We were back again in Neate Street, Camberwell.
In Newcastle we had a very narrow escape. As Parham had walked towards
the hotel, Sybil had fortunately passed him in a closed cab. On her
arrival at the station she was in entire ignorance of the fellow's
presence, and as the train was already in waiting we entered and were
quickly on our way to London, wondering by what means Parham could
possibly have known of her whereabouts.
Was she watched? Was some secret agent, of whom we were in ignorance,
keeping constant observations upon us and reporting our movements to the
enemy? That theory was Sybil's.
"Those men are utterly unscrupulous," she declared as we sat together in
the little upstairs room in Camberwell. "No secret is safe from them,
and their spies are far better watchers than the most skilled detectives
of Scotland Yard."
At that moment Mrs Williams entered, delighted to see us back again,
for when we had left, Tibbie had, at my suggestion, paid rent for the
rooms for a month in advance and explained that we were returning.
"Two gentlemen came to inquire for you a week ago, Mr Morton," she
exclaimed, addressing me. "They first asked whether Mrs Morton was at
home, and I explained that she was away. They then inquired for you,
and appeared to be most inquisitive."
"Inquisitive? About what?" asked my pseudo wife.
"Oh! all about your private affairs, mum. But I told them I didn't know
anything, of course. One of the men was a foreigner."
"What did they ask you?" I inquired in some alarm.
"Oh, how long you'd been with me, where you worked, how long you'd been
married--and all that. Most impudent, I call it. Especially as they
were strangers."
"How did you know they were strangers?"
"Because they took the photograph of my poor brother Harry to be yours--
so they couldn't have known you."
"Impostors, I expect," I remarked, in order to allay the good woman's
suspicions. "No doubt they were trying to get some information from you
in order to use it for their own purposes. Perhaps to use my wife's
name, or mine, as an introduction somewhere."
"Well, they didn't get much change out of me, I can tell you," she
laughed. "I told them I didn't know them and very soon showed them the
door. I don't like foreigners. When I asked them to leave their names
they looked at each other and appeared confused. They asked where you
were, and I told them you were in Ireland."
"That's right," I said, smiling. "If they want me they can come here
again and find me."
Then, after the landlady had gone downstairs, I asked Tibbie her
opinion.
"Did I not tell you that inquiries would be made to ascertain whether I
were married?" she said. "The woman evidently satisfied them, for she
has no suspicion of the true state of affairs."
"Then you are safe?"
"Safe only for the present. I may be in increased peril to-morrow."
"And how long do you anticipate this danger to last?" I asked her
seriously, as she sat there gazing into the meagre fire.
"Last! Until my life's end," she answered very sadly. Then turning her
wonderful eyes to mine she added, "I know you cannot sacrifice your life
for me in this way much longer, Wilfrid. Therefore it must end. Yet
life, after all, is very sweet. When I am alone I constantly look back
upon my past and recognise how wasted it has been; how I discarded the
benefits of Providence and how from the first, when I came out, I was
dazzled by the glitter, gaiety, and extravagance of our circle. It has
all ended now, and I actually believe I am a changed woman. But it is,
alas! too late--too late."
Those words of hers concealed some extraordinary romance--the romance of
a broken heart. She admitted as much. Why were these men so
persistently hunting her down if they were in no fear of her? It could
only be some desperate vendetta--perhaps a life for a life!
What she had said was correct. Mine was now a most invidious position,
for while posing as William Morton, I was unable to go to Bolton Street
or even call upon Scarcliff or Wydcombe for fear that Winsloe and his
accomplices should learn that I was still alive. Therefore I was
compelled to return to the Caledonian Hotel in the Adelphi, where Budd
met me in secret each evening with my letters and necessaries.
Another week thus went by. The greater part of the day I usually spent
with Tibbie in that dull little room in Neate Street, and sometimes,
when the weather was fine, we went to get a breath of air in Greenwich
Park or to Lewisham or Dulwich, those resorts of the working-class of
South London. At night, ostensibly going to work, I left her and spent
hours and hours carefully watching the movements of Ellice Winsloe.
