PART III

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HUGO

A FANTASIA ON MODERN THEMES

BY

ARNOLD BENNETT

Transcriber's Notes:

Mismatched quotes have been normalized.

"L'éat, c'est moi." corrected to "L'état, c'est moi."

Recalicitant corrected to recalcitrant.

Other oddities in spelling and punctuation have been

left as in the original.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

NOVELS.

A MAN FROM THE NORTH.

ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS.

LEONORA.

A GREAT MAN.

SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE.

FANTASIAS.

THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL.

THE GATES OF WRATH.

TERESA OF WATLING STREET.

THE LOOT OF CITIES

SHORT STORIES.

TALES OF THE FIVE TOWNS.

BELLES LETTRES.

JOURNALISM FOR WOMEN.

FAME AND FICTION.

HOW TO BECOME AN AUTHOR.

THE TRUTH ABOUT AN AUTHOR.

DRAMA.

POLITE FARCES.

HUGO

A FANTASIA ON MODERN THEMES

BY

ARNOLD BENNETT

AUTHOR OF

'THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL,' 'ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS,' 'A GREAT MAN,'

ETC.

[ILLUSTRATION]

LONDON

CHATTO & WINDUS

1906

CONTENTS

PART I

THE SEALED ROOMS

CHAPTER

I. THE DOME

II. THE ESTABLISHMENT

III. HUGO EXPLAINS HIMSELF

IV. CAMILLA

V. A STORY AND A DISAPPEARANCE

VI. A LAPSE FROM AN IDEAL

VII. POSSIBLE ESCAPE OF SECRETS

VIII. ORANGE-BLOSSOM

IX. 'WHICH?'

X. THE COFFIN

PART II

THE PHONOGRAPH

XI. SALE

XII. SAFE DEPOSIT

XIII. MR. GALPIN

XIV. TEA

XV. RAVENGAR IN CAPTIVITY

XVI. BURGLARS

XVII. POLYCARP AND HAWKE'S MAN

XVIII. HUSBAND AND WIFE

XIX. WHAT THE PHONOGRAPH SAID

PART III

THE TOMB

XX. 'ARE YOU THERE?'

XXI. SUICIDE

XXII. DARCY

XXIII. FIRST TRIUMPH OF SIMON

XXIV. THE LODGING-HOUSE

XXV. CHLOROFORM

XXVI. SECOND TRIUMPH OF SIMON

XXVII. THE CEMETERY

XXVIII. BEAUTY

PART I

THE SEALED ROOMS

HUGO

CHAPTER I

THE DOME

He wakened from a charming dream, in which the hat had played a

conspicuous part.

'I shouldn't mind having that hat,' he murmured.

A darkness which no eye could penetrate surrounded him as he lay in bed.

Absolute obscurity was essential to the repose of that singular brain,

and he had perfected arrangements for supplying the deficiencies of

Nature's night.

He touched a switch, and in front of him at a distance of thirty feet

the ivory dial of a clock became momentarily visible under the soft

yellow of a shaded electric globe. It was fifteen minutes past six. At

the same moment a bell sounded the quarter in delicate tones, which fell

on the ear as lightly as dew. In the upper gloom could be discerned the

contours of a vast dome, decorated in turquoise-blue and gold.

He pressed a button near the switch. A portière rustled, and a young man

approached his bed--a short, thin, pale, fair young man, active and

deferential.

'My tea, Shawn. Draw the curtains and open the windows.'

'Yes, sir,' said Simon Shawn.

In an instant the room was brilliantly revealed as a great circular

apartment, magnificently furnished, with twelve windows running round

the circumference beneath the dome. The virginal zephyrs of a July

morning wandered in. The sun, although fierce, slanted his rays through

the six eastern windows, printing a new pattern on the Tripoli carpets.

Between the windows were bookcases, full of precious and extraordinary

volumes, and over the bookcases hung pictures of the Barbizon school.

These books and these pictures were the elegant monument of hobbies

which their owner had outlived. His present hobby happened to be music.

A Steinway grand-piano was prominent in the chamber, and before the

ebony instrument stood a mechanical pianoforte-player.

'I must have that hat.'

He paused reflectively, leaning on one elbow, as he made the tea which

Simon Shawn had brought and left on the night-table. And again, at the

third cup, he repeated to himself that he must possess the hat.

He had a passion for tea. His servants had received the strictest orders

to supply him at early morn with materials sufficient only for two cups.

Nevertheless, they were always a little generous, and, by cheating

himself slightly in the first and the second cup, the votary could

often, to his intense joy, conjure a third out of the pot.

After glancing through the newspaper which accompanied the tea, he

jumped vivaciously out of bed, veiled the splendour of his pyjamas

beneath a quilted toga, and disappeared into a dressing-room, whistling.

'Shawn!' he cried out from his bath, when he heard the rattle of the

tea-tray.

'Yes, sir?'

'Play me the Chopin Fantasie, will you. I feel like it.'

'Certainly, sir,' said Simon, and paused. 'Which particular one do you

desire me to render, sir?'

'There is only one, Shawn, for piano solo.'

'I beg pardon, sir.'

The gentle plashing of water mingled with the strains of one of the

greatest of all musical compositions, as interpreted by Simon Shawn with

the aid of an ingenious contrivance the patentees of which had spent

twenty thousand pounds in advertising it.

'Very good, Shawn,' said Shawn's master, coming forward in his

shirt-sleeves as the last echoes of a mighty chord expired under the

dome. He meditatively stroked his graying beard while the pianist

returned to the tea-tray.

'And, Shawn--'

'Yes, sir?'

'I want a hat.'

'A hat, sir?'

'A lady's hat.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Run down into Department 42, there's a good fellow, and see if you can

find me a lady's hat of dark-blue straw, wide brim, trimmed chiefly with

a garland of pinkish rosebuds.'

'A lady's hat of dark-blue straw, wide brim, trimmed chiefly with

pinkish rosebuds, sir?'

'Precisely. Here, you're forgetting the token.'

He detached a gold medallion from his watch-chain, and handed it to

Shawn, who departed with it and with the tea-tray.

Two minutes later, having climbed the staircase between the inner and

outer domes, he stood, fully clad in a light-gray suit, on the highest

platform of the immense building, whose occidental façade is the glory

of Sloane Street and one of the marvels of the metropolis. Far above him

a gigantic flag spread its dazzling folds to the sun and the breeze. On

the white ground of the flag, in purple letters seven feet high, was

traced the single word, 'HUGO.'

From his eyrie he could see half the West End of London. Sloane Street

stretched north and south like a ruled line, and along that line two

hurrying processions of black dots approached each other, and met and

vanished below him; they constituted the first division of his army of

three thousand five hundred employés.

He leaned over the balustrade, and sniffed the pure air with exultant,

eager nostrils. He was forty-six. He did not feel forty-six, however. In

common with every man of forty-six, and especially every bachelor of

forty-six, he regarded forty-six as a mere meaningless number, as a

futile and even misleading symbol of chronology. He felt that Time had

made a mistake--that he was not really in the fifth decade, and that his

true, practical working age was about thirty.

Moreover, he was in love, for the first time in his life. Like all men

and all women, he had throughout the whole of his adult existence been

ever secretly preoccupied with thoughts, hopes, aspirations, desires,

concerning the other sex, but the fundamental inexperience of his heart

was such that he imagined he was going to be happy because he had fallen

in love.

'I'm glad I sent for that hat,' he said, smiling absently at the Great

Wheel over a mile and a half of roofs.

The key to his character and his career lay in the fact that he

invariably found sufficient courage to respond to his instincts, and

that his instincts were romantic. They had led him in various ways,

sometimes to grandiose and legitimate triumphs, sometimes to hidden

shames which it is merciful to ignore. In the main, they had served him

well. It was in obedience to an instinct that he had capped the nine

stories of the Hugo building with a dome and had made his bed under the

dome. It was in obedience to another instinct that he had sent for the

hat.

'Very pretty, isn't it?' he observed to Shawn, when Simon handed him the

insubstantial and gay object and restored the gold token. They were at a

window in the circular room; the couch had magically melted away.

'I admire it, sir,' said Shawn, and withdrew.

'Dolt!' he cried out upon Shawn in his heart. '_You_ didn't see her at

work on it. As if _you_ could appreciate her exquisite taste and the

amazing skill of her blanched fingers! I alone can appreciate these

things!'

He hung the hat on a Louis Quatorze screen, and blissfully gazed at it,

her creation.

'But I must be careful,' he muttered--'I must be careful.'

A clerk entered with his personal letters. It was scarcely seven

o'clock, but these fifteen or twenty envelopes had already been sorted

from the three thousand missives that constituted his first post; he had

his own arrangement with the Post-Office.

'So it's coming at last,' he said to himself, as he opened an envelope

marked 'Private and Confidential' in red ink. The autograph note within

was from Senior Polycarp, principal partner in Polycarps, the famous

firm of company-promoting solicitors, and it heralded a personal visit

from the august lawyer at 11.30 that day.

In the midst of dictating instructions to the clerk, Mr. Hugo stopped

and rang for Shawn.

'Take that back,' he commanded, indicating the hat. 'I've done with it.'

'Yes, sir.'

The hat went.

'I may just as well be discreet,' his thought ran.

But her image, the image of the artist in hats, illumined more brightly

than ever his soul.

CHAPTER II

THE ESTABLISHMENT

Seven years before, when, having unostentatiously acquired the necessary

land, and an acre or two over, Hugo determined to rebuild his premises

and to burst into full blossom, he visited America and Paris, and

amongst other establishments inspected Wanamaker's, the Bon Marché, and

the Magasins du Louvre. The result disappointed him. He had expected to

pick up ideas, but he picked up nothing save the Bon Marché system of

vouchers, by which a customer buying in several departments is spared

the trouble of paying separately in each department. He came to the

conclusion that the art of flinging money away in order that it may

return tenfold was yet quite in its infancy. He said to himself, 'I will

build a _shop_.'

Travelling home by an indirect route, he stopped at a busy English

seaport, and saw a great town-hall majestically rising in the midst of

a park. The beautiful building did not appeal to him in vain. At the

gates of the park he encountered a youth, who was staring at the

town-hall with a fixed and fascinated stare.

'A fine structure,' Hugo commented to the youth.

'_I_ think so,' was the reply.

'Can you tell me who is the architect?' asked Hugo.

'I am,' said the youth. 'And let me beg of you not to make any remark on

my juvenile appearance. I am sick of that.'

They lunched together, and Hugo learnt that the genius, after several

years spent in designing the varnished interiors of public-houses, had

suddenly come out first in an open competition for the town-hall;

thenceforward he had thought in town-halls.

'I want a shop putting up,' said Hugo.

The youth showed no interest.

'And when I say a shop,' Hugo pursued, 'I mean a _shop_.'

'Oh, a _shop_ you mean!' ejaculated the youth, faintly stirred. They

both spoke in italics.

'A _real_ shop. Sloane Street. A hundred and eighty thousand

superficial feet. Cost a quarter of a million. The finest shop in the

world!'

The youth started to his feet.

'I've never had any luck,' said he, gazing at Hugo. 'But I believe you

really do understand what a shop ought to be.'

'I believe I do,' Hugo concurred. 'And I want one.'

'You shall have it!' said the youth.

And Hugo had it, though not for anything like the sum he had named.

The four frontages of his land exceeded in all a quarter of a mile. The

frontage to Sloane Street alone was five hundred feet. It was this

glorious stretch of expensive earth which inflamed the architect's

imagination.

'But we must set back the façade twenty feet at least,' he said; and

added, 'That will give you a good pavement.'

'Young man,' cried Hugo, 'do you know how much this land has stood me in

a foot?'

'I neither know nor care,' answered the youth. 'All I say is, what's the

use of putting up a decent building unless people can see it?'

Hugo yielded. He felt as though, having given the genius something to

play with, he must not spoil the game. The game included twelve

thousand pounds paid to budding sculptors for monumental groups of a

symbolic tendency; it included forests of onyx pillars and pillars of

Carrara marble; it included ceilings painted by artists who ought to

have been R.A.'s, but were not; and it included a central court of vast

dimensions and many fountains, whose sole purpose was to charm the eye

and lure the feet of customers who wanted a rest from spending money.

Whenever Hugo found the game over-exciting, he soothed himself by

dwelling upon the wonderful plan which the artist had produced, of his

extraordinary grasp of practical needs, and his masterly solution of the

various complicated problems which continually presented themselves.

After the last bit of scaffolding was removed and the machine in full

working order, Hugo beheld it, and said emphatically, 'This will do.'

All London stood amazed, but not at the austere beauty of the whole, for

only a few connoisseurs could appreciate that. What amazed London was

the fabulous richness, the absurd spaciousness, the extravagant

perfection of every part of the immense organism.

