last night. I was there."
"You were there? Last night?" she repeated. "And you were not arrested,
not suspected? Why, then, our star is indeed guarding us."
"No, I wasn't arrested," he said, watching her, "and Joolie hasn't been
arrested yet, either."
She started, and for a moment her eyes shone with the hatred and spite
she cherished for her daughter. Then they fell before his. "Julie," she
said; "why should Julie be arrested?"
"Don't you know?" he asked. "How is she to account for the pearls, and
for the dresses and opera cloaks?"
"Oh, the dresses. Hasn't she burnt them? I told her to. If she has not
she must do so at once."
"And the pearls--was she to burn them too?" said Bert quietly.
"They looked so well round her neck, the dear child. I left them as my
wedding gift to you both."
"You left them because you knew you couldn't get rid of them. My God!
I believe you meant to keep the whole lot for yourself. But the pearls
were too dangerous, so you gave them to Joolie! You must have meant
suspicion to fall upon her!"
"My dear Bert, you are absurd. Come and help me to fasten this
portmanteau. I shall register the luggage to Paris, and leave the train
myself at Amiens. From there I can go off in another direction, and you
will never hear of me again."
"Nor of the jewels either, no doubt."
"Oh, don't be afraid, you shall have the money for the jewels!"
Madame Querterot began to go on with her packing, which for the moment
she had abandoned. As she bent over the trunk, filling up corners with
crumpled newspapers, she hummed a merry little tune, and the implied
disregard of his reproaches exasperated Bert beyond endurance. He stood
quite still, making a violent effort at self-control, and looking about
him in an unconscious attempt to regain his balance by a concentration
of his attention upon some everyday object.
The fresh breeze off the water was fluttering the white muslin blinds by
the open window and, as Bert passed his tongue over his parched lips, he
tasted the salt taste of the sea. The tide was up, and the room full of
the noise of the breaking waves, so that the rattle of a cart passing on
the road beneath was merged and lost in the continuous volume of sound.
On the table were several outspread pieces of blue paper, and he read
the typed messages from where he stood. They were the telegrams which
Sir Gregory, Gimblet, and Sidney had dispatched that morning to Mrs.
Vanderstein.
"Have you answered those?" he said, pointing to them.
"I answered Mr. Sidney's, and I sent one to the servants in Grosvenor
Street," Madame Querterot broke off her tune to reply.
"I don't know who Aberhyn Jones is," she added, "nor where he lives,
so I can't answer him; and I haven't quite decided what to say to the
detective."
She went on packing, and resumed her humming. Bert did not speak for a
minute, then he said very quietly:
"I took the girl to Regent's Park, to the very edge of the water; and
then a policeman came up and prevented me doing as we arranged."
"What!" Madame Querterot almost screamed.
She stood erect and gazed at Bert in incredulous dismay.
"I hit her and ran," he went on. "I don't suppose I did her much damage
or I should have seen it mentioned in the papers, and there has been
nothing about it."
"If she is alive I don't understand how it is they still believe Mrs.
Vanderstein is here. But never mind that now. The point is, the girl, if
she lives, will put them on my track. I shall not be able to escape now
so easily. Perhaps the best thing to do is to go back and face it out.
Better get my story in before they have time to puzzle out the truth."
She spoke musingly, more to herself than to her companion.
"Your story!" Bert repeated, speaking only a little above a whisper. His
voice would not come out somehow; he felt as if he were choking. "You
mean you will say that I did it! Why not say that you have been hiding
from me in fear of your own life, all these days? That would round it
off well!"
"Not a bad suggestion, Bert," she said. "I must look after myself, you
know. It would be a pity, wouldn't it, for people to say that Julie's
mother was hanged?"
She spoke with a sneer. She had not forgotten that Bert had used those
words to her, nor forgiven him. She was not afraid to let him see that
his guess at her intentions was a good one; she felt for him a contempt
too complete and profound to dread anything he might say or do.
It is a common failing among clever rascals to despise their dupes,
but they often learn to their cost that danger may come from the most
unlikely quarter.
The derisive note in her voice was the last straw on Bert's frayed
nerves. His rage took hold of him so that he no longer knew what he was
about; he became a tool in other hands than Madame Querterot's.
"Oh you fiend, you fiend!" he cried, and his voice was high and cracked,
"hanging would be too good for a devil like you! You needn't be afraid,
people never shall say that of Joolie's mother. You would have let her
be hanged, you devil! Her and me, both of us. Oh--oh----"
The air was full of the murmur of the sea. It mingled with a maddening
noise that buzzed in his ears and made thought impossible. A mist
gathered before his eyes--a dreadful red mist in which everything swam
and danced.
He bounded upon the woman, holding his hands outstretched before his
face as though to fend off something unspeakably hideous and terrifying.
Then they closed upon her throat and, with a sob, he shook her to and
fro as a dog shakes a rat that has bitten it badly.
