"Who was the woman?" asked Winsloe, apparently as surprised as myself.
"He didn't tell me. In fact, I don't think she was recognised. If she
had been, he would, of course, have interrogated her by this time."
Ellice Winsloe was silent. I saw as he stood back in the shadow from
the table that his brows had contracted and that he was pensive and
puzzled. And yet upstairs in his bag he had a portrait of the dead man,
and was, therefore, well aware of his identity.
Now that we reflected we agreed that we really knew very little of
Ellice Winsloe. He was Jack's friend rather than ours. The son of a
Cornishman whose income was derived from his interest in certain tin
mines, he had, on his father's death, been left well off. Jack had
known him at Magdalen, but had lost sight of him for some years, when of
a sudden they met again one night while at supper at the Savoy, and
their old friendship had been renewed. Ellice, it appeared, was well
known in a certain set in town, and up to the present moment we had both
voted him as a good all-round sportsman, a good fellow and a gentleman.
But this secret knowledge which he refused to betray, and his evident
fear lest the dead man be identified, aroused our serious suspicions.
"I wonder," suggested Eric, when we were alone in my room on the night
of the inquest, "I wonder whether Ellice was in hiding in those bushes
watching us search the body? Do you know, the idea has been in my mind
all day," he added.
"If he was, then we are placed in a very awkward position," I said. "He
may make a statement to the police."
"No. I don't think he'll do that. If he did he would betray his own
knowledge," was my friend's answer.
The next day passed uneventfully, and beyond the general surprise at
Tibbie's continued absence there was nothing unusual in the household at
Ryhall Place.
Late that night Mason returned, saying that her mistress had driven the
car to the Bath Hotel, at Bournemouth, and put it into the garage.
Three hours later she left the hotel to go for a walk, but did not
return. After she had gone the maid had, it seemed, found a letter in
which her mistress ordered her to remain there until Wednesday, and
telling her that if she did not return then she was to go back to Ryhall
and send the chauffeur to Bournemouth for the car.
Mason, used to Tibbie's erratic ways, thought little of it. Her
mistress travelled a great deal, had a very large circle of friends, and
besides, was entirely unconventional and knew well how to take care of
herself. Therefore the maid had remained until midday on Wednesday and
then returned to Ryhall.
"I'm getting a little anxious about Tibbie," remarked old Lady Scarcliff
in the drawing-room that evening. "This kind of thing is not at all
proper--flying about the country alone."
Jack laughed.
"No good worrying about Tibbie, mater. She'll turn up all right
to-morrow, or you'll get a wire from her. You remember that time she
met the Hursts in Nice and went off yachting with them down the
Mediterranean, and we didn't know where she was for three weeks. And
then she calmly said she'd quite forgotten to tell us where she was
going."
"Ah, I remember," said the viscountess, a kind-faced old lady whom I
liked immensely. "I do wish she would consider my feelings a little
more."
With that the subject dropped.
Next morning I took leave of them all, and promising to meet Eric a few
days later, took the train up to town to keep the secret tryst with my
little friend who had so suddenly disappeared.
As I stood at the kerb looking up and down the wet pavement with its
busy, hurrying crowd carrying umbrellas, I knew that I had commenced a
very dangerous game. Would she keep her appointment? Did she really
intend to go into voluntary exile in some mean street in one of the
dismal southern suburbs? Was it possible that she who had from her
birth been used to every luxury and extravagance could pose successfully
as the wife of a compositor with forty shillings a week?
Ah! would not her very voice, her smart expressions, betray her as a
lady?
I heard the rumbling of a train below, and once again up the grimy
stairs came a long string of eager men and women returning from the City
to their homes, tumbling over each other in their anxiety to get back
after the day's toil. They swept past me along the Pentonville Road,
and then I stood again, reflecting and watching, until suddenly a figure
in neat black halted before me, and I found myself face to face with the
fugitive.
"Tibbie!" I cried. "Then you've really come, after all?"
"Of course," was her answer in a low, half-frightened tone. "When I
make an appointment I keep it. Where shall we go? We can't talk here,
can we?"