You could stroll across twenty feet of private tessellated pavement,

enter jewelled portals with the assistance of jewelled commissionaires,

traverse furlong after furlong of vistas where nought but man was vile,

sojourn by the way in the concert-hall, the reading-room, or the

picture-gallery, smoke a cigarette in the court of fountains, write a

letter in the lounge, and finally ask to be directed to the stationery

department, where seated on a specially designed chair and surrounded by

the most precious manifestations of applied art, you could select a

threepenny box of J pens, and have it sent home in a pair-horse van.

The unobservant visitor wondered how Hugo made it pay. The observant

visitor did not fail to note that there were more than a hundred

cash-desks in the place, and that all the cashiers had the air of being

overworked. Once the entire army of cashiers, driven to defensive

action, had combined in order to demand from Hugo, not only higher pay,

but an increase in their numbers. Hugo had immediately consented,

expressing regret that their desperate plight had escaped his attention.

The registered telegraphic address of the establishment was 'Complete,

London.'

This address indicated the ideal which Hugo had turned into a reality.

His imperial palace was far more than a universal bazaar. He boasted

that you could do everything there, except get into debt. (His

dictionary was an expurgated edition, and did not contain the word

'credit.') Throughout life's fitful fever Hugo undertook to meet all

your demands. Your mother could buy your layette from him, and your

cradle, soothing-syrup, perambulator, and toys; she could hire your

nurse at Hugo's. Your school-master could purchase canes there. Hugo

sold the material for every known game; also sweets, cigarettes,

penknives, walking-sticks, moustache-forcers, neckties, and

trouser-stretchers. He shaved you, and kept the latest in scents and

kit-bags. He was unsurpassed for fishing-rods, motor-cars, Swinburne's

poems, button-holes, elaborate bouquets, fans, and photographs. His

restaurant was full of discreet corners with tables for two under

rose-shaded lights. He booked seats for theatres, trains, steamers,

grand-stands, and the Empire. He dealt in all stocks and shares. He was

a banker. He acted as agent for all insurance companies. He would insert

advertisements in the agony column, or any other column, of any

newspaper. If you wanted a flat, a house, a shooting-box, a castle, a

yacht, or a salmon river, Hugo could sell, or Hugo could let, the very

thing. He provided strong-rooms for your savings, and summer quarters

for your wife's furs; conjurers to amuse your guests after dinner, and

all the requisites for your daughter's wedding, from the cake and the

silk petticoats to the Viennese band. His wine-cellars and his specific

for the gout were alike famous; so also was his hair-dye.... And,

lastly, when the riddle of existence had become too much for your

curiosity, Hugo would sell you a pistol by means of which you could

solve it. And he would bury you in a manner first-class, second-class,

or third-class, according to your deserts.

And all these feats Hugo managed to organize within the compass of four

floors, a basement, and a sub-basement. Above, were five floors of

furnished and unfurnished flats. 'Will people of wealth consent to live

over a shop?' he had asked himself in considering the possibilities of

his palace, and he had replied, 'Yes, if the shop is large enough and

the rents are high enough.' He was right. His flats were the most

sumptuous and the most preposterously expensive in London; and they

were never tenantless. One man paid two thousand a year for a furnished

suite. But what a furnished suite! The flats had a separate and

spectacular entrance on the eastern façade of the building, with a foyer

that was always brilliantly lighted, and elevators that rose and sank

without intermission day or night. And on the ninth floor was a special

restaurant, with prices to match the rents, and a roof garden, where one

of Hugo's orchestras played every fine summer evening, except Sundays.

(The County Council, mistrusting this aerial combination of music and

moonbeams, had granted its license only on the condition that customers

should have one night in which to recover from the doubtful influences

of the other six.) The restaurant and the roof-garden were a resort

excessively fashionable during the season. The garden gave an excellent

view of the dome, where Hugo lived. But few persons knew that he lived

there; in some matters he was very secretive.

That very sultry morning Hugo brooded over the face of his establishment

like a spirit doomed to perpetual motion. For more than two hours he

threaded ceaselessly the long galleries where the usual daily crowds of

customers, sales-people, shopwalkers, inspectors, sub-managers,

managers, and private detectives of both sexes, moved with a strange and

unaccustomed languor in a drowsy atmosphere which no system of

ventilation could keep below 75° Fahrenheit. None but the chiefs of

departments had the right to address him as he passed; such was the

rule. He deviated into the counting-house, where two hundred typewriters

made their music, and into the annexe containing the stables and

coach-houses, where scores of vans and automobiles, and those elegant

coupés gratuitously provided by Hugo for the use of important clients,

were continually arriving and leaving. Then he returned to the

purchasing multitudes, and plunged therein as into a sea. At intervals a

customer, recognising him, would nudge a friend, and point eagerly.

'That's Hugo. See him, in the gray suit?'

'What? That chap?'

And they would both probably remark at lunch: 'I saw Hugo himself to-day

at Hugo's.'

He took an oath in his secret heart that he would not go near Department

42, the only department which had the slightest interest for him. He

knew that he could not be too discreet. And yet eventually, without

knowing how or why, he perceived of a sudden that his legs carried him

thither. He stopped, at a loss what to do, and then, by the direct

interposition of kindly Fate, a manager spoke to him.... He gazed out of

the corner of his eye. Yes, she was there. He could see her through a

half-drawn portière in one of the trying-on rooms. She was sitting limp

on a chair, overcome by the tropic warmth of Sloane Street, with her

noble head thrown back, her fine eyes half shut, and her beautiful hands

lying slackly on her black apron.

What an impeachment of civilization that a creature so fair and so

divine should be forced to such a martyrdom! He desired ardently to run

to her and to set her free for the day, for the whole summer, and on

full wages. He wondered if he could trust the manager with instructions

to alleviate her lot.... The next instant she sprang up, giving the

indispensable smile of welcome to some customer who had evidently

entered the trying-on room from the other side. The phenomenon

distressed him. She disappeared from view behind the portière, and

reappeared, but only for a moment, talking to a foppish old man with a

white moustache. It was Senior Polycarp, the lawyer.

Hugo flushed, and, abandoning the manager in the middle of a sentence,

fled to his central office. He had no confidence in his self-command....

Could this be jealousy? Was it possible that he, Hugo, should be so far

gone? Nay!

But what was Polycarp, that old and desiccated widower, doing in the

millinery department?

He said he must form some definite plan, and begin by giving her a

private room.

CHAPTER III

HUGO EXPLAINS HIMSELF

'And what,' asked Hugo, smiling faintly at Mr. Senior Polycarp--'what is

your client's idea of price?'

For half an hour they had been talking in the luxurious calm of Hugo's

central office, which was like an island refuge in the middle of that

tossing ocean of business. It overlooked the court of fountains from the

second story, and the highest jet of water threw a few jewelled drops to

the level of its windows.

Mr. Polycarp stroked his beautiful white moustache.

'We would give,' he said in his mincing, passionless voice, 'the cost

price of premises, stock, and fixtures, and for goodwill seven times

your net annual profits. In addition, we should be anxious to secure

your services as managing director for ten years at five thousand a

year, plus a percentage of profits.'

'Hum!'

'And, of course, if you wished part of the purchase-money in shares--'

'Have you formed any sort of estimate of my annual profits?' Hugo

demanded.

'Yes--a sort of estimate.'

'You have looked carefully round, eh?'

'My clients have. I myself, too, a little. This morning, for example.

Very healthy, Mr. Hugo.'

'What departments did you visit this morning? Each has its busy days.'

'Grocery, electrical, and--let me see--yes, furniture.'

'Not a good day for that--too hot! Anything else?'

'No,' said Mr. Polycarp.

'Ah!... Well, and what is your clients' estimate?'

'Naturally, I cannot pretend--'

'Listen, Mr. Polycarp,' said Hugo, interrupting: 'I will be open with

you.'

The lawyer nodded, appreciatively benign. As usual, he kept his thoughts

to himself, but he had the air of adding Hugo to the vast collection of

human curiosities which he had made during a prolonged professional

career.

'My net trading profits last year were £106,000. You are surprised?'

'Somewhat.'

'You expected a higher figure?'

'We did.'

'I knew it. And the figure might be higher if I chose. Only I do things

in rather a royal way, you see. I pay my staff five hundred a week more

than I need. And I allow myself to be cheated.' He laughed suddenly.

'Costume department, for instance. I send charming costumes out on

approval, and fetch them back in two days. And the pretty girls who have

taken off the tickets, and worn the garments, and carefully restored the

tickets, and lied to my carmen--the pretty girls imagine they have

deceived me. They have merely amused me. My detective reports are

excellent reading. And, moreover, I like to think that I have helped a

pretty girl to make the best of herself.'

'Immoral and unbusinesslike, Mr. Hugo.'

'Admitted. I have no doubt that if I put the screw on all round I could

quite justifiably increase my profits by fifty per cent.'

'That shows what a splendid prospect a limited company would have.'

'Yes, doesn't it?' said Hugo joyously.

'But why are your clients so anxious to turn me into a limited

company?'

'They see in your undertaking,' replied Polycarp, folding his thin

hands, 'a legitimate opening for that joint-stock enterprise which has

had such a beneficial effect on England's prosperity.'

'They would make a profit?'

'A reasonable profit. A small syndicate would be formed to buy from you,

and that syndicate would sell to a public company. The usual thing.'

'And where do I come in?'

'Where do you come in, my dear Mr. Hugo? Everywhere! You would receive

over a million in cash. You would have your salary and your percentage,

and you would be relieved of all your present risks.'

'All my present risks?'

'You have risks, Mr. Hugo, because your business has increased so

rapidly that your income is out of all proportion to your capital, which

consists almost solely of buildings which you could not sell at anything

like their cost price in open market, and of goodwill. Now, I ask you,

what is goodwill? What _is_ it? Under our scheme you would at once

become a millionaire in actual fact.'

'Decidedly an inviting prospect,' said Hugo.

He walked about the room.

'Then I may take it that you are at any rate prepared to negotiate?' the

lawyer ventured, staring at the fountain.

'Mr. Polycarp,' answered Hugo, 'I must first give you a little

information and ask you a few questions.'

'Certainly.'

Hugo halted in front of Polycarp, close to him, and, lighting a cigar,

gazed down at the frigid lawyer.

'Till the age of twenty-eight,' he began, 'I had no object in life. I

was educated at Oxford. I narrowly escaped the legal profession. I had a

near shave of the Church. I wasted years in aimless travel, waiting for

destiny to turn up. I was conscious of no gift except a power for

organizing. That gift I felt I had, and gradually I perceived that I

would like to be the head of some large and complicated undertaking. I

examined the latest developments of modern existence, and came to the

conclusion that the direction of a thoroughly up-to-date stores would

amuse me as well as anything. So I bought this concern--a flourishing

little drapery and furnishing business it was then. I had exactly fifty

thousand pounds--not a cent more. I paid twenty-five thousand for the

business. It was too much, but when an idea takes me it takes me. I

required a fine-sounding name, and I chose Hugo. It was an inspiration.'

'Then Hugo is not your--'

'It is not. My real name is Owen. But think of "Owen" on a flag, and

then think of "Hugo" on a flag.'

'Exactly.'

'I began. And because I had everything to learn I lost money at first. I

took lessons in my own shop, and the course cost me a hundred a week for

some months. But in two years I had proved that my theory of myself was

correct. In ten I had made nearly a quarter of a million. Everyone knows

the history of my growth.'

Polycarp nodded.

'In the eleventh year I determined to emerge from the chrysalis. I

dreamed a dream of my second incarnation as universal tradesman. And the

fabric of my dream, Mr. Polycarp, you behold around you.' He waved the

cigar. 'It is the most colossal thing of its kind ever known.'

Polycarp nodded again.

'Some people regard it as extravagant. It is. It is meant to be. Hugo's

store is only my fun, my device for amusing myself. We have glorious

times here, I and my ten managers--my Council of Ten. They know me; I

know them. They are well paid; they are artists. A trade spirit must, of

course, actuate a trade concern; but above that, controlling that, is

another spirit--the spirit which has made this undoubtedly the greatest

shop in the world. I cannot describe it, but it exists. All my managers,

and even many of the rank and file, feel it.'

'Very interesting,' said the lawyer.

'Mr. Polycarp,' Hugo announced solemnly, 'the direction of this

establishment is my life. In the midst of this lovely and interesting

organism I enjoy every hour of the day. What else can I want?'

Polycarp raised his eyebrows.

'Do you suppose it would add to my fun to have a million in the bank--I,

with an income of two thousand a week? Do you suppose I should find it

diverting to be at the beck and call of a board of directors--I, the

supreme fount of authority? Do you suppose it would be my delight to

consider eternally the interests of a pack of shareholders--I, who

consider nothing but my fancy? And, finally, do you suppose it would

amuse me, Hugo, to have "limited" put after my name? Me, limited!'

'Then,' said the lawyer slowly, 'I am to understand you are not

willing--'

'My friend,' Hugo replied, dropping into his chair, 'I would sooner see

the whole blessed place fall like the Bastille than see it "limited."'

Polycarp rose in his turn.

'My clients,' he remarked in a peculiar tone, 'had set their minds on

this affair.'

'For once in a way your clients will be disappointed,' said Hugo.