At last his rage spent itself. As it passed he became conscious of what
he was doing, and with an exclamation of disgust loosened his grip.
She fell backwards, with a crash, across the open lid of the box she had
been packing. The hinges snapped under the impact and the lid broke off
and dropped to the floor with her. There she lay, head downwards, in an
untidy heap, one arm twisted at a curious angle under her body.
Bert never doubted that she was dead, and he felt a glow of satisfaction
stealing over him at the knowledge. There were great livid marks on her
neck where his convulsive fingers had clutched at it, and he stooped
over her and looked at them with a gratified smile. They were already
turning black.
A slight noise in the next room brought him to his senses.
He crept on tiptoe to the door and listened intently with his ear to it.
The sounds in the next room continued, some one seemed to be opening and
shutting drawers; but there was no movement in the passage, and after a
moment he opened the door cautiously and went out.
No one was in sight, and as an afterthought he went back, and removing
the key locked the door on the outside, as silently as he had opened
it. Then putting the key in his pocket he ran down the stairs. The
page who had shown him up was idling in the hall, but no one else was
about, though he caught a glimpse of a seated figure in the bureau as he
passed. Forcing himself to pause as he passed the page, he said to him:
"Mrs. Vanderstein has asked me to tell you that she has a headache, and
does not wish to be disturbed again to-day. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir. I will give the message at the bureau. They will tell the
waiter and chambermaid."
The page spoke English perfectly, and Bert felt assured that he would do
his errand. To make sure, he repeated his injunction and gave the boy a
shilling to impress it on his memory. Then he walked down the steps with
every outward appearance of calm.
His impulse was to go back towards the harbour, but as a precaution he
started off in the opposite direction and only approached the docks
after several turnings separated him from the sea-front. There was no
boat back to England, however, till past seven, and he hung about the
port for three whole hours that seemed like three centuries. In a quiet
corner behind some empty trucks he got rid of his black beard, and
applying a match to it saw it frizzle up and disappear in two or three
seconds. He ground the ashes into the earth with his heel, and with a
recklessness which surprised himself walked back past the doorway of
the Hôtel de Douvres, to see if he would be known. The page was still
lolling in the doorway, and, to Bert's satisfaction, stared at him as he
passed with a vacant eye. He felt certain he had not been recognised,
and went back to the harbour with a lighter heart.
There he watched the steamer from Folkestone arrive and disembark her
passengers, among whom--though he did not know it--was the man sent by
the London police to interview Mrs. Vanderstein; and a few minutes later
it was time to go on board the boat, which took him back to England.
The next morning found him back in his place at the house agents'
office, and as the day passed without event he began to feel a sense
of security to which he had lately been a stranger. After all, he had
passed hours in the company of London's greatest detective without
arousing any suspicion; and every hour, he believed, added to his
safety.
He was comparatively cheerful when he went down to Pimlico that evening
to see Julie.
But he found her in a harder mood than usual; and when, with exceeding
want of discretion, he chose that most unpropitious moment to urge his
suit, she told him very plainly that she would never consent to be his
wife.
She had no intention of marrying, she said; she was going to enter the
convent as she had always wished. But, she added, with unnecessary
cruelty--for she was still angry with him for his behaviour a day or two
before--in no case would she have married him. She did not reciprocate
his feelings, and she considered that he and she were quite unsuited to
each other; he had much better never think of her again.
Thus it happened that he went away in the blackest depths of misery and
despair, so that when the police rapped at his door an hour later they
found a man broken and unstrung to such a point as to hail their coming
with something like relief.
Such was the gist of Albert Tremmels' story; and, as it never varied in
the smallest detail in the course of its many repetitions, it may be
imagined that it was true in substance.
Whether this would have been the opinion expressed by a jury cannot
now be known, for Bert died in prison while awaiting his trial. His
constitution, always frail, had not been able to withstand the bodily
fatigues, and more especially those torments of the mind which he had
endured during that week of stress, and a latent tendency to disease
was not slow to take advantage of his weakened condition. Its rapid
development was perhaps due, in part, to the fact that he made little
effort to get well, and seemed to have no wish to live. What, indeed, as
he said, had he to live for?
He showed no repentance for his attack on Miss Turner, beyond saying
that it would have been unnecessary if he had had the sense to kill
Madame Querterot first, but he maintained with his last breath that
the idea was not his, any more than the thought of murdering Mrs.
Vanderstein, which he persisted in affirming had never crossed his mind.
He gloried in the death of his confederate, however, nor could all the
efforts of the prison chaplain move him to a better frame of mind with
regard to his deed. On the contrary, he did not cease to gloat over the
remembrance of it. Not even when he heard that Julie piously refused him
her forgiveness, in spite of her mother's designs upon herself, would
Bert admit that he regretted that which he had done. It is a cynical
freak of circumstance that his love for the girl, which was pure and
unselfish and the only creditable part of his whole nature, should from
first to last have been the inspiring source from which his crimes
proceeded.