Ellice Winsloe believed me dead.
There was no doubt about that. And knowing what I now did, I intended
that he should remain secure in that belief.
Domville had not returned, a fact which caused me the gravest
apprehensions. I recollected that defiant voice in the night. Had he
also fallen a victim?
Budd called in my doctor, who dressed the wound in my head and carefully
bandaged it. He was curious to know the cause, but I merely explained
that I had sustained a rather bad fall. Perhaps he attributed it to too
much wine on the previous night--probably he did.
"You'll have to rest for a day or two," he said, "you had a nasty blow."
But I was uncommunicative, therefore he soon afterwards left.
Budd was, of course, inquisitive, but my explanation was that I had had
an accident, and had fallen in the mud. My clothes were, of course,
ruined, my hands grazed and torn, and across my eye was a nasty gash
where I must have struck a sharp stone.
My brain was awhirl, and after the doctor's departure I swallowed some
brandy and lay down on the bed awaiting Eric.
Had he shared the same fate? If so, to try and find him in the sewer
was useless. The flush had passed, and would sweep him away to his
death.
Of course, I had no real proof that he had been in that house other than
overhearing his voice. I recalled every word, and now more than ever
was I convinced that he had been behind that closed door, held by
enemies.
From Budd I learned that my friend had gone out about two o'clock, and
had not returned. He had, however, left me a message to say that I was
not to be alarmed by his absence. He was still making inquiries, I
supposed. What I had related regarding the strange affair at Sydenham
Hill had puzzled him greatly. Perhaps he had gone down there.
I gave my man strict instructions to say to everyone that I too was
absent from home.
"Tell everybody that I went out to dinner last night and have not yet
returned," I said. "Express surprise and anxiety. I want to pretend to
be missing--you understand, Budd?"
"Yes, sir," was the man's prompt response. "You expect somebody will
call and inquire, and to everyone I am to know nothing."
"I went out to the club last night and haven't been seen since."
"I quite understand, sir. But what about the doctor?"
"He doesn't matter. The person whom I wish to believe in my absence
does not know the doctor. I shall remain indoors for a day or two.
Mind nobody knows I'm here."
"I shall take good care of that, sir," was the man's reply; and I knew
that I could trust him.
I scribbled a line to Inspector Pickering explaining my inability to
make the statement on account of my injured head, but promising to call
in a few days. I urged him not to send to me, as my chambers were
probably watched. This note I sent by express messenger.
Then thoroughly exhausted I dropped off to sleep.
It was evening when I awoke, but Eric had not made his appearance. I
was now thoroughly alarmed. Who were the men whom he had defied in that
house of mystery?
He always carried a revolver, and was a dead shot; but what is a weapon
against such black treachery as that to which I had been subjected? He
was fearless, and would fight to the last; yet after my experience in
that house I was apprehensive lest he should, like myself, have fallen a
victim.
Many a man and woman disappears in this roaring metropolis of ours and
is never again heard of; many an undiscovered crime takes place within a
stone's-throw of the great London thoroughfares; and many a death-cry is
unheard in the hum of traffic and unheeded in the bustle of our everyday
life. The London sewers hold many a secret, and the London chimneys
have smoked with the cremated remains of many an innocent victim.
I wrote to Tibbie an affectionate letter explaining that my absence was
due to the fact that I had fallen and met with a slight accident to the
head, and signed it "Willie" in order that, if necessary, she might show
it to her landlady. It was strange to write to her with so much
affection when inwardly I was aware of her terrible secret. Yet had I
not promised to save her? Had I not given her that foolish pledge which
had been the cause of all my exciting adventures and my narrow escape
from death?
Night came. I sat alone in the armchair before the fire listening for
my old friend's footstep, but all in vain. Something had happened, but
what the something was I feared to contemplate.
I unlocked a drawer in my old-fashioned bureau, a quaint old piece of
Queen Anne furniture from Netherdene, and took out the paper with the
cabalistic jumble of figures and letters which I had found on the body
of the dead man in Charlton Wood.
For a long while I sat and studied the cipher and its key, finding it
very ingeniously contrived--evidently a secret code established for some
evil purpose, a code that had been given to the dead man to enable him
to have secret communication with some persons who desired to remain
unseen and unknown.
My curiosity aroused, my eye chanced to fall upon the morning's paper
and I took it up and turned to the "agony column," where I saw several
cipher advertisements. One of them I endeavoured to read by the aid of
the dead man's key, but was unable. Therefore I tried the second, and
afterwards the third. The latter only consisted of two lines of a
meaningless jumble of letters and numerals, but taking a pencil I
commenced to write down the equivalent of the cipher in plain English.
In a few moments my heart gave a bound.