'What do you mean--"for once in a way"?'

'Who are your clients, Mr. Polycarp?'

'Since the offer is rejected, it would be useless to divulge their

names.'

'I will tell you, then,' said Hugo. 'Your client--for there is only

one--is Louis Ravengar. I saw it stated in a paper the other day that

Louis Ravengar had successfully floated thirty-nine companies with a

total capitalization of thirty millions. But my scalp will not be added

to his collection.'

'I shall not disclose the identity of my clients,' Mr. Polycarp minced.

'But, speaking of Mr. Ravengar, I have noticed that what he wants he

gets. The manner in which the United Coal Company, Limited, was brought

to flotation by him in the teeth of the opposition of the proprietors

was really most interesting.'

'You mean to warn me that there are ways of compelling a private concern

to become public and joint-stock?'

'Not at all, Mr. Hugo. I am incapable of such a hint. I am sure that

nothing and nobody could force you against your will. I was only

mentioning the case of the Coal Company. I could mention others.'

'Don't trouble, my dear sir. Convey my decision to Louis Ravengar, and

give him my compliments. We are old acquaintances.'

'You are?' The solicitor seemed astonished in his imperturbable way.

'We are.'

'I will convey your decision to my clients.'

Accepting a cigar, Mr. Polycarp departed.

Without giving himself time to think, Hugo went straight to Department

42, and direct to the artist in hats. She stood pale and deferential to

receive him. The heat was worse than ever.

'Your name is Payne, I think?' he began. (He well knew her name was

Payne.)

'Yes, sir.'

Other employés in the trying-on room looked furtively round.

'About half-past eleven an old gentleman, with white moustache, came

into this room, Miss Payne. You remember?'

'Yes, sir.'

'What did he want?'

'He was inquiring about a hat, sir,' she hurriedly answered.

'For a lady?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Thank you.'

And he hastened back to his central office, and breathed a sigh. 'I have

actually spoken to her,' he murmured. 'How charming her voice is!'

But Miss Payne's physical condition desolated him. If she was so

obviously exhausted at 12.30, what would she be like at the day's end?'

'I've got it!' he cried.

He seized a pen and wrote: 'Notice.--The public are respectfully

informed that this establishment will close to-day at two o'clock.'

He rang a bell, and a messenger appeared.

'Take this to the printing-office instantly, and tell Mr. Waugh it must

be posted throughout the place in half an hour.'

Shortly after two o'clock Sloane Street was amazed to witness the exodus

of the three thousand odd. The closure was attributed to a whim of

Hugo's for celebrating some obscure anniversary in his life. Many

hundreds of persons were inconvenienced, and the internal economy of

scores of polite homes seriously deranged. The evening papers found a

paragraph. And Hugo lost perhaps a hundred and fifty pounds net. But

Hugo was happy, and he was expectant.

At ten o'clock that night a youngish man, extremely like Simon Shawn,

was brought by Simon into Hugo's presence under the dome. This was

Simon's brother, Albert Shawn, a member of Hugo's private detective

force.

'Sit down,' said Hugo. 'Well?'

'I reckon you've heard, sir,' Albert Shawn began impassively, 'the yarn

that's going all round the stores.'

'I have not.'

'Everyone's whispering,' said Albert Shawn, gazing carefully at his

boots, 'that Mr. Hugo has taken a kind of a fancy to Miss Payne.'

Hugo restrained himself.

'Heavens!' he exclaimed, with a clever affectation of lightness, 'what

next? I've only spoken to the chit once.'

'Don't I know it, sir!'

'Enough of that! What have you to report?'

'Miss Payne left at 2.15, whipped round to the flats entrance, took the

lift to the top-floor, went into Mr. Francis Tudor's flat.'

'What's that you say? Whose flat?' cried Hugo.

'Mr. Francis Tudor's, sir.'

Mr. Tudor was famous as the tenant of the suite rented at two thousand a

year; he had a reputation for being artistic, sybaritic, and something

in the inner ring of the City.

'Ah!' said Hugo. 'Perhaps she is a friend of one of Mr. Tudor's--'

'Servants,' he was about to say, but the idea of Miss Payne being on

terms of equality with a menial was not pleasant to him, and he stopped.

'No, sir,' said Albert Shawn, unmoved. 'She is not, because Mr. Tudor

shunted out all his servants soon afterwards. Miss Payne was shown into

his study. She had her tea there, and her dinner. The Hugo half-guinea

dinner was ordered late by telephone for two persons, and rushed up at

eight o'clock.'

'I wonder Mr. Tudor didn't order an orchestra with the dinner,' said

Hugo grimly. It was a sublime effort on his part to be his natural self.

'I waited for Miss Payne to leave,' continued Albert Shawn. 'That's why

I'm so late.'

'And what time did she leave?'

'She hasn't left,' said Albert Shawn.

CHAPTER IV

CAMILLA

Hugo dismissed Albert, with orders to continue his vigil, and then he

rang for Simon.

'Do you think I might have some tea?' he asked.

'I am disposed to think you might, sir,' said Simon the cellarer. 'It is

eight days since you indulged after dinner.'

'Bring me one cup, then, poured out.'

He was profoundly disturbed by Albert's news. He was, in fact,

miserable. He had a physical pain in the region of the heart. He wished

he could step off Love as one steps off an omnibus, but he found that

Love resembled an express train more than an omnibus.

'Can she be secretly married to him?' he demanded half aloud, sipping at

the tea.

The idea soothed him exactly as much as it alarmed him.

'The question is,' he murmured angrily, 'am I or am I not an ass?... At

my age!'

He felt vaguely that he was not, that he was rather a splendid and

Byronic figure in the grip of tremendous emotions.

Having regretfully finished the tea, he unlocked a bookcase, and picked

out at random a volume of Boswell's 'Johnson.' It was the modern Oxford

edition--the only edition worthy of a true amateur--bound by Rivière.

Like all wise and lettered men, Hugo consulted Boswell in the grave

crises of life, and to-night he happened upon the venerable Johnson's

remark: _'Sir, I would be content to spend the remainder of my existence

driving about in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.'_

He leaned back in his chair and laughed. 'In the whole history of

mankind,' he asserted to the dome, 'there have only been two really

sensible men. Solomon was one, and Johnson the other.'

He restored the book to its place, and sat down to the piano-player, and

in a moment the overture to 'Tannhäuser,' that sublime failure to prove

that passion is folly, filled the vast apartment. The rushing violin

passages, and every call of Aphrodite, intoxicated his soul and raised

his spirits till he knew with the certainty of a fully-aroused instinct

that Camilla Payne must be his. He became optimistic on all points.

'A lady insists on seeing you, sir,' said Simon Shawn, intruding upon

the Pilgrims' Chant.

'She may insist,' Hugo answered lightly. 'But it all depends who she is.

I'm--'

He stopped, for the insisting lady had entered.

It was Camilla.

He jumped up. Never before in his career had he been so astounded,

staggered, charmed, enchanted, dazzled, and completely silenced.

'Miss Payne?' he gasped after a prolonged pause.

Simon Shawn effaced himself.

'Yes, Mr. Hugo.'

'Won't you sit down?'

The singular prevalence of beautiful women in England is only

appreciated properly by Englishmen who have lived abroad, and these

alone know also that in no other country is beauty wasted by women as it

is wasted in England. Camilla was beautiful, and supremely beautiful;

she was tall, well and generously formed, graceful, fair, with fine

eyes and fine dark chestnut hair; her absolutely regular features had

the proud Tennysonian cast. But the coldness of Tennysonian damsels was

not hers. Whether she had Latin blood in her veins, or whether Nature

had peculiarly gifted her out of sheer caprice, she possessed in a high

degree that indescribable demeanour, at once a defiance and a surrender,

a question and an answer, a confession and a denial, which is the

universal weapon of women of Latin race in the battle of the sexes, but

of which Englishwomen seem to be almost deprived. 'I am Eve!' say the

mocking, melting eyes of the Southern woman, and so said Camilla's eyes.

No man could rest calm under that glance; no man could forbear the

attempt to decipher the hidden secrecies of its message, and no man

could succeed in the task.

Hugo felt that he had never seen this woman before.

And he might have been excused for feeling so; for instead of the black

alpaca, Camilla now wore a simple but effectively charming toilette such

as 'Hugo's' created and sold to women for the rapture of men in summer

twilights, and over the white dress was thrown a very rich pearl-tinted

opera-cloak, which only partly concealed the curves of the shoulders,

and poised aslant on the glistening coiffure was the identical blue hat

with its wide brims that had visited the dome seventeen hours before.

The total effect was calculated, perfect, overwhelming.

'I'm sorry to disturb you, Mr. Hugo,' said Camilla, throwing back her

cloak on the left side with a fine gesture, 'but I am in need of your

assistance.'

'Yes?' Hugo whispered, seating himself.

She had a low voice, rare in a blonde, and it thrilled him. And she was

so near him in the great chamber!

'I want you to tell me what plot I am in the midst of. What is the web

that has begun to surround me?'

'Plot?' stammered Hugo. 'Web?'

Her eyes flashed scrutinizingly on his face.

'You have a kind heart,' she said; 'everybody can see that. Be frank. Do

you know,' she asked in a different tone, 'or don't you, that you spoke

very gruffly to me this morning?'

'Miss Payne,' he began, 'I assure you--'

'I thought perhaps you didn't know,' she smiled calmly. 'But you did

speak very gruffly. Now, I have taken my courage in both hands in order

to come to you to-night. I may have lost my situation through it--I

can't tell. Whether I have lost my situation or not, I appeal to you for

candour.'

'Miss Payne,' said Hugo, 'it distresses me to hear you speak of a

"situation."'

'And why?'

'You know why,' he answered. 'A woman as distinguished as you are must

be perfectly well aware how distinguished she is, and perfectly capable,

let me add, of hiding her distinction from the common crowd. For what

purpose of your own you came into my shop, I can't guess. But necessity

never forced you there. No doubt you meant to avoid getting yourself

talked about; nevertheless, you have got yourself talked about.'

'Indeed!' She looked at him sideways.

'Yes,' Hugo went on; 'several thousands of commonplace persons are

saying that I have fallen in love with you. Do you think it's true, this

rumour?'

'How can I tell you?' said she.

'Well, it is true!' he cried. 'It's doubly and trebly true! It's the

greatest truth in the world at the present moment. It is one of those

truths that a believer can't keep to himself.' He paused, expectant. 'A

woman less fine than you would have protested against this sudden

avowal, which is only too like me--too like Hugo. You don't protest. I

knew you wouldn't. I knew you knew. You asked for candour. You have it.

I love you.'

'Then, why,' she demanded firmly, with a desolating smile--'why do you

have me followed by your private detective?'

Hugo was caught in a trap. He had hesitated long before instructing

Albert Shawn to shadow Camilla, but in the end his desire for exact

knowledge concerning her, and his possession of a corps of detectives

ready to hand, had proved too much for his scruples. He had, however,

till that day discovered little of importance for his pains--merely that

her parents, who were dead, had kept a small milliner's shop in Edgware

Road, that her age was twenty-five, that she had come to his millinery

department with a good testimonial from an establishment in Walham

Green, that she lived in lodgings at Fulham and saw scarcely anyone, and

that she had once been a typewriter.

'The fact is--'

He stopped, perceiving that the 'fact' would not do at all, and that to

explain to the woman you love why you have spied on her is a somewhat

nice operation.

'Is that the way you usually serve us?' pursued Camilla, with a strange

emphasis on the word 'us' which maddened him.

'The fact is, Miss Payne,' he said boldly, sitting down as soon as he

had invented the solution of the difficulty, 'you will not deny that

this afternoon and this evening you have been in a position of some

slight delicacy. What your relations are with Mr. Francis Tudor I have

never sought to inquire, but I have always doubted the bonâ fides of Mr.

Francis Tudor. And to-day I have simply--if I may say so--watched over

you. If my man has been clumsy, I beg your forgiveness. I beg you to

believe in my deep respect for you.'

The plain sincerity of his accent and of his gaze touched and convinced

her. She looked at her feet, white-shod on the crimson carpet.

'Ah!' she murmured, as if to herself, mournfully, 'why don't you ask me

how it is that I, to whom you pay thirty-six shillings a week, am

wearing these clothes? Surely you must think that an employé who--'

'At this hour you are not an employé,' he interrupted here. 'You visit

me of your own free will to demand an explanation of matters which are

quite foreign to our business relations. I give it you. Beyond that I

permit myself no thoughts except such as any man is entitled to

concerning any woman. You used the word "plot" when you came in. What

did you refer to? If Mr. Tudor has--' He could not proceed.

'As I left Mr. Tudor's flat a few minutes since,' said Camilla quietly,

producing a revolver from the folds of her cloak, 'I picked up this. It

may or may not be loaded. Perhaps you can tell me.'

He seized the weapon, and impetuously aimed at a heavy Chinese gong

across the room, and pulled the trigger several times. The revolver

spoke noisily, and the gong sounded and swung.

