As the cheerless morning wore on, I sat after breakfast gloomily
smoking, trying to verify my first impression that Sybil had been the
victim of foul play in the hope of dispelling it. But it was, on the
contrary, deepened.
Either I was wrong to think thus; and at any price I was determined to
convince myself by facts that I was wrong, or I was right. The sole
resource henceforth remaining to me for the preservation of my
self-respect and the unburdening of my conscience was ardent and
ceaseless search after certainty.
Each hour as I pondered I was plunged more profoundly into the gulf of
suspicion. Yet the very position of the intricate problem which I had
before me seemed to forbid all hope of discovering anything whatsoever
without a formal inquiry. With foolish disregard for the future, I had
taken an oath to seek no explanation of what I might witness within that
mysterious house; I had placed myself irrevocably under the thrall of
the strange, cynical individual who had acted as Sybil's messenger!
Yet, now that Sybil was dead and everything pointed to a crime, I was
fully justified in seeking the truth, and had resolved upon bringing the
assassin to punishment.
During this debauch of melancholy the door opened and my old friend and
college chum, Captain Jack Bethune, burst into the room exclaiming:
"Mornin', Stuart, old chap. That ancient servitor of yours, Saunders,
told me that you're a bit seedy. What's the matter?"
"Nothing," I said, languidly grasping his hand. "Sit down. To what
good or evil fortune do I owe the honour of a visit at this unearthly
hour?"
"Good fortune, old chap, good fortune!" he laughed, flinging off his
overcoat and throwing himself back in the capacious arm-chair. "The
best fortune that could befall a man. Congratulate me, Stuart."
"Upon what? Have you finished a new book, or has your publisher been
unduly generous?"
"Neither. It isn't a book; it's a woman!"
"A woman?" I inquired, puzzled.
"I'm engaged to be married, old fellow."
"To Dora Stretton?"
"To Dora Stretton, the most adorable girl in the world."
I sighed; not because I regretted his choice. Far from it. Truth to
tell, I envied him his happiness.
"With all my heart I congratulate you, Jack," I cried next second,
springing up and grasping his hand. "I wish you every prosperity. I
have known Dora ever since a child, and although she may move in a smart
set, yet I have had opportunities that you have not of observing her
true-heartedness and--what shall I say?--her hatred of the hollow shams
and artificiality by which she is surrounded."
"Yes, you know her far better than I do," he admitted, lighting a
cigarette and adding, "I'd take your opinion upon a woman's character
before anybody else's. As a novelist, I have gained a reputation for
portraying female character, yet I assure you my ability in that
direction only exists in the imaginations of my reviewers. I can write
about women, but, hang it, old chap, I'm absolutely ignorant of them in
real life. You, a calm philosopher, can analyse a woman's nature and
lay every fibre of it bare as if by the scalpel; while I, finding my
conclusions always hopelessly at fault when attempting to study from
life, have written merely what I have believed to be artistic."
"Your books are popular, so I suppose your confession proves that pure
fiction pays better without an admixture of fact," I laughed.
"Yes," he said; "I'm afraid that is so," and then went on smoking with
an expression of joyful contentment.
John Bethune, known as the "soldier-novelist," was a handsome,
well-built fellow about thirty-two, with dark hair, a carefully-trimmed
moustache, and a pair of merry brown eyes that were an index to the
genuine bonhomie which was the chief trait of his character. Though he
entertained none of the idiosyncrasies or eccentricities of dress common
to many writers, he was, although a smart officer, nevertheless a true
Bohemian--always gay and light-hearted and the most popular man in his
regiment.
A thoroughly good fellow, he deserved every bit of the success he had
attained. The son of a struggling barrister, he had graduated, then
joined the army, afterwards becoming an anonymous contributor to a
Scotch review of hypercritical trend, edited by the distinguished
critic, Mr Goring. Having turned his attention to novel-writing in
combination with soldiering, he had made a brilliant success with his
first book, which had been increased by each other that had been issued.
On both sides of the Atlantic the newspapers were full of paragraphs
regarding his sayings and doings, many of their writers being fond of
alluding to him as "one of Mr Goring's young men," and for the past
three years he had been recognised as one of the leading "younger
novelists," whose wondrous insight into the complexities and
contradictions of woman's nature had earned for him a world-wide
reputation.