To Lord Wydcombe's, in Curzon Street, I followed him on several
occasions, for he had suddenly become very intimate with Wydcombe it
appeared, and while I stood on the pavement outside that house I knew so
well my thoughts wandered back to those brilliant festivities which
Cynthia so often gave. One night, after Winsloe had dined there, I saw
the brougham come round, and he and Cynthia drove off to the theatre,
followed by Jack and Wydcombe in a hansom. On another afternoon I
followed Winsloe to the Scarcliffs in Grosvenor Place, and later on saw
him laughing with old Lady Scarcliff at the drawing-room window that
overlooked Hyde Park Corner. He presented a sleek, well-to-do
appearance, essentially that of a gentleman. His frock coat was
immaculate, his overcoat of the latest cut, and his silk hat always
ironed to the highest perfection of glossiness.
Tibbie, of course, knew nothing of my patient watchfulness. I never
went near my chambers, therefore Ellice and Parham certainly believed me
dead, while as to Domville's hiding in Paris, I confess I doubted the
truth of the statement of Tibbie's friend. If the poor fellow still
lived he would most certainly have written to me. No! He was dead--
without a doubt. He had fallen a victim in that grim house of doom.
Again and again I tried to find the gruesome place, but in vain. Not a
street nor an alley in the neighbourhood of Regent Street I left
unexplored, yet for the life of me I could not again recognise the
house. The only plan, I decided, was to follow Parham, who would one
day go there, without a doubt.
I called on Mrs Parham at Sydenham Hill, and found that her husband was
still absent--in India, she believed. Miss O'Hara, however, remained
with her. What connection had the girl with those malefactors? I tried
to discern. At all events, she knew their cipher, and they also feared
her, as shown by their actions on that dark night in Dean's Yard.
My own idea was that Parham was still away in the country. Or, if he
were in London, he never went near Winsloe. The police were in search
of him, as admitted by the inspector at Sydenham, therefore he might at
any moment be arrested. But before he fell into the hands of the police
I was determined to fathom the secret of that house of mystery wherein I
had so nearly lost my life.
For Tibbie's personal safety I was now in constant and deep anxiety.
They were desperate and would hesitate at nothing in order to secure
their own ends. The ingenuity of the plot to seize her in Dean's Yard
was sufficient evidence of that. Fortunately, however, Tibbie had not
seen my cipher advertisements.
Another week passed, and my pretended wife had quite settled down again
amid her humble surroundings. It amused me sometimes to see the girl,
of whose beauty half London had raved, with the sleeves of her cotton
blouse turned up, making a pudding, or kneeling before the grate and
applying blacklead with a brush. I, too, helped her to do the
housework, and more than once scrubbed down the table or cleaned the
windows. Frequently we worked in all seriousness, but at times we were
compelled to laugh at each other's unusual occupation.
And when I looked steadily into those fine, wide-open eyes, I wondered
what great secret was hidden there.
Time after time I tried to learn more of Arthur Rumbold, but she would
tell me nothing.
In fear that the fact of her disappearance might find its way into the
papers, she wrote another reassuring letter to her mother, telling her
that she was well and that one day ere long she would return. This I
sent to a friend, a college chum, who was wintering in Cairo, and it was
posted from there. Jack naturally sent out a man to Egypt to try and
find her; and in the meantime we allayed all fears that she had met with
foul play.
Days and weeks went on. In the security of those obscure apartments in
Neate Street, that mean thoroughfare which by day resounded with the
cries of itinerant costermongers, and at evening was the playground of
crowds of children, Sybil remained patient, yet anxious. Mrs
Williams--who, by the way, had a habit of speaking of her husband as her
"old man"--was a kind, motherly soul, who did her best to keep her
company during my absences, and who performed little services for her
without thought of payment or reward. The occupation of compositor
accounted not only for my absence each night during the week, but on
Sunday nights also--to prepare Monday morning's paper, I explained.
I told everybody that I worked in Fleet Street, but never satisfied them
as to which office employed me. There were hundreds of compositors
living in the neighbourhood, and if I made a false statement it would at
once be detected. With Williams I was friendly, and we often had a
glass together and a pipe.
Our life in Camberwell was surely the strangest ever led by man and
woman. Before those who knew us I was compelled to call her "Molly,"
while she addressed me as "Willie," just as though I were her husband.
A thousand times I asked her the real reason of that masquerade, but she
steadfastly declined to tell me.
"You may be able to save me," was all the information she would
vouchsafe.