'You see!' he exclaimed. 'Pardon the din. I did it without thinking.'

'Did you call, sir?' asked Simon Shawn, appearing in the doorway.

Hugo extirpated him with a look.

'How cool you are!' he resumed to Camilla, and laid down the revolver.

'No, you aren't! By Jove, you aren't! What is it? What have you been

through? What is this plot? A plot--in my building--and against you!

Tell me everything--everything! I insist.'

'Shall you believe all that I say?' she ventured.

'Yes,' he said, 'all.'

He saw with intense joy that he was going to be friendly with her. It

seemed too good to be true.

CHAPTER V

A STORY AND A DISAPPEARANCE

'Perhaps I ought to begin by informing you,' said Camilla Payne, 'that I

have known Mr. Francis Tudor for about two years. Always he has been

very nice to me. Once he asked me to marry him--quite suddenly--it was a

year ago. I refused because I didn't care for him. I then saw nothing of

him for some time. But after I entered your service here, he came across

me again by accident. I did not know until lately that he had one of

your flats. He was very careful, very polite, timid, cautious--but very

obstinate, too. He invited me to call on him at his rooms, and to bring

any friends I liked. Of course, it was a stupidity on his part, but,

then, what else could he do? A man who wants to cultivate relations with

a homeless shopgirl is rather awkwardly fixed.'

'I wish to Heaven you would not talk like that, Miss Payne!' said Hugo,

interrupting her impatiently.

'I am merely telling you these things so that you may understand my

position,' Camilla coldly replied. 'Do you imagine that I am amusing

myself?'

'Go on, go on, I beg,' he urged, with a gesture of apology.

'Naturally, I declined the invitation. Then next I received a letter

from him, in which he said that unless I called on him, or agreed to

meet him in some place where we could talk privately and at length, he

should kill himself within a week. And he added that death was perhaps

less to him than I imagined. I believed that letter. There was something

about it that touched me.'

'And so you decided to yield?'

'I did yield. I felt that if I was to trust him at all, I might as well

trust him fully, and I called at his flat this afternoon alone. He was

evidently astonished to see me at that hour, so I explained to him that

you had closed early for some reason or other.'

'Exactly,' said Hugo.

He insisted on giving me tea. I was treated, in fact, like a princess;

but during tea he said nothing to me that might not have been said

before a roomful of people. After tea he left me for a few moments, in

order, as he said, to give some orders to his servants. Up till then he

had been extremely agitated, and when he returned he was even more

agitated. He walked to and fro in that lovely drawing-room of his--just

as you were doing here not long since. I was a little afraid.'

'Afraid of what?' demanded Hugo.

'I don't know--of him, lest he might do something fatal, irretrievable;

something--I don't know. And then, being alone with him in that palace

of a place! Well, he burst out suddenly into a series of statements

about himself, and about his future, and his intentions, and his

feelings towards me. And these statements were so extraordinary and so

startling that I could not think he had invented them. I believed them,

as I had believed in the sincerity of his threat to kill himself if I

would not listen to him.'

'And what were they--these statements?' Hugo inquired.

Camilla waved aside the interruptions, and continued: '"Now," he said,

"will you marry me? Will you marry me now?"'

She paused and glanced at Hugo, who observed that her eyes were filling

with tears.

'And then?' murmured Hugo soothingly.

'Then I agreed to marry him.'

And with these words she cried openly.

'If anyone had told me beforehand,' she resumed, 'that I should be so

influenced by a man's--a man's acting, I would have laughed. But I

was--I was. He succeeded completely.'

'You have not said what these extraordinary statements were,' Hugo

insisted.

'Don't ask me,' she entreated, drying her eyes. 'It is enough that I was

hoodwinked. If you have had no hand in this plot, don't ask me. I am too

ashamed, too scornful of my credulity, to repeat them. You would laugh.'

'Should I?' said Hugo, smiling gravely. 'What occurred next?'

'The next step was that Mr. Tudor asked me to accompany his housekeeper

to the housekeeper's room, and on the other side of the passage from the

drawing-room I was to dine with him. The housekeeper is a Mrs. Dant, a

kind, fat, lame old woman, and she produced this cloak and this hat, and

so on, and said that they were for me! I was surprised, but I praised

them and tried them on for a moment. You must remember that I was his

affianced wife. I talked with Mrs. Dant, and prepared myself for

dinner, and then I went back to the drawing-room, and found Mr. Tudor

ready for dinner. I asked him why he had got the clothes, and he said he

had got them this very morning merely on the chance of my accepting his

proposal out of pity for him. And I believed that, too.'

There was a silence.

'But that is not the end?' Hugo encouraged her.

'Oh,' she exclaimed, 'it is useless, all this story! And the episode is

finished! When I came in here I was angry; I suspect you of some

complicity. But I suspect you no longer, and I see now that the wisest

course for a woman such as I after such an adventure is to be mute about

it, and to forget it.'

'No,' he said; 'you are wrong. Trust me. I entreat.'

Camilla bit her lip.

'We went into the dining-room, and dinner was served,' she recommenced,

'and there I had my first shock, my first doubt, for one of the two

waiters was your spy.'

'Shawn! My detective!'

Hugo was surprised to find that Albert, almost a novice in his

vocation, had contrived to be so insinuating.

'And he made a very bad waiter indeed,' Camilla added.

'I regret it,' said Hugo. 'He meant well.' 'When the waiters had gone I

asked Mr. Tudor if they were his own servants. He hesitated, and then

admitted frankly that they were not. He told me that his servants were

out on leave for the evening. "You don't mean to say that I am now alone

with you in the flat!" I protested. "No," he said quickly. "Mrs. Dant is

always in her room across the passage. Don't be alarmed, dearest." His

tone reassured me. After coffee, he took my photograph by flashlight. He

printed one copy at once, and then, after we had both been in the

dark-room together, he returned there to get some more printing-paper.

While he was absent I went into the housekeeper's room for a

handkerchief which I had left there. Mrs. Dant was not in the room. But

in a mirror I saw the reflection of a man hiding behind the door. I was

awfully frightened. However, I pretended to see nothing, and tried to

hum a song. I same into the passage. The passage window was open, and I

looked out. Another man was watching on the balcony. Of course, I saw

instantly it was a plot. I--I--'

'Did you recognise the men, then?' Hugo asked.

'The one in the room I was not quite sure of. The other, on the balcony,

was your detective, I think. I saw him disappear in this direction.'

'But whatever the plot was, Shawn had no hand in it.'

'No, no, of course not! I see now. But the other, in the room! Ah, if

you knew all my history, you would understand better! I felt that some

vengeance was out against me. I saw everything clearly. I tried to keep

my head, and to decide calmly what I ought to do. It was from a little

table in the passage that I picked up the revolver. Then I heard hurried

footsteps coming through the drawing-room towards the passage. It was

Mr. Tudor. He seemed very startled. I tried to appear unconcerned. "What

is the matter?" he asked; he had gone quite pale. "Nothing," I said. "I

only went to fetch a handkerchief." He laughed uneasily. "I was afraid

you had thought better of it and run away from me," he said. And he

kissed me; I was obliged to submit. All this time I was thinking hard

what to do. I suggested we should go on to the roof garden for awhile.

He objected, but finally he gave way, and he brought me the cloak and

hat, and we went to the garden and sat down. I felt safer there. At last

I ventured to tell him that I must go home. Of course, he objected to

that too, but he gave way a second time. "I will just speak to Mrs.

Dant," I said. "You stay here for three minutes. By that time I shall be

ready." And I went off towards the flat, but as soon as I was out of his

sight I turned and ran here. And that's all.'

'You are a wonderful creature,' Hugo murmured, looking at her

meditatively.

'Why?' The question was put with a sort of artless and melancholy

surprise.

'How can I tell?' said Hugo. 'How can I tell why Heaven made you so?'

She laughed, and the laugh enchanted him. He had studied her during her

recital; he had observed her continual effort to use ordinary words and

ordinary tones like a garment to hide vivid sensations and emotions

which, however, shone through the garment as her face might have shone

through a veil.

He recalled her little gestures, inflections, glances--the thousand

avenues by which her rich and overflowing individuality escaped from

the prison of her will, and impressed itself on the rest of the created

universe. Her story was decidedly singular, and as mysterious as it was

singular; that something sinister would be brought to light, he felt

sure. But what occupied and charmed his mind was the exquisite fact that

between him and her relations were now established. The story, her past

danger, even her possible future danger--these things only interested

him in so far as they formed the basis of an intimacy. He exulted in

being near her, in the savour of her commanding presence. When he

thought of her in his monstrous shop, wilting in the heat, bowing

deferentially to fools, martyrizing her soul for less than two pounds a

week, he thought of kings' daughters sold into slavery. But she was a

princess now, and for evermore, and she had come to him of her own free

will; she had trusted him; she had invited his help! It was glorious

beyond the dreams of his passion.

'Come,' he said feverishly, 'show me how you managed to get to my dome.'

And he threw open the easternmost window, and she stepped with him out

on to the balcony.

They looked down across Hugo's little private garden, into the

blackness of the court of fountains, whose balconies were vaguely

disclosed here and there by the reflection from lit interiors. On the

other side of the deep pit of the court was the vast expanse of flat

roof containing the famous roof garden. Amid dwarf trees and festoons of

coloured lights, the figures of men and women who counted themselves the

cream of London could dimly be seen walking about or sitting at tables;

and the wild strain of the Tsigane musicians, as they swayed to and fro

in their red coats on the bandstand, floated towards the dome through

the heavy summer air. In the near distance the fantastic shapes of

chimney-cowls raised themselves against the starry but moonless sky, and

miles away the grandiose contours of a dome far greater than Hugo's--the

dome of St. Paul's--finished the prospect in solemn majesty. It was a

scene well calculated to intensify a man's emotions, especially when a

man stands to view it, as Hugo stood, on a lofty balcony, with a

beautiful and loved woman by his side.

She was indicating pathways, as well as she could, when they both saw a

man hurrying in the direction of the dome along by the roof-balustrade

of the court of fountains--the route by which Camilla herself had come.

He arrived under the dome, and would have disappeared into a doorway had

not Hugo called:

'Shawn, I'm here!'

'I was just coming to see you, sir,' replied Albert Shawn in a loud

whisper, as he climbed breathless up to the little raised garden beneath

the dome.

Camilla withdrew behind a curtain of the window.

'Well?' Hugo queried.

'She's gone, sir. But dashed if I know where, unless she's got herself

lost somewhere on the roof.'

'She is here,' said Hugo, lowering his voice. 'And it appears that you

waited very clumsily at that dinner, my boy. A bad disguise is worse

than none. I must lend you Gaboriau's "Crime of Orcival" to read; that

will teach you. Anything else to tell me?'

'I went back to the balcony entrance of the flat,' the youthful

detective replied humbly, looking up to Hugo in the window of the dome.

'I could see through the lacework of the blind; the drawing-room was

empty. The French window was open an inch or so, and I could hear a

clock ticking as clear as a bell. Then Mr. Tudor toddled up, and I hid

in the servants' doorway. Mr. Tudor went in by the other door, and out I

popped again to my post. I see my gentleman stamping about and calling

"Camilla! Camilla!" fit to burst. No answer. Then he picks up a

photograph off a table and kisses it smack--twice.'

Camilla stirred behind the curtain.

'Then he goes into another room,' proceeded Albert Shawn, 'and lo and

behold! another man comes from round the corner of a screen--a man much

older than Mr. Tudor! And Mr. Tudor runs in again, and these two

meet--these two do. And they stare at each other, and Mr. Tudor says,

"Hullo, Louis--"'

'I knew it!' The cry came from Camilla within the dome.

'What?' demanded Hugo, turning to her and ignoring Shawn.

'It was Louis Ravengar whom I saw hiding behind the door. I felt all the

time that it was he!'

And she put her hands to her face.

'Ravengar!' He was astounded to hear that name. What had she, what had

Tudor, to do with Ravengar?

'That was why I thought _you_ were in the plot, Mr. Hugo,' she added.

'Me? Why?'

'Can you ask?'

Her eyes met his, and it was his that fell.

'I have no relations whatever with Ravengar, I assure you,' he said

gravely. 'But, by the dagger! I'll see this affair to the end.' 'By the

dagger' was a form of oath, meaningless yet terrible in sound, which

Hugo employed only on the greatest occasions. He turned sharply to the

window. 'Anything else, Shawn?'

'There was a gust of wind that shut the blessed window, sir. I couldn't

hear any more, so I came to report.'

'Go to the front entrance of the flat instantly,' Hugo ordered him. 'I

will watch the balcony.'

'Yes, sir.'

Camilla was crouching in the embrasure of the window. Her body seemed to

shake.

'There is nothing to fear,' Hugo soothed her. 'Stay here till I return.'

And he snatched up the revolver.

'No,' she said, straightening herself; 'I must go with you.'

'Better not.'

'I must go with you,' she repeated.