As he chatted about the woman to whom he had become engaged, I expressed
genuine satisfaction at his announcement. The honourable Dora Stretton,
although sister of the Countess of Fyneshade, one of the smartest women
in England, was altogether sweet and adorable, with a winning manner and
a face voted pretty wherever she appeared. She hated town life, for,
being a splendid horsewoman, she loved all outdoor sport, and was never
so happy as when riding with the Fitzwilliam pack, or driving her
spanking bays over the broad level Lincolnshire highways. Outwardly she
was a smart woman of to-day, but, as her childhood's friend, I knew that
beneath her tightly-laced Parisian corset and the veneer that she was
compelled to assume, there beat a true heart that yearned for the honest
love of a man.
So I congratulated Jack, explaining how Blatherwycke, old Lady
Stretton's estate in Northamptonshire, joined that of my father, and how
Dora, her sister Mabel, now Countess of Fyneshade, and myself had known
each other ever since the time when our nurses gossiped. Cruel-tongued
scandalmongers had said that her ladyship, finding her estates
impoverished on the death of her husband, the Viscount, gave Mabel in
marriage to the Earl of Fyneshade, a widower nearly twice her age, in
exchange for a service he rendered her by paying off a certain mortgage
upon the property. But, be that how it might, Dora had five thousand a
year in her own right, and this, together with Jack's fair income from
his royalties, would suffice to keep them in comfort, if not in
affluence.
"I had heard that Dora was likely to become the wife of old Lord
Wansford," I observed at last.
"Yes," he answered in a low tone. "Don't mention it to anybody, but her
ladyship is simply furious because Dora and I love each other. She had
set her mind on her daughter marrying a peer."
"Then you haven't yet obtained her ladyship's consent--eh?"
"No. We love each other, and Dora says she intends to marry me,
therefore we have agreed to defy the maternal anger."
"Quite right, old chap," I said. "Under the circumstances you are
justified. Besides, knowing the unhappiness in the Fyneshade menage,
Dora is not likely to marry anybody she does not love."
"True," he said. Then tossing his cigarette into the grate he rose, and
declaring he had a business appointment, he struggled into his overcoat
and, grasping my hand in adieu, said:
"You seem confoundedly glum to-day. Shake yourself up, old fellow. We
shall soon be hearing of your marriage!"
"My marriage!" I gasped, starting. His jovial words cut me to the
quick. They had an ominous meaning. "My marriage!"
"Yes," he said. "We shall soon be hearing all about it."
"Never, I hope--never."
"Bah! I was of the same mind until a month ago. Some day you, like
myself, will discover one woman who is not a coquette. Ta-ta for the
present," and he strode airily out, whistling a gay air, and leaving me
alone with my bitter sorrow.
Once or twice during our conversation I had been sorely tempted to
disclose the whole of the dismal circumstances and seek his advice, but
I had hesitated. He was perhaps too full of his newly-found joy to
trouble himself over my grief, and, after all, he might consider me a
fool for allowing myself to become fascinated by a mere chance-met
acquaintance about whom I knew absolutely nothing, and whose principal
efforts were directed towards enveloping herself in an impenetrable veil
of mystery. No; I resolved to preserve my own secret and act upon the
plans I had already formulated. With bitterness I sat and brooded over
Burns' lines:
Pleasures are like poppies spread.
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed.
Or like the snowflake on the river,
A moment white--then gone forever.
At noon I roused myself and started forth on the first stage of a search
after truth, a search which I swore within myself I would not relinquish
until I had learnt Sybil's true history; nay, I had resolved to make the
elucidation of the mystery of her tragic end the one object in my life.
It occurred to me that from the police I might at least ascertain her
name and the nature of the information upon which the warrant had been
issued; therefore I walked to New Scotland Yard and sought audience of
the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department. For half an hour I
aired my heels in a bare, cheerless waiting-room at the end of a long
stone corridor on the first floor, until at last a secretary entered
with my card, and an intimation from the Chief that he regretted he had
"no information to give on the subject."
Argument with the secretary proved unavailing, therefore I left, feeling
that I could hope for no assistance from the police.
Next it occurred to me to search the record of special marriage licences
at Doctors' Commons, and, taking a cab there, I was not long in
obtaining what appeared to be the first clue, for at the Faculty Office
I was shown the affidavit that had been made in application for a
special licence, which read as follows:
"Canterbury Diocese, December 8, 1891.