Darkness fell early, for it was early in February, and each night I
stole forth from the Caledonian Hotel on my tour of vigilance. The
hotel people did not think it strange that I was a working-man. It was
a quiet, comfortable place. I paid well, and was friendly with the
hall-porter.
With the faithful Budd's assistance--for he was friendly with Winsloe's
valet--I knew almost as much of the fellow's movements as he did
himself. I dogged his footsteps everywhere. Once he went down to
Sydenham Hill, called upon Mrs Parham, and remained there about an hour
while I waited outside in the quiet suburban road. When he emerged he
was carrying a square parcel packed in brown paper, and this he conveyed
back to Victoria, and afterwards took a cab to his own chambers.
He had not been there more than a quarter of an hour, when along King
Street came a figure that I at once recognised as that of the man I most
wanted to meet--John Parham himself.
I drew back and crossed the road, watching him enter Winsloe's chambers,
of which he apparently had a latchkey.
Then I waited, for I meant, at all hazards, to track the fellow to his
hiding-place, and to discover the true identity of the house where I had
been so ingeniously entrapped.
At last he emerged carrying the square packet which his friend had
obtained at Sydenham, and behind him also came Winsloe. They walked
across St James's Square and up York Street to the Trocadero, where,
after having a drink together, they parted, Winsloe going along Coventry
Street, while his companion, with the packet in his hand, remained on
the pavement in Shaftesbury Avenue, apparently undecided which direction
to take.
I was standing in the doorway of the Cafe Monico opposite, watching him
keenly, and saw that he was evidently well known at the Trocadero, for
the gold-laced hall-porter saluted him and wished him good-evening.
A few moments later he got into a cab and drove away, while in a few
seconds I had entered another cab and was following him. We went up
Shaftesbury Avenue, turning into Dean Street and thus reaching Oxford
Street opposite Rathbone Place, where he alighted, looked around as
though to satisfy himself that he was not followed, and walked on at a
rapid pace up Rathbone Place, afterwards turning into many smaller
thoroughfares with which I was unacquainted. Once he turned, and I
feared that he had detected me, therefore I crossed the road and
ascended the steps of a house, where I pretended to ring the door-bell.
He glanced back again, and finding that he was not being followed
increased his pace and turned the corner. I was after him in an
instant, and still followed him at a respectable distance until after he
had turned several corners and was walking up a quiet, rather ill-lit
street of dark old-fashioned houses, he glanced up and down and then
suddenly disappeared into one of the door-ways. My quick eyes noted the
house and then, five minutes afterwards, I walked quickly past the
place.
In a moment I recognised the doorway as that of the house with the fatal
stairs!
Returning, on the opposite side of the road, I saw that the place was in
total darkness, yet outwardly it was in no way different to its
neighbours, with the usual flight of steps leading to the front door,
the deep basement, and the high iron railings still bearing before the
door the old extinguishers used by the ink-men in the early days of last
century. I recognised the house by those extinguishers. The blinds had
not been lowered, therefore I conjectured that the place was unoccupied.
The street was, I found, called Clipstone Street, and it lay between
Cleveland Street and Great Portland Street, in quite a different
direction than that in which I had imagined it to be.
After a quarter of an hour Parham emerged without his parcel, closed the
door behind him, and walked on to Portland Place, where, from the stand
outside the Langham, he took a cab to Lyric Chambers, in Whitcomb
Street, opposite Leicester Square, where I discovered he had his abode.
My heart beat wildly, for I knew that I was now on the verge of a
discovery. I had gained knowledge that placed the assassins of Eric
Domville in my hands.
I lost not a moment. At the Tottenham Court Road Police Station I was
fortunate in finding Inspector Pickering on duty, and he at once
recognised me as the hero of that strange subterranean adventure.
As soon as I told him I had discovered the mysterious house he was, in
an instant, on the alert, and calling two plain-clothes men announced
his intention of going with me at once to Clipstone Street to make
investigations.
"Better take some tools with you, Edwards, to open the door, and a
lantern, each of you," he said to them. Then turning to me, he added,--
"If what we suspect is true, sir, there's been some funny goings-on in
that house. But we shall see."
He took a revolver from his desk and placed it in his pocket, and
afterwards exchanged his uniform coat for a dark tweed jacket in order
not to attract attention in the neighbourhood.
Then we all four went forth to ascertain the truth.