They passed together along the railed edge of the court of fountains

under the stars, skirted the gay and melodious garden behind the trees

in their huge wooden boxes, and so came to a second quadrangle, upon

whose highest story the windows of Tudor's flat gave. Descending a

stairway of forged iron to the balcony, they crept forward in silence to

the window of Tudor's drawing-room, and, still side by side, gazed, as

Shawn had done, through the fine lacework of the blind into the splendid

apartment.

The window was almost at a corner of the room, near a door; but Hugo had

a perfect view of the two men within, and one was as certainly Louis

Ravengar as the other was Francis Tudor. They were gesticulating

violently and angrily, and a heavy, ornate Empire chair had already been

overturned. The dispute seemed to be interminable; each moment heralded

a fight, but it is the watched pot that never boils. Suddenly Hugo

became aware that Camilla was no longer at his elbow, and the next

instant, to his extreme amazement, he saw her glide into the room. She

had removed her hat and cloak, and stood revealed in all her beauty.

The two men did not perceive her. She softly opened the window, and the

confused murmur of voices reached Hugo's ear.

'Give me the revolver,' Camilla whispered.

And her whisper was such that he passed the weapon, as it were

hypnotically, to her under the blind. And then the blind slipped down,

and he could see no more. He heard a shot, and the next thing was that

the revolver was pushed back to him, nearly at the level of the floor.

'Wait there!' The sound of her voice, tense and authoritative, came

through the slit of the window and thrilled him. 'All is well now, but I

will send you a message.'

And the window was swiftly closed and a curtain drawn behind the blind.

He could hear nothing.

He had small intention of obeying her. 'She must have gone in by the

servants' entrance,' he argued. 'I should have seen her if she had tried

the other.' And he ran to the small door, but it was shut fast. In vain

he knocked and shook the handle for several minutes. Then he hastened to

the main door on the broad balcony, but that also was impregnable.

Should he break a pane?

A noise far along the balcony attracted him. He flew towards it, found

nothing but a cat purring, and returned. The luscious music of the

Tsigane band, one of the nine orchestras which he owned, reached him

faintly over the edge of the quadrangle.

Then he decidedly did hear human footsteps on the balcony. They were the

footsteps of Shawn.

'She's gone, sir. Took the lift, and whizzed off in Mr. Tudor's electric

brougham that was waiting.'

'And the men?' he gasped.

'Seen neither of them, sir. She put this note in my hand as she passed

me, sir.'

CHAPTER VI

A LAPSE FROM AN IDEAL

'If you please, sir,' said Simon Shawn, when he brought Hugo's tea the

next morning, 'I am informed that a man has secreted himself on the

summit of the dome.'

Hugo, lying moveless on his back, and ignoring even the tea, made no

reply to this speech. He was still repeating to himself the following

words, which, by constant iteration, had assumed in his mind the force

and emphasis of italics: _'So grateful for your sympathetic help. When

next I see you, if there is opportunity, I will try to thank you.

Meantime, all is well with me. Please trouble no more. And forget.'_

Such were the exact terms of the note from Camilla Payne delivered to

him by Albert Shawn. Of course, he knew it by heart. It was scribbled

very hastily in pencil on half a sheet of paper, and it bore no

signature, not even a solitary initial. If it had not been handed to

Albert by Camilla in person, Hugo might have doubted its genuineness,

and might have spent the night in transgressing the law of trespass and

other laws, in order to be assured of a woman's safety. But under the

circumstances he could not doubt its genuineness. What he doubted was

its exact import. And what he objected to in it was its lack of

information. He wished ardently to know whether Ravengar and Tudor, or

either of them, had been wounded, and if so, by whose revolver; for he

could not be certain that it was Camilla who had fired. An examination

of the revolver which he and she had passed from hand to hand had shown

two chambers undischarged. He wished ardently to know how she had

contrived to settle her account with Tudor, and yet get away in Tudor's

brougham, unless it was by a wile worthy of the diplomacy of a Queen

Elizabeth. And he wished ardently to understand a hundred and one other

things concerning Camilla, Tudor, and Ravengar, and the permutations and

combinations of these three, which offered apparently insoluble problems

to his brain. Nevertheless, there was one assurance which seemed to him

to emerge clearly from the note, and to atone for its vagueness--a

vagueness, however, perfectly excusable, he reflected, having regard to

the conditions in which it was written--namely, that Camilla intended to

arrive, as usual, in Department 42 that morning. What significance could

be attached to the phrase, 'When next I see you, _if there is

opportunity_,' unless it signified that she anticipated seeing him next

in the shop and in the course of business? Moreover, he felt that it

would be just like Camilla to start by behaving to him as though nothing

had occurred. (But he would soon alter that, he said masterfully.) He

was, on the whole, happy as he lay in bed. She knew that he loved her.

They had been intimate. In three hours at most he would see her again.

And his expectations ran high. Indeed, she had already begun to exist in

his mind as his life's companion.

Simon coughed politely but firmly.

'What's that you say?' Hugo demanded; and Simon repeated his item of

news.

'Ha!' said Hugo; 'doubtless some enthusiast for sunrises.'

'He has been twice perceived in the little gallery by the men cleaning

the roof garden,' Simon added.

'And who is it?'

'His identity has not been established,' said Simon.

'Can't you moderate your language a little, Shawn?' Hugo asked, staring

always absently up into the dome.

'I beg pardon, sir. I have spent part of the night with Albert, and his

loose speech always drives me to the other extreme,' Simon observed,

repentant.

'Has Albert seen the burglar?'

'No, sir, if it _is_ a burglar.'

'Well,' said Hugo, 'he's quite safe where he is. He can't get down

except by that door, can he?' pointing to a masked door, which was

painted to represent a complete set in sixty volumes of the 'Acts of the

Saints.'

'No, sir.'

'And he could only have got up by that door?' Hugo pursued.

'Yes, sir.'

'Which means that you were away from your post last night, my son.'

'I was, sir,' Shawn admitted frankly. 'When you and Albert and the lady

ran off so quickly, I followed, as far as I judged expedient--beg

pardon, sir. The man must have slipped in during my absence. I remember

I noticed the masked door was ajar on my return. I shut and locked it.'

'That explains everything,' said Hugo. 'You see how your sins find you

out.'

'Yes, sir.'

'I say, Shawn,' Hugo cried, as he went to his bath, 'talking of that

chap up above, play me the Captives' chorus from "Fidelio."'

'It is not in the répertoire, sir,' said Simon, after searching.

'Not in the répertoire! Impossible!'

'No, sir.'

'Ah well, then, let us have the Wedding March from "Lohengrin."'

'With pleasure, sir.'

But Simon was unfortunate that morning. The toilet completed, Hugo came

towards him swinging the gold token, the bearer of which had the right

to take whatever he chose from all the hundred and thirty-one

departments of the stores in exchange for a simple receipt.

'I will interview the burglar,' said Hugo. 'But just run down first and

get me a pair of handcuffs.'

In ten minutes Simon returned crestfallen.

'We do not keep handcuffs, sir,' he stammered.

'Not--keep--! What nonsense! First you tell me that "Fidelio" is not in

the répertoire, and then you have the effrontery to add that we do not

keep handcuffs. Shawn, are you not aware that the fundamental principle

of this establishment is that we keep everything? If we received an

order for a herd of white elephants--'

'No doubt our arrangement with Jamrach's would enable us to supply them,

sir,' Simon put in rapidly. 'But handcuffs seem to be a monopoly of the

State.'

'Evidently, Shawn, you are not familiar with the famous remark of Louis

the Fourteenth.'

'I am not, sir.'

'He said, "_L'état, c'est moi_." Show me the catalogue.'

Simon, bearing on his shoulders at that moment the sins of ten managers,

scurried to bring an immense tome, bound in crimson leather, and

inscribed in gold, 'Hugo, General Catalogue.' It contained nearly two

thousand large quarto pages, and above six thousand illustrations. Hugo

turned solemnly to the exhaustive index, which alone occupied seventy

pages of small type, and, running his finger down a column, he read

out, Handbells, handbell-ringers, handbills, hand-embroidered sheets,

handkerchiefs, handles, handsaws, hansoms, Hardemann's beetle powder,

hares, haricot beans....'

'Lamentable!' he ejaculated--'lamentable! You will tell Mr.--Mr. Banbury

this morning to procure some handcuffs, assorted sizes, at once, and to

add them to the--the--Explorers' Outfit Department.'

'Precisely, sir.'

'In the meantime I shall have to ascend the dome, and face the burglar

without this necessary of life. Give me the revolver instead.'

CHAPTER VII

POSSIBLE ESCAPE OF SECRETS

The top of the dome was fashioned into a kind of belvedere, with a small

circular gallery. Hugo emerged at the head of the stairs, and saw no

living thing; but at the sound of his footstep a man sprang nervously

into view round the curve of the gallery, and fronted him.

Hugo, with his hands still on either rail of the staircase, took the top

step, gazing the while at his burglar, first in wonder, and then with a

capricious abandonment to what he considered the humour of the

situation. He thought of Albert Shawn's account of the meeting between

Francis Tudor and his visitor in Tudor's flat on the previous night, and

some fantastic impulse, due to the strain of Welsh blood in him, caused

him to address the man as Tudor had addressed him:

'Hullo, Louis!'

There was a pause, and then came the reply in a tone which might have

been ferocious or facetious:

'Well, my young friend?'

It was indeed Louis Ravengar. Dishevelled, fatigued, and unstrung, he

formed a sinister contrast to Hugo, fresh from repose, cold water and

music, and also to the spirit of the beautiful summer morning itself,

which at that unspoilt hour seemed always to sojourn for a space in the

belvedere. The sun glinted joyously on the golden ornament of the dome,

and on Hugo's smooth hair, but it revealed without pity the stains on

Ravengar's flaccid collar and the disorder of his evening clothes and

opera-hat.

He was a fairly tall man, with thin gray hair round the sides of his

head, but none on the crown nor on his face, the chief characteristics

of which were the square jaw, the extremely long upper lip, the flat

nose, and the very small blue-gray eyes. He looked sixty, and was

scarcely fifty. He looked one moment like a Nonconformist local preacher

who had mistaken his vocation; but he was nothing of the kind. He looked

the next moment like a good hater and a great scorner of scruples; and

he was.

These two men had not exchanged a word, had not even seen each other,

save at the rarest intervals, for nearly a quarter of a century. They

were the principals in a quarrel of the most vivid, satanic, and

incurable sort known to anthropological science--the family quarrel--and

the existence of this feud was a proof of the indisputable truth that it

sometimes takes less than two to make a quarrel. For, though Owen Hugo

was not absolutely an angel, Ravengar had made it single-handed.

The circumstances of its origin were quite simple. When Louis Ravengar

was nine years old, his father, a widower, married a widow with one

child, aged six. That child was Hugo. The two lads, violently different

in temperament--the one gloomy and secretive, the other buoyant and

frank--with no tie of blood or of affection, were forced by destiny to

grow up together in the same house, and by their parents even to sleep

in the same room. They were never apart, and they loathed each other.

Louis regarded young Owen as an interloper, and acted towards him as

boys and tigers will towards interlopers weaker than themselves. The

mischief was that Owen, in course of years, became a great favourite

with his step-father. This roused Louis to a fury which was the more

dangerous in that Owen had begun to overtake him in strength, and the

fury could, therefore, find no outlet. Then Owen's mother died, and

Ravengar, senior, married again--a girl this time, who soon discovered

that the household in which she had planted herself was far too

bellicose to be comfortable. She abandoned her husband, and sought

consolation and sympathy with another widower, who also was blessed with

offspring. Such is the foolishness of women. You cannot cure a woman of

being one. But it must be said in favour of the third Mrs. Ravengar and

her consoler that they conducted their affair with praiseworthy

attention to outward decency. She went to America by one steamer, and

purchased a divorce in Iowa for two hundred dollars. He followed in the

next steamer, and they were duly united in Minneapolis. Meanwhile, the

Ravengar household, left to the ungoverned passions of three males,

became more and more impossible, and at length old Ravengar expired. In

his will he stated that it was only from a stern sense of justice that

he divided his considerable fortune in equal shares between Louis and

Owen. Had he consulted his inclination, he would have left one shilling

to Louis, and the remainder to Owen, who alone had been a true son to

him.

It was a too talkative will. Testators, like politicians, should never

explain.

Louis, who got as a favour half the fortune of which the whole was, in

his opinion, his by right, was naturally exasperated in the highest

degree by the terms of the indiscreet testament, and on the day of the

funeral he parted from the son of his step-mother, swearing, in a

somewhat melodramatic manner, that he would be revenged. Hugo was then

twenty-one, and for twenty-five years he had waited in vain for symptoms

of the revenge.

And now they met again, in the truest sense strangers. And each had a

reason for humouring the other, for each wanted to know what the other

had to do with Camilla Payne.

'So you're determined, Louis,' said Hugo lightly, 'to bring me to my

knees about the transfer of my business to a limited company, eh?'

'What on earth do you mean, man?' asked Ravengar, whose voice was always

gruff.

'I refer to Polycarp's visit yesterday.'