"Appeared personally, Sybil Henniker, spinster, of Hereford Road,
Bayswater, and prayed a special licence for the solemnisation of
matrimony between her and Stuart Ridgeway, bachelor, of 49, Shaftesbury
Avenue, London, and made oath that she believed that there is no
impediment of kindred or alliance, or any other lawful cause, nor any
suit commenced in any Ecclesiastical Court, to bar or hinder the
proceedings of the said matrimony according to the tenor of such
licence.
"Sworn before me,--
"John Hatchard (Registrar)."
The special licence had, it appeared, been granted on the following day,
but the clerk said the applicant had been seen by his colleague, now
absent.
Feeling that at least I should know the whereabouts of the strange
company who held in their charge the lifeless form of the woman I loved,
I drove rapidly to Bayswater, but when the cab turned from Westbourne
Grove into Hereford Road, and I saw that the house for which I was
searching, the number of which appeared in the licence, was a small
tobacconist and newsvendor's, my heart again sank within me.
I alighted and made inquiry of the shopkeeper, but she knew of no young
lady named Sybil, nor of any person named Henniker. Once again, then, I
was foiled; the address given in the affidavit was false.
For hours I drove aimlessly about the streets and squares lying between
Praed Street and Oxford Street, vaguely looking for a house I had never
distinctly seen, until at last it grew dark; then, cold and wearied, I
returned to my chambers.
As day succeeded day I continued my search, but could not grasp a single
certainty. At Somerset House I could discover no facts regarding either
the marriage or the death, and advertisements I inserted in various
newspapers, inquiring for the cabman who drove me home on the fatal
morning, elicited no reply.
Jack Bethune dropped in to see me daily and pestered me with inquiries
regarding the cause of my gloominess. Little, however, did he imagine
that I had been engaged through a whole fortnight in searching patiently
and methodically the registers of the great metropolitan cemeteries. To
Kensal Green, Highgate, Abney Park, Nunhead, Dulwich, Brompton, Norwood,
Crystal Palace, Lee, and elsewhere I went, always searching for the
names of Sybil Henniker or Sybil Ridgeway. This investigation proved
long and, alas! futile. I could obtain no clue whatever, all trace of
her had been so carefully hidden as to defy my vigilance.
At last, however, a month after that fatal night and just when the
prospect of misery which my future offered seemed too terrible for
endurance, I suddenly made a discovery. It was in the London office of
the Woking Cemetery Company that I found in the register an entry of an
interment on the second day following the midnight ceremony, of "Sybil
Ridgeway, wife of Stuart Ridgeway, of Shaftesbury Avenue." The address
whence the body was removed was not given, but, taking the next train
from Waterloo to Woking, I was not long in finding, by aid of the
cemetery-keeper's plan, away in a far corner of the ground a newly-made
grave.
Overcome with emotion, I stood before it in the fast-falling wintry
twilight, and saw lying upon the mound of brown earth a magnificent
wreath of white immortelles. Attached to it was a limp visiting-card.
Eagerly I took it up and inspected it.
Upon it, traced in ink that had become blurred and half-effaced by the
rain, there appeared some words. As I read them they seemed to glow in
letters of fire; they held me spell-bound.
I lost courage to pursue my cold, calm, reasonable deductions; a kind of
hallucination came upon me--a mental picture of her tragic end--and I
felt my reason reel.
A vertigo of terror seized me, as though the breath of destiny swept
over my brow.
The card secured to the great wreath was my own--the one I had given
Sybil on the first evening we had met in the Casino Garden--but the
words written upon it amazed me. I stood breathless, dumbfounded,
holding it between my trembling fingers, utterly unable to realise the
truth.
A portion of the writing upon it was in a well-formed man's hand, the
remainder in a heavy calligraphy totally different. The rains had
rendered the writing faint and brown, yet in the fast-falling gloom I
was enabled to decipher that one side bore the inscription--
"From your heart-broken husband--Stuart."
Then, turning it over, I read in a distinctly feminine hand the strange
exhortation--
"Seek, and you may find."
What did it mean? Was it an actual message to me from the grave? Did
it not appear like a declaration from my dead love herself that some
mysterious crime had been committed, and that she left its elucidation
in my hands? I became lost in bewilderment.
