Holding our breath in our eagerness, we turned over the letters and
hastily scanned them through, save where the writing was obliterated by
those dark stains.
They were a revelation to us both. They told a story which utterly
amazed us.
Within the flat circular locket were engraved the words: "From Sybil--
August 14th," but there was no year. It was a love token which the
unknown had worn around his neck, a beautiful miniature signed by one of
the most fashionable modern miniaturists.
The letters were, for the most part, in a woman's large, rather
sprawling hand, which I at once recognised as Sybil's, and signed either
by her Christian name or by her initials, "S.B."
The first we read was written on the notepaper of Hethe Hall, in
Cumberland, a country house near Keswick, where she often visited.
Undated, it ran:--
"I do wish, Ralph, you would be more careful. Your actions every day
betray the truth, and I fear somebody may suspect. You know how
carefully I am watched and how my every action is noted. Every hour I
live in dread. Think what exposure would mean to me. I shall walk down
to Braithwaite Station to-morrow evening about 5:30. Do not write to
me, as I fear Mason may get hold of one of your letters. She is so very
curious. If you are free to-morrow evening perhaps I shall meet you
`accidentally.' But I do warn you to be careful for my sake. Till to
morrow.--S."
What was meant by the "truth?" Was that ill-dressed, low-born fellow
actually her secret lover? The love token showed that such was actually
the case. Yet who was he?
Another note, written hurriedly upon a plain sheet of common notepaper,
was as follows:--
"I don't know if I can escape them. If so, I shall try and get hold of
one of Mason's dresses and hats and meet you in Serle Street, outside
Lincoln's Inn. But it is very risky. Do be careful that you are not
followed."
The next was upon pale green notepaper, bearing in gold the heading,
"S.Y. _Regina_," with the added words, "Off the Faroe Islands:--
"I am longing to be back again in town, but it cannot be for another
four or five weeks. We have decided to do the Fiords. Do not write, as
your letter must go through so many hands before it reaches me. What
you tell me makes me suspicious. Why should they ask you that question
if there had not been some whisper? Find out. Remember I have
enemies--very bitter ones. It was hazardous of you to come to Glasgow.
I saw you on the quay when we sailed. But you may have been recognised.
If so, think of my position. Again I do beg of you to be as cautious
as I am. From me the world shall never know the truth. I can keep a
secret. See if you cannot do so, for my sake."
Apparently the fellow had preserved all her letters, either because he
was so deeply in love with her, or with that ulterior motive of which
she had so openly accused him.
"Why did you speak to me on the stairs last night?" she asked,
reproachfully, in another hastily-written note upon plain paper. "You
imperil me at every moment. You may love me as fervently as you declare
you do, but surely you should do nothing that may imperil my good name!"
In another, evidently of more recent date, she wrote:
"I cannot understand you. Our love has been a very foolish romance.
Let us part and agree to forget it. I have been injudicious, and so
have you. Let us agree to be friends, and I will, I assure you, do all
I can for your interests in the future. Sometimes I think that Mason
suspects. She may have seen you speak to me, or overheard you. She
looks at me so very strangely sometimes, and I'm sure she watches me."
Again in another communication, which was besmirched by the dead man's
blood, writing from the Hotel Ritz, in Paris, she said:--
"We are in deadly peril, both of us--but you more especially. E--knows
the truth. Avoid him. He intends to betray you. I met J--in the Bois
to-day, and he asked if you were in Paris. I pretended to be ignorant
of your very existence, but he told me that E--had explained certain
things, and he promised to keep my secret. I send you fifty pounds
enclosed. Don't acknowledge it. Burn this letter."
The longest, written on thin blue foreign paper, was even more
enigmatical. It was dated from her sister's place up in Durham, and
read:--
"You are right when you declared last night that I am very fond of
Wilfrid Hughes. It is a pity, perhaps, that I did not marry him three
years ago. If I had I should have been spared this awful anxiety and
double life that I am now forced to lead. You say that I am giddy and
heartless, thoughtless and reckless. Yes. I am all that, I admit. And
yet I am only like many women who are seeking to forget. Some take
morphia, others drink brandy, and I--well, I try and amuse myself as far
as my remnant of a conscience will allow me. Ah! when I look back upon
my quiet girlhood down at Ryhall I recollect how happy I was, how easily
satisfied, how high were my ideals when I loved Wilfrid Hughes. And
now? But will you not give me back my freedom? I ask, I beg, I implore
of you to give me liberty--and save my life. You have always said that
you loved me, therefore you surely will not continue this cruel
persecution of a woman who is defenceless and powerless. I feel that
your heart is too noble, and that when we meet to-morrow you will
release me from my bond. Up to the present I have been able to close
the lips of your enemies, yet how have you repaid me? But I do not
reproach you. No. I only crave humbly at your feet."
The last, written from Ryhall, and dated three days before, was brief
but to the point:--
"If you are absolutely determined that I should see you then, I will
keep your appointment. Recollect, however, that I have no fear of you.
I have kept my mouth closed until to-day, and it will remain closed
unless you compel me to open it.--S."
The other papers, of which we made methodical examination, were
mysterious and puzzling. Upon a sheet of ruled sermon paper was drawn
in red ink a geometrical device--the plan of a house we took it to be--
while another piece of paper was covered with long lists of letters,
words and phrases in a masculine but almost microscopic hand, together
with their cipher equivalents.
Was this the cipher used by the dead man to communicate with Sybil?
"This will assist us, no doubt," remarked Eric, scrutinising it beneath
the light. "Probably she sent him cipher messages from time to time."