A hansom was passing, and hailing it we got in hurriedly. I told the
man to drive across Waterloo Bridge to the Elephant and Castle, a
neighbourhood where we would be both quite unknown. Then, as I sank
beside her, she asked, with a pretty, mischievous smile,--
"Well, Wilfrid, and how do you like me as your wife?"
"My wife!" I echoed. "By Jove, yes. I forgot that," and I recollected
the strange game I was playing.
"Don't Mason's things fit me well? She's just my figure. I took this
dress, jacket and hat from her box and put them into mine when I left
Ryhall in the car. I thought they'd come in useful."
I looked at her, and saw that with her brown hair brushed severely from
her forehead, her small close-fitting hat and slightly shabby black
jacket she was quite a demure little figure. The exact prototype of the
newly-married wife of a working-man.
"It's really quite a suitable get-up, I think," I said, laughing.
"Yes. I've decided to explain to the curious that I was a lady's-maid,
and that we've been married nearly a year. Recollect that--in order to
tell the same story. Where's the ring? Did you think of that?" Yes, I
had thought of it. I felt in my vest pocket, and taking out the plain
little band of gold that I had bought in a shop in Regent Street that
afternoon, placed it upon the finger, she laughing heartily, and then
bending to examine it more closely in the uncertain light of the
gas-lamps in Gray's Inn Road.
"If I told you the truth, Wilfrid, you'd be horribly annoyed," she said,
looking at me with those wonderful eyes of hers.
"No. What is it?" I asked.
"Well--only--only that I wish you were my real husband," she answered
frankly. "If you were, then I should fear nothing. But it cannot be--I
know that."
"What do you fear, Tibbie?" I asked, very seriously. "Tell me--do tell
me."
"I--I can't--I can't now," was her nervous response in a harder voice,
turning her gaze away from mine. "If I did, you would withdraw your
help--you would not dare to risk your own reputation and mine, as you
are now doing, just because we are old boy-and-girl friends."
On we went through the streaming downpour along Chancery Lane and the
Strand, the driver lowering the window, for the rain and mud were
beating into our faces.
"Well," I said, "and what do you suggest doing?"
"To-night I must disappear. I shall sleep in some obscure hotel across
the water, and to-morrow you must call for me, and we'll go together to
fix upon our future `home.'" Then she inquired eagerly what impression
her absence had produced at Ryhall, and I told her.
For a time she remained serious and thoughtful. Her countenance had
changed.
"Then Mason came back, as I ordered her?"
"Yes," I answered, "but won't she miss those things of hers you are now
wearing?"
"No. Because they were in a trunk that she had packed ready to send up
to town. She won't discover they've gone for some weeks, I feel sure."
She described her night run from Chichester to Bournemouth, how she had
escaped from Mason, taken train direct up to Birmingham, remained that
night at the Grand, then went on to Leicester, where she had spent a
day, arriving in London that evening at seven o'clock. In Bull Street,
Birmingham, she had been recognised by a friend, the wife of an
alderman, and had some difficulty in explaining why she was there alone.
Our present position was not without its embarrassments. I looked at
the pretty woman who was about to pose as my wife, and asked,--
"And what name shall we adopt? Have you thought of one?"
"No. Let's see," she said. "How about Morton--Mr and Mrs William
Morton?"
"All right, then after to-morrow I shall be known as William Morton,
compositor?"
"And I shall be your very loving and devoted wife," she laughed, her
eyes dancing. "In any case, life in Camberwell will be an entirely new
experience."
"Yes," I said. "I only hope we sha'n't be discovered. I must be
careful--for I shall be compelled to lead a double life. I may be
followed one day."
"Yes, but it is for my sake, Wilfrid," she exclaimed, placing her small
trembling hand upon my arm. "Remember that by doing this you are saving
my life. Had it not been for you I should have been dead three days
ago. My life is entirely in your hands. I am in deadly peril," she
added, in a low, desperate whisper. "You have promised to save me--and
you will, Wilfrid--I know you will!"
And she gripped my arm tightly, and looked into my face.
Notwithstanding her assumed gaiety of manner, she was in terror.
Was that dead, white face still haunting her--the face of the stranger
who had, in secret, fallen by her hand?