The inscription, purporting to be written by myself, was not in my
handwriting, and I was puzzled to divine its meaning. That it had been
penned at a date prior to the mysterious woman's words appeared certain,
as the lines were almost obliterated. Yet on reflection I saw that this
fact might be accounted for if that side of the card had been uppermost,
and thus more exposed. But the mysterious words, "Seek, and you may
find," were written in a different ink, upon which the action of the
weather had had but little effect. The exhortation stood out plainly
before my wondering eyes. By whose hand had it been traced? True, it
was not addressed personally to me, yet so ominous were the words that I
could not rid myself of the conviction that they were meant as an appeal
to me.
Why the wreath had been so carefully placed upon the grave, as if it
were a tribute from myself, was an inscrutable mystery; and the five
firmly-written words on the reverse of the card contained a mystic
meaning that I could not follow.
For a long time I remained there until night closed in and the wintry
mists gathered; then, detaching the card and placing it in my
pocket-book, I wended my way between the white, ghostly tombs towards
the cemetery gate, plunged deep in thought.
Suddenly, as I turned a corner sharply, I came face to face with an
ill-dressed man, who had apparently been lurking behind a great marble
monument. In the gloom I could not distinguish his features, and as he
turned and walked in the opposite direction I concluded that he was a
grave-digger or gardener, so dismissed the incident from my mind. Yet
half an hour later, while waiting on the platform of Woking Station, a
man who passed me beneath a lamp gave me a swift inquisitive look. His
strange expression attracted my attention, and as I turned and watched
his retreating figure it seemed familiar. Then I remembered. It was
the same individual who had apparently been watching my movements beside
Sybil's grave. Was he "shadowing" me?
Again I passed him, but he was wary, and bent feigning to eagerly scan a
time-table, thereby hiding his features. Nevertheless, before the train
arrived I managed by means of a ruse to obtain an uninterrupted view of
his pale, sad-looking countenance.
At first I was prompted to approach him boldly and demand the reason he
watched my actions, but on reflection I became convinced that my
suspicions were groundless, and that after all he was merely a lonely
mourner like myself. Perhaps he, too, had come from London to visit the
last resting-place of some dearly-loved friend; perhaps, even while I
viewed him with unjust suspicion, he had actually been sympathising with
me. No, I felt certain that my apprehensions were absurd, and that the
man had no sinister motive.
Alone in my room some hours later I placed the card carefully in the
fender to dry, and sat smoking and thinking over the strangely ominous
words upon it.
I could not rid myself of the conviction that my well-beloved had been
the victim of foul play. The words "Seek, and you may find" rang for
ever in my ears, yet in face of the declaration of the doctor I had no
proof that murder had actually been committed. I could discover no
report of an inquest having been held, and as the police had declined to
assist me I knew that I must work single-handed and unaided.
Noticing that the card was now dry, I knocked the ashes from my pipe,
then slowly stooping, picked it up. I turned it over to re-read the
mysterious words of entreaty, but a cry of dismay escaped me when next
instant I found the back of the card a perfect blank. On that side not
a trace of writing remained.
The puzzling mystic sentence had faded. The words had been wholly
obliterated as by some unseen hand.
The card fell from my nerveless fingers.
Presently it occurred to me that by again damping it the mysterious
entreaty might be rendered visible, and, taking the ewer that Saunders
had placed beside the tantalus stand, I dipped the precious document in
water. For half an hour I alternately wetted it and carefully dried it
with my handkerchief, but all effort to restore the writing proved
unavailing. The surface became rubbed by continued immersions, but the
words had utterly vanished, as if by magic.
Some hours afterwards I found myself doubting if I had ever actually
seen those strange words, and wondering whether after all they were not
a mere chimera of my disordered imagination. So strangely ominous were
they that I could not help feeling a trifle uncertain that they had
actually existed, and I remember that as I sat brooding over my sorrow I
feared lest I had been the victim of one of those strange hallucinations
which I had heard were precursory of insanity.
Twice I visited the grave of my dead love, but inquiries of the
cemetery-keeper elicited no clue. Times without number I felt prompted
to explain the strange circumstances to Jack Bethune, but always
hesitated, deeming silence the best course. Whether this secrecy
regarding my heart-sorrow was beneficial to my interests, I cannot
say, but the occurrence of at least one incident caused me
self-congratulation that my friends were unaware of the strange drama
that wrecked my happiness and overshadowed my life. It is, alas! true,
as Francois Coppee has said, "_Pour le melancolique, le soleil se couche
deja le matin_."