'I know nothing of it,' said Ravengar slowly, looking across the

wilderness of roofs.

'Then why are you here, Louis? Is your revenge at last matured?'

Ravengar controlled himself, and glanced round as if for unseen aid in a

forlorn enterprise.

'Owen,' he said, moved, 'I'm here because I need your help. I won't say

anything about the past. I know you were always good-natured. And you've

worn better than I have. I need your help in a matter of supreme

importance to me. I became aware last night that you and your men were

interested in the proceedings at Tudor's flat. I ran here, meaning to

see you. There was no one in the big circular room downstairs, and no

one at the entrance. Then I saw your servant coming, and I retreated

through the door. I wished my presence to be known only to you. The door

was locked on me. I knocked in vain. Then I stumbled up the stairs, and

found myself out here. I wanted to calm myself, and here I remained. I

knew your habit of coming up here at early morning. That is the whole

explanation of my presence.'

Hugo nodded.

'I guessed as much,' he said. 'I will help you if I can. But first tell

me what happened in the flat last night after Miss Payne entered while

you and Tudor were quarrelling. She fired on you?'

'No,' said Ravengar; 'I believe she would have done. It was Tudor who

drew a revolver and fired. Had I had my own--But I had laid it on a

table, like a fool, and it disappeared.'

'Is not this it?' asked Hugo, producing Camilla's weapon.

Ravengar nodded, amazed.

'I thought so,' Hugo said, and returned it to his pocket. 'Were you

wounded?'

'It was nothing. A scratch on the wrist. See! But I left. She--she

ordered me to. And I saw I had no chance. I came out by the principal

door on the balcony while you were struggling with the servants' door.'

'Wait a moment,' Hugo put in. 'Tudor knew you were hiding in the flat?'

'Not much!' exclaimed Ravengar. 'I dropped on him like something out of

the sky. It cost me some trouble to get in. I had a silly old

housekeeper to dispose of.'

Hugo's heart fell.

'Great heavens!' he sighed.

'Why? What's the matter?'

'Nothing. But tell me what you wanted to get into the flat for at all.

What is there between you and Tudor?'

'Man! he's taken Camilla from me!' The accents of rage and despair were

in Ravengar's voice as he uttered these words. 'He's taken her from me!

She was my typewriter, you know. I fell in love with her. We were

engaged!'

Hugo was startled for a moment; then he smiled bitterly and

incredulously. It seemed too monstrous and absurd that Camilla should

have betrothed herself to this forbidding, ugly, ageing, and terrible

man.

'You were engaged? Never! Perhaps you aren't aware that she was engaged

to Tudor?'

'I tell you we were engaged.'

'She accepted you?'

'Why not? I meant well by the girl.'

'And then she disappeared?'

Hugo spoke with a certain cynicism.

'How do you know?' Ravengar demanded angrily.

'I only guess.'

'Well, she did. I can't imagine why. I meant well by her. And the next

thing is, I find her working in your shop, and in the arms of that

scoundrel, Tudor.' He hesitated, and then, as he proceeded, his tones

softened to an appeal. 'Owen, why were you watching last night? I must

know. It's an affair of life or death to me.'

Hugo did not believe most of Ravengar's story, and he perceived the

difficulty of his own position and the necessity for caution.

'I was watching because Miss Payne thought herself in some mysterious

danger,' he said.

'She came to me, as you have done, to ask my help. And I won't hide from

you that it was she herself who informed me definitely that Tudor had

invited her to marry him, and that she had consented.'

'She shall not marry him!' cried Ravengar, exasperated.

'You are right,' said Hugo. 'She shall not. I have yet to be convinced

even that he meant to marry her.'

'The rascal! He and I had business relations for several years before I

discovered who he was. Of course, you know?'

'Indeed I don't,' said Hugo, 'if he isn't Francis Tudor.'

'He has as much right to the name of Tudor as you have to the name of

Hugo,' Ravengar sneered. 'He is the son of the man who dishonoured my

father's name by pretending to marry that woman in Minneapolis. Even if

I hated my father, I've no cause to love _that_ branch of our

complicated family connections.'

Hugo whistled.

'I did not think there was so much money there,' he said at length.

'There wasn't. The fellow came into twenty thousand two years ago, and

he has never earned a cent.'

'Yet he's living at the rate of five thousand a year at least.'

'It's like him!' Ravengar snorted. 'It's like him!'

'Perhaps he can't help it,' Hugo said queerly. 'Everyone isn't like you

and me.'

'He can help robbing me of my future wife!'

'But she left you of her own accord.'

'Owen, she must marry me. It is essential. You must bring your influence

to bear,' Ravengar burst out wildly. 'She must be my wife!'

'My dear fellow,' Hugo protested calmly, 'what are you dreaming of? I

have no influence. You talk like a man at his wits' end.'

There was a silence.

'I am a man at his wits' end,' Ravengar murmured, half sadly. 'I trusted

that girl. She knows all my secrets.'

'What secrets?' asked Hugo, struck by the phrase.

'My business secrets, of course. What else do you fancy?'

'My fancy is too active,' said Hugo, with careful casualness. 'It runs

away with me. I was thinking of other sorts of secrets, and of that

curious principle of English law that a wife can't give evidence against

her husband.... You must pardon my fancy,' he added.

'Do you mean to insinuate that my eagerness to marry Camilla Payne is in

order to prevent her from being able to--'

'No, Louis; I mean to insinuate nothing. Can't you see a joke?'

'I cannot,' said Ravengar. 'Not that variety of joke.'

'The appreciation of humour was never your strong point.'

Something in Hugo's manner made Ravengar spring forward; then he checked

himself.

'Owen,' he entreated, 'don't let's quarrel again. I beg you to help me.

Help me, and I'll promise never to interfere with you in your

business--I'll swear it.'

'Then it was you, after all, that instructed Polycarp?'

Ravengar gave an affirmative sign.

'I meant either to get hold of this place or to ruin you. Remember what

I suffered--in the old days.... You see I'm frank with you. Help me.

We're neither of us growing younger. I'm mad for that girl, and I must

have her.'

Hugo put his hands into his pockets, and consulted his toes. This

semi-step-brother of his somehow aroused his compassion.

'No, Louis,' he said; 'I can't.'

'You hate me?'

'Not a bit.'

'Do you think I'm too old to marry, or what is it?'

'It's just like this, Louis, my friend: I have every intention of

marrying Miss Payne myself.'

'You!... Ah!... Indeed!'

'I have so decided. And when I decide, the thing is as good as done.'

'And that's why you were watching last night! Good! Oh, good! Only I

may as well inform you, Owen, that if Camilla Payne marries anyone but

me, there will be murder. And no ordinary murder, either!'

Hugo took a turn in the gallery. He felt genuinely sorry for the gray

and desperate man, driven by the intensity of emotion to utterances

which were merely absurd.

'Louis,' he remarked, with a melancholy kindliness of tone, 'fate has a

grudge against us two. It ruined our youth, and now it's embroiling us

once more. Can't we both be philosophical? Can't we contrive to look at

the thing in a--'

'Enough!' Ravengar almost yelled. 'You always talked that kind of d----d

nonsense, you did! Unless you can arrange to say you'll give her up, you

may as well hold your tongue.'

'Very well,' said Hugo, 'I'll hold my tongue.'

'That's all, then?'

'Quite all.'

'I suppose I can go? You'll let me pass? You'll not exercise your right

to treat me as a burglar?'

'There are the stairs. Pass Shawn boldly. He is terrible, but he will

not eat you.'

'Thanks.'

'And that is the unrivalled company promoter! And this is life!' Hugo

meditated when he was alone on the dome.

He leaned over the railing of the gallery, and watched his legions

gathering for the day's battle.

CHAPTER VIII

ORANGE-BLOSSOM

Some two hours later Hugo was in one of the common rooms devoted to the

leisure and diversion of the legions in the upper basement: a large and

bright apartment, ornamented with bookcases, wicker chairs, and

reproductions of all that was most uplifting in graphic art. It was the

domain of the ladies engaged in Departments 30 to 45, and was managed by

an elected committee of their number. Affixed to the walls, in and out

among the specimens of graphic art, were quite a lot of little red

diamond squares, containing in white the words, 'Do it now,' in

excessively readable letters. A staff notice about the early closing of

the previous day had been pinned up near the door, and printed

information relating to a trip to the Isle of Man, balloting for the use

of motor-cars on Sundays, and a gratis book entitled 'Human Nature in

Shoppers,' were also prominent. Above the fireplace was a fine mirror,

and Hugo was personally engaged in pasting on the mirror a fine and

effective poster, which ran as follows:

'Interesting. Last year the sales of the Children's Boot and Shoe

Department surpassed the sales of the Ladies' Ditto by £558. In the

first half of this year, on the contrary, the sales of the Ladies' Boot

and Shoe Department have surpassed the sales of the Children's Ditto by

£25. Great credit is due to the staff of the L.B. and S.D. But will the

staff of the C.B. and S.D. allow themselves to be thus wiped out? That

is the question, and Mr. Hugo will watch for the answer. Managers'

Council, July 10th.'

Hugo, as the supreme head of Hugo's, had organized his establishment in

such a manner as to leave no regular duties for himself, conformably to

the maxim that a well-managed business is a business which runs smoothly

and efficiently when the manager is not managing, and to that other

maxim that the highest aim of the competent manager should be to make

himself unnecessary. Hence he was perfectly at liberty to be wayward and

freakish in his activities from time to time. And this happened to be

one of his wayward and freakish mornings. There were, however, few

young women in the common room to behold his aberration, for the hour

was within two minutes of nine, and at nine o'clock the latest of the

legionaries was supposed to be at her post. Three girls who were being

hastily served with glasses of milk by a pink-aproned waitress politely

feigned not to see him. Then another girl ran in, and she, too, had to

pretend that the spectacle of Hugo pasting posters on mirrors was one of

the most ordinary in life. Hugo glanced at this last comer in the

mirror, and sighed a secret disappointment.

The interview with Louis Ravengar had left him less perturbed than might

be imagined--at any rate, as regards Ravengar's own share in what had

occurred and what was to occur. He was inclined to leave Ravengar out of

the account, and to put the greater part of his hysterical appeals and

threats down to the effect of a sleepless and highly unusual night. That

Ravengar was absolutely sincere in his desire to marry Camilla he did

not doubt, and he fully shared the frenzied man's determination that

Camilla should not marry Francis Tudor. But beyond this Hugo did not go.

He certainly did not go so far as to believe that Camilla had ever

formally engaged herself to Ravengar. He thought it just possible that

Ravengar might have committed a crime, or several crimes, and that

Camilla might have knowledge of them, but the question whether Ravengar

was or was not a criminal appeared to him to be a little off the point.

The unique point was his own prospects with Camilla. It may be said that

he felt capable of shielding her from forty Ravengars.

He had torn prudence to shreds, and stamped on it, that morning, and had

gone down boldly and directly to Department 42 at a quarter to nine, in

order to meet Camilla. And she had not then arrived. He had then

conceived the idea of, and the excuse for, a visit to the common room,

through which every assistant was obliged to pass on her way to the

receipt of custom. In the whole history of Hugo's a poster had never

before been known to be posted on a mirror, which is utterly the wrong

place for a poster, but Hugo had chosen the mirror as the field of his

labours solely that he might surreptitiously observe every soul that

entered the room.

The clock on the mantelpiece struck nine, and the last assistant had

fled, and Hugo was left alone with the pink-aproned waitress, who was

collecting glasses on a tray.

'Has Miss Payne come this morning?' he asked casually of the girl,

patting the poster like an artist absorbed in his work.

It was a reckless question. He well knew that in half an hour the whole

basement would be aware that Mr. Hugo had asked after Miss Payne, but he

scorned the whole basement.

'Miss who, sir?'

'Miss Payne, of the millinery department.'

'A tall young lady, sir?'

'Yes.'

'With chestnut hair?'

'Now you have me,' he lied.

'I fancy I know who you mean, sir; and now I come to think of it, I

don't think she has.'

The waitress spoke in an apologetic tone, and looked at the clock with

an apologetic look. She was no fool, that waitress.

'Thank you.'

As he left the room Albert Shawn entered by the other door, and,

perceiving nobody but the waitress, kissed the waitress, and was kissed

by her heartily.

Hugo's deportment was debonnair, but his heart had seriously sunk. Just

as he had before been quite sure that Camilla would come as usual, now

he was quite sure that she would not come as usual. Ever since he had

learnt from Ravengar that Tudor had been ignorant of Ravengar's presence

in the flat, and that Ravengar had had to 'dispose of' the housekeeper,

a horrid suspicion had lurked at the back of his mind, and now this

suspicion sprang out upon his hopes of Camilla's arrival, and fairly

strangled them. And the suspicion was that Camilla had misjudged Francis

Tudor, that his intentions had throughout been perfectly honourable, and

that on her return to the flat he had quickly convinced Camilla of this.

In which case, where did he, Hugo, come in?

As for the terms of the note, he perceived that he had interpreted them

in a particular way because he wished to interpret them in a particular

way.

He ascended in the direction of Department 42. Perhaps, after all, she

had escaped his vigilance, and was at her duties.

On the way thither he was accosted by a manager.

'Mr. Hugo.'

'Well, Banbury?'

'I telephoned to New Scotland Yard, but they refused any information.

However, I've got a pair from the nearest police-station. I shall order

our blacksmiths to make a dozen pairs to pattern. They will be in next

month's catalogue.'

'I congratulate you, Banbury.'

And he passed on. The early-rising customers were beginning to invade

the galleries, the cashiers in their confessional-boxes were settling

themselves in their seats, faultless shopwalkers were giving a final

hitch to their lovely collars, and the rank-and-file were preparing to

receive cavalry. The vast machine had started, slowly and deliberately,

as an express engine starts. And already the heat, as yesterday, was

formidable. But _she_ would not suffer to-day; she was not in Department

42.

He went further and further, aimlessly penetrating to the very heart of

the jungle of departments. He had glimpses of departments that he had

not seen for weeks. At length he came to the verdant and delicious

Flower Department (hot-house branch), and by chance he caught a word

which brought him to a standstill.

'What's that?' he asked sharply, of a salesman in white.

'Order for orange-blossom, sir. A single sprig only. Rather a curious

order, sir.'

'You can supply it?'

'Without doubt, sir.'

'Who is the customer?'

'Mr. Francis Tudor,' replied the salesman, looking at a paper. 'No. 7,

the Flats.'

'Ah yes,' he said; and thought: 'My life is over.'

He gazed with unseeing eyes into the green and shady recesses of the

palmarium, where water trickled and tinkled.

What was the power, the influence, the lever, which Francis Tudor was

using to induce Camilla to marry him--him whom, on her own statement,

she did not love? And could Louis Ravengar be in earnest, after all,

with his savage threats?

CHAPTER IX

'WHICH?'

'And when I decide, the thing is as good as done.' Those proud, vain

words of his, spoken to Louis Ravengar with all the arrogance of a man

who had never met Fate like a lion in the path, often recurred to Hugo's

mind during the next few weeks. And their futility exasperated him. He

had decided to win Camilla, and therefore Camilla was as good as won!

Only, she had been married on the very morning of those boastful words

by license at a registry-office to Francis Tudor. The strange admixture

of orange-blossom and registry-office was not the only strange thing

about the wedding. It was clear, for example, that Tudor must have

arranged the preliminaries of the ceremony before the bride's consent

had been obtained--unless, indeed, Camilla had garbled the truth to Hugo

on the previous night; and Hugo did not believe this to be possible.

Albert Shawn had brought the news hour by hour to Hugo.

After the wedding, the pair drove to Mr. Tudor's flat, where Senior

Polycarp paid them a brief visit.

Then Hugo received by messenger a note from Tudor formally regretting

that his wife had left her employment without due notice, and enclosing

a cheque for the amount of a month's wages in lieu thereof.

And then Mr. and Mrs. Tudor had departed for Paris by the two-twenty

Folkstone-Boulogne service from Charing Cross. And the gorgeous flat was

shut up.

Albert Shawn had respectfully inquired whether there remained anything

else to be done in the affair, far more mysterious to Albert than it was

even to Hugo.

'No,' Hugo had said shortly.

He was Hugo, with extraordinary resources at hand, but a quite ordinary

circumstance, such as ten minutes spent in a registry-office, will

sometimes outweigh all the resources in the world when the success of a

scheme hangs in the balance.

What could he do, in London or in Paris, civilized and police-ridden

cities?

Civilization left him but one thing to do--to acknowledge his defeat,

and to mourn the incomparable beauty and the distinguished spirit which

had escaped his passionate grasp. And to this acknowledgment and this

mourning he was reduced, feeling that he was no longer Hugo.

It was perhaps natural, however, that his employés should have been made

to feel that he was more Hugo than ever. For a month he worked as he had

never worked before, and three thousand five hundred people, perspiring

under his glance and under the sun of a London August, knew exactly the

reason why. The intense dramatic and sentimental interest surrounding

Camilla Payne's disappearance from Department 42 was the sole thing

which atoned to the legionaries for the inconvenience of Hugo's mistimed

activity.

Then suddenly he fell limp; he perceived the uselessness of this attempt

to forget in Sloane Street, and he decided to try the banks of a certain

trout-stream on Dartmoor. He knew that with all the sun-glare of that

season, and the water doubtless running a great deal too fine, he would

be as likely to catch trout on Dartmoor as on the Thames Embankment; but

he determined to go, and he announced his determination, and the entire

personnel, from the managers to the sweepers, murmured privily, 'Thank

Heaven!'

The moment came for the illustrious departure. His electric coupé stood

at his private door, and his own luggage and Simon Shawn's luggage--for

Simon never entrusted his master to other hands--lay on the roof of the

coupé. Simon, anxiously looking at his watch, chatted with the driver.

Hugo had been stopped on emerging from the lift by the chief accountant

concerning some technical question. At length he came out into the

street.

'Shaving it close, aren't we, Simon?' he remarked, and sprang into the

vehicle, and Simon banged the door and sprang on to the box, and they

seemed to be actually off, much to the relief of Simon, who wanted a

holiday badly.

But they were not actually off. At that very instant, as the driver

pulled his lever, Albert Shawn came frantically into the scene from

somewhere, and signalled the driver to wait. Simon cursed his brother.

'Mr. Hugo,' Albert whispered, as he put his head into the coupé.

'Well, my lad?'

'I suppose you've heard? They've turned up again at the flat. Yes, this

morning.'

'Who have turned up again?'

'That's the point, sir. Some of 'em. And there's been a funeral

ordered.'

'A funeral? Whose funeral? From _us_?

'Yes, sir; but whose--that's another point. You see, I've just run along

to let you know how far I've got. Not that you gave me any instructions.

But when I heard of a funeral--'

'Is it a man's or a woman's?' Hugo demanded, thinking to himself: 'I

must keep calm. I must keep calm.'

'Don't know, sir.'

'But surely the order-book--'

'No order for coffin, sir. Merely the cortège; day after to-morrow;

parties making their own arrangements at cemetery. Brompton.'

'And did none of the porters see who arrived at the flat this morning?'

'None of 'em knows enough to be sure, sir.'

'Well,' said Hugo, 'there isn't likely to be a funeral without a coffin,

and no porter could be blind to a coffin going upstairs.'

'I can't get wind of any coffin, sir.'

'And that's all you've learnt?'

'That's the hang of it, sir--up to now. But I can wire you to-night or

to-morrow, with further particulars.'

Hugo glanced at the carriage-clock in front of him, and thought of the

famine of porters at Waterloo Station in August, and invented several

other plausible excuses for a resolution which he foresaw that he was

about to arrive at.

'You've made me miss my train,' he said, pretending to be annoyed.

'Sorry, sir. Simon, the governor isn't going.'

Simon descended from the box for confirmation, a fratricide in all but

deed.

'Have the luggage taken upstairs,' Hugo commanded.

He sat for seven hours in the dome, scarcely moving.

At nine o'clock Albert was announced.

'Coffin just come up, sir,' he said, 'from railway-station.'

But that was the limit of his news.

Within an hour Hugo went to bed. He could not sleep; he had known that

he could not sleep. The wild and savage threat of Louis Ravengar, and

the question, 'Which?' haunted his brain. At one o'clock in the morning

he switched on all the lights, rose out of bed, and walked aimlessly

about the chamber. Something, some morbid impulse, prompted him to take

up the General Catalogue, which lay next to a priceless copy of the 1603

edition of Florio's 'Montaigne.' There were pages and pages about

funerals in the General Catalogue, and forty fine photographic specimens

of tombstones and monuments.

'Funerals conducted in town or country.... Cremations and embalmments

undertaken.... Special stress is laid on the appearance and efficiency

of the attendants, and on the reverent manner in which they perform all

their duties.... A shell finished with satin, with robe, etc.... All

necessary service.... A hearse (or open car, as preferred) and four

horses, three mourning coaches, with two horses each. Coachmen and

attendants in mourning, with gloves. Superintendent, £38.... Estimates

for cremation on application.... Broken column, in marble, £70. The

same, with less carving, £48.' And so on, and so on; and at the top of

every page: 'Hugo, Sloane Street, London. Telegraphic address:

"Complete, London." Hugo, Sloane Street, London. Telegraphic address:

"Complete, London." Hugo--'

Whom was he going to bury the day after to-morrow--he, Hugo,

undertaker, with his reverent attendants of appearance guaranteed

respectable?

The great catalogue slipped to the floor with a terrible noise, and

Simon Shawn sprang out from his lair, and stopped at the sight of his

master in pyjamas under the full-blazing electric chandelier.

'All serene,' said Hugo; 'I only dropped a book. Go to sleep. Perhaps we

may reach Devonshire to-morrow,' he added kindly.

He sympathized with Simon.

'Yes, sir.'

He thought he would take a stroll on the roof; it might calm his

nerves.... Foolishness! How much wiser to take a sedative!

Then he turned to the Montaigne, and after he had glanced at various

pages, his eye encountered a sentence in italics: _'Wisdome hath hir

excesses, and no lesse need of moderation, than follie.'_

'True,' he murmured.

He dressed, and went out.

CHAPTER X

THE COFFIN

He was in that mental condition, familiar to every genuine man of

action, in which, though the mind divides against itself, and there is

an apparently even conflict between two impulses, the battle is lost and

won before it is fought, and the fight is nothing but a sham fight. He

wandered about the roofs; he went as far as the restaurant garden, and

turned on all the electric festoons and standards by the secret switch,

and sat down solitary at a table before an empty glass which a waiter

had forgotten to remove. He extinguished the lights, wandered back to

the dome, climbed to the topmost gallery, and saw the moon rising over

St. Paul's Cathedral. He said he would go to bed again at once, well

knowing that he would not go to bed again at once. He swore that he

would conquer the overmastering impulse, well knowing that it would

conquer him. He cursed, as men only curse themselves. And then,

suddenly, he yielded, gladly, with relief.

He hastened out, and did not pause till he reached the balcony of flat

No. 7 in the further quadrangle. He admitted frankly now that the

dominant impulse which controlled his mind would force him to enter the

flat during that night, by means lawful or unlawful, and he perceived

with satisfaction that the great French window of the drawing-room was

not quite shut. The blinds, however, had been carefully lowered, and

nothing of the interior was revealed save the fact that a light burned

within. In the entire quadrangle, round which, tier above tier, hundreds

of people were silent in sleep or in vigil, this was the sole

illumination. Hugo leaned over the balcony, and tried to pierce the

depths of the vast pit below, and those thoughts came to him which come

to watchers by night in the presence of sleeping armies, or on the high

sea. The eternal and insoluble question troubled and teased him, and

would not be put aside. In imagination, he felt the very swish of the

planet as it whirled through space with its cargo of pitiful humanity.

What, after all, were life, love, ambition, grief, death? What, in the

incessant march of suns, could be the value of a few restless specks of

vitality clinging with desperation to a minor orb?

And then he fancied he could hear a sound within the flat, and he forgot

these transcendental speculations, and for him the secret of the

universe lay behind the blinds of Francis Tudor's drawing-room. Yes, he

could hear a sound. It was the distant sound of a man talking--loudly,

slowly, and distinctly--but too far off for him to catch even one word.

He guessed, as he pushed the window a little wider open, and bent his

ear to the aperture, that the voice must be in a room beyond the

drawing-room. It continued monotonously for a long time, with little

breaks at rare intervals; it was rather like a parson reading a sermon

in an empty church. Then it ceased. And there were footsteps, which

approached the window, and retired. He noticed that the light within the

room was being moved, but it cast no human shadow on the blind. The

light came finally to a standstill, and then there followed sounds which

Hugo could not diagnose--short, regular sounds, broken occasionally by a

sharp clash, as of an instrument falling. And when these had come to an

end, there were more footsteps--a precise, quick walking to and fro,

which continued for ages of time. Lastly, the footsteps receded;

something dropped, not heavily, but rather in a manner gently subsiding,

and a groan (or was it a moan, a tired suspiration?) wakened in Hugo's

spinal column a curious, strange thrill. Then silence, complete,

definitive, terrifying.

By merely pushing the window against the blind, he could enter and know

the secret of the universe.

'Why am I doing this?' he asked himself, while he pushed the window.

'Why have I done this?' he asked himself, as he stood within the immense

and luxurious room.

He gazed round with a swift and timid glance, as a man would who expects

to see that which ought not to be seen. To his left was the fireplace,

with a magnificent mirror over it. On the mantelpiece burned a movable

electric table--lamp, with twin branched lights. He observed the

silk-covered cord lying across the mantelpiece and disappearing over the

further edge; by the side of the lamp was a screwdriver. Exactly in

front of the lamp, on a couple of trestles such as undertakers use, lay

an elm coffin, its head towards the mantelpiece. At the opposite end of

the room was another fireplace and another mirror, with the result that

Hugo saw an endless succession of coffins and corpse-lights, repeated

and repeated, till they were lost in a vague crystal blur, and by every

pair of corpse-lights was a screwdriver.

He stood moveless, and listened, and could detect no faintest sound.

Across the room from the principal window there was a doorway with a

heavy portière; not a fold of the portière stirred. To his right, near

the other window, was a door--the door by which Camilla had entered that

night a month ago; it was shut. His glance searched among the rich

confusion of furniture--fauteuils, occasional tables, sofas, statuary,

vases, cabinets. He peered into every corner of the silent chamber, and

saw nothing that gave a sign of life. He even gazed up guiltily at the

decorated ceiling, as though some Freemason's Eye might be scanning him

from above.

The coffin reigned in the room; all else was subservient to its massive

and sinister presence, and the bright twin-lamps watched over its

majesty with dazzling orbs.

Hugo went near the coffin, stepping on tip-toe over the thick-piled

rugs, and examined it. There was no name-plate. He looked at himself in

the mirror, and again he murmured a question: 'Why am I here?' Then he

listened attentively, fearfully. No sound. His hands travelled to the

screwdriver on the mantelpiece, and then fifty of his hands picked up

fifty screwdrivers. And he listened once more. No sound.

'I must do it. I must,' he thought.

The next moment he was unscrewing the screws in the lid of the coffin,

and scarcely had he begun the task when he realized that what he had

heard from the balcony was the screwing of these same screws. There were

twelve, and some of them were difficult to start, but in due course he

had removed them all, and they stood in a row on their heads on the

mantelpiece. He listened yet again. No sound. He had only to push the

lid of the coffin to the left or to the right, or to lift it up. He

spent several seconds in deciding whether he should push or lift, and

then at length fifty Hugos lifted bodily the lids of fifty coffins. And

after a dreadful hesitation he lowered his gaze and looked.

Yes, it was Camilla! He had known always that it would be Camilla.

The pale repose of death only emphasized the proud and splendid beauty

of that head, with its shut eyes, its mouth firmly closed in a faint

smile, and its glorious hair surrounded by all the white frippery of the

shroud. Here lay the mortal part of the incomparable creature who had

been coveted by three men and won by one--for a few brief days'

possession. Here lay the repository of Ravengar's secrets, the grave of

Hugo's happiness, the dead mate of Tudor's desire. Here lay the eternal

woman, symbol of all beauty and all charm, victimized by her own

loveliness. For if she had not been lovely, thought Hugo, if the curves

of her cheek and her nostrils and the colour of her skin had been ever

so slightly different, the world might have contained one widower, one

ruined heart, and one murderer the less that night.

He did not doubt, he could not doubt, after Ravengar's threats, that she

had been murdered. And yet he was not angry then. He did not feel a

great grief. He was conscious of no sensation save a numbed and desolate

awe. He had not begun to feel. Ledging the lid crossways on the coffin,

he placed his hand gently upon Camilla's brow. It was colder than he had

expected, and it had the peculiar hard, inelastic touch of incipient

decay--that touch which communicates a shudder even to the most

impassive.

'I must go,' he whispered, staring spell-bound at her face.

He was surprised to find drops of moisture falling on the shroud. They

were his tears, and yet he had not known that he was crying.

He hid her again beneath the elm plank, and, taking the screws one by

one from the mantel-piece, shut her up for ever from any human gaze. And

then, nearly collapsing under a nervous tension such as he had never

before experienced, he turned to leave the apartment as he had entered

it, like a thief. But the mystery of the heavy velvet portière

invincibly attracted him. His steps wavered towards it. He fancied he

saw something dark protruding under the curtain, and he pulled the

curtain aside with a movement almost hysteric. A man lay extended at

full length on his chest in the passage beyond--what Hugo had noticed

was his boot.

'Tudor!' he exclaimed, kneeling to examine the half-concealed face.

At the same moment a figure came quietly down the passage. Hugo looked

up, and saw a sallow-featured man of about thirty-five in a tourist

suit, with light beard and hair, and long thin hands.

'What is this?' asked the stranger evenly. 'Who are you?'

'My name is Hugo,' Hugo answered with assurance. 'I was walking along

the balconies, as I do sometimes at night, and I heard strange sounds

here, and as the window was open I stepped in and found this. Are you a

friend of Mr. Tudor's?'

The other bent in his turn, and after examining the prone body said:

'I was. He has no friends now.'

'You mean he is dead?'

'He must have died within the last quarter of an hour or so.'

'And nothing can be done?'

'Nothing can be done with death!'

'I take it you are a doctor?' said Hugo.

'My name is Darcy,' the other replied. 'Besides being Tudor's friend, I

was his physician.'

'Yet even for a physician,' Hugo pursued, 'it seems to me that you have

been able to decide very quickly that your friend and patient is dead. I

have always understood that to say with assurance that death has taken

place means a very careful and thorough examination.'

'You are right,' Darcy agreed, stroking his short, bright, silky beard.

'There is only one absolute proof of death.'

'And that is?'

'Putrefaction. Nevertheless, the inquest will show whether or not I have

been in error.'

'There will have to be an inquest?'

'Certainly. In such a case as this no doctor in his senses would give

his certificate without a post-mortem, and though I am an enthusiast, I

am in my senses, Mr. Hugo.'

'An enthusiast?'

'Let me explain. My friend Tudor was suffering from one of the rarest of

all maladies--malignant disease of the heart. The text-books will tell

you that malignant disease of the heart has probably never been

diagnosed. It is a disease of which there are no symptoms, in which the

patient generally suffers no pain, and for which there is no treatment.

Nevertheless, in my enthusiasm, I have diagnosed in this case that a

very considerable extent of the cardiac wall was affected by

epithelioma. We shall see. Not long since I condemned Tudor to an early

and sudden death--a death which might be hastened by circumstances.'

'Poor chap!' Hugo murmured.

The dead man looked so young, artless, and content.

'Why "poor"?' Darcy turned on him sharply but coldly. 'Is not a sudden

death the best? Would you not wish it for yourself, for your friends?'

'Yes,' said Hugo; 'but when one is dead one is dead. That's all I

meant.'

'I have heard much of you, Mr. Hugo,' said the other. 'And, if I may be

excused a certain bluntness, it is very obvious that, though you say

little, you are no ordinary man. Can it be possible that you have lived

so long and so fully and are yet capable of pitying the dead? Have you

not learnt that it is only _they_ who are happy?' He vaguely indicated

the corpse. 'If you will be so good as to assist me--'

'Willingly,' said Hugo, who could find nothing else to say. 'I suppose

we must call the servants?'

'Why call the servants? To begin with, there is only one here, a

somewhat antique housekeeper. Let her sleep. She has been through

sufficient to-day. Morning will be time enough for the futile

formalities which civilization has invented to protect itself. Night,

which is the season of death, should not be disturbed by them.'

'As you think best,' Hugo concurred.

'And now,' Darcy began, in a somewhat relieved tone, when he had

finished his task, and the remains of Francis Tudor lay decently covered

on a sofa in the drawing-room, that mortuary chamber, 'will you oblige

me by coming into the study for a while? I am not in the mood for sleep,

and perhaps you are not. And I will admit frankly that I should prefer

not to be alone at present. Yes,' he added, with a faint deprecatory

smile, 'my theories about death are thoroughly philosophical, but one

cannot always act up to one's theories.'

And in the study, at the other end of the flat, far from the relics of

humanity, he began to roll cigarettes with marvellous swiftness in his

long thin fingers.

Hugo surmised that under his singular and almost glacial calm the man

concealed a temperament highly nervous and sensitive.

'You do not inquire about the--the coffin?' said Darcy at length, when

they had smoked for a few moments in silence.

As a fact, Hugo had determined that, at no matter what cost to his

feelings, he would not be the first to mention the other fatality.

The two men looked at each other, and each blew out a lance of smoke.

'What did she die of?' Hugo demanded curtly.

'You are aware, then, who it is?'

'Naturally, I guessed.'

'Ah! she died of typhoid fever. You knew her?'

'I knew her.'

'Of course; I remember. She was in your employ. Yes,' he sighed; 'she

contracted typhoid fever in Paris. It's always more or less endemic

there. And what with this hot summer and their water-supply and their

drainage, it's been more rife than usual lately. Tudor called me in at

once. I am qualified both in England and France, but I practise in

Paris. It was a fairly ordinary case, except that she suffered from

severe and persistent headaches at the beginning. But in typhoid the

danger is seldom in the fever; it is in the complications. She had a

hæmorrhage. I--I failed. A hæmorrhage in typhoid is not necessarily

fatal, but it often proves so. She died from exhaustion.'

'I thought,' said Hugo, in a low, unnatural voice, 'that typhoid marked

the patient--spots on the face.'

'Not invariably. Oh no; but why do you say that?'

'I only meant that I hope her face was not marked.'

'It was not. You mean that you hope her face was not marked because she

was so beautiful?'

'Exactly,' said Hugo. 'And so Tudor brought the body over to England for

burial?'

'Yes; he insisted on that. And he insisted on my coming with him. I

could not refuse.'

'And now he, too, is gone! Tell me, was he expecting it--his own death?'

Darcy lighted another cigarette.

'Who can say?' he observed to the ceiling. 'Who can say what

premonitions such a man may not have had?'

'I heard talking before I came into the flat from the balcony,' said

Hugo abruptly. 'It went on for a long time. Was it you and he?'

'No,' the doctor replied; 'I was in here, writing.' He pointed to some

papers on a desk. 'I did not even hear him fall.'

'Yet you heard me?'

'No, I didn't. I was just coming to find out what Tudor was doing when I

saw you.'

'It is curious that I heard talking, and walking about, too.'

'Possibly he was talking to himself. Did you hear two voices?'

'Perhaps I heard only one.'

'Then no doubt he was talking to himself. You won't be surprised to

learn that he had been in an excessively emotional condition all day....

It is all very sad. Only a month ago, and Tudor was--but what am I

saying? Who knows what perils and misfortunes he--they--may not have

escaped? For my part, I envy--yes, I envy Tudor.'

'But not her? You do not envy her? In your quality of philosophy, you

regret _her_ death?'

'Do not ask me to be consistent,' said the philosopher, after a long

pause.

Hugo rose and approached Darcy.

'Are you acquainted with a man named Louis Ravengar?' he demanded in a

rather loud tone.

The doctor scanned his face.

'I have heard Tudor mention the name, but I do not know him.'

'And upon my soul I believe you,' cried Hugo. 'Nevertheless--'

'Nevertheless what?'

Darcy seemed startled. Hugo's strange outburst was indeed startling.

'Oh, nothing!' Hugo muttered. 'Nothing.' He walked to the window, which

looked out on Blair Street. The first heralds of the dawn were in the

eastern sky, and the moon overhead was paling. 'It will be daylight in a

minute,' he said. 'I must go. Come with me first to the drawing-room,

will you?'

And they passed together along the passage to the drawing-room, where

the electric lamp was still keeping watch. Hugo stood by the side of the

coffin.

'What is it?' Darcy quietly asked.

'Have you ever been in love?' Hugo questioned him.

'Yes,' said Darcy.

'Then I will tell you. You will understand. I must tell someone. I loved

her.'

He touched the elm-wood gently, and hurried out of the room by the

French window.

* * * * *

Four days later Mr. Senior Polycarp called on Hugo in his central

office.

In the meantime the inquest had proved the correctness of Mr. Darcy's

diagnosis. Francis Tudor was buried, and Francis Tudor's wife was

buried. Hugo, who had accompanied the funerals disguised as one of his

own 'respectful attendants,' saw scarcely anyone. He had to recover the

command of his own soul, and to adopt some definite attitude towards the

army of suspicions which naturally had assailed him. Could he believe

Darcy? He decided that he could, and that he must. Darcy had inspired

him with confidence, and there was no doubt that the man had an

extensive practice in Paris, and was well known at the British Embassy.

Camilla, then, had really died of typhoid fever on her honeymoon, and

hence Ravengar had not murderously compassed her death. And people did

die of typhoid fever, and people did die on their honeymoons.

Either Ravengar's threats had been idle, or Fate had mercifully robbed

him of the opportunity to execute them. Hugo remembered that he had

begun by regarding the threats as idle, and that it was only later, in

presence of Camilla's corpse, that he had thought otherwise of them. So

he drove back the army of suspicions, and settled down to accustom

himself to the eternal companionship of a profound and irremediable

grief.

Then it was that Polycarp called.

'I come to you,' said the white-moustached solicitor, 'on behalf of my

late client, Mr. Tudor. He made his will after his marriage, and before

starting for Paris, and it contains a peculiar clause. Mr. Tudor had the

flat on a three years' agreement, renewable at his option for a further

period of two years. Over two years of the three are expired.'

'That is so,' said Hugo. 'You want to get rid of the tenancy at once?

Well, I don't mind. I can easily--'

'No,' Polycarp interrupted him, 'I wish to give notice of renewal. The

will provides that if the testator should die within two months of the

date of it the flat shall be sealed up exactly as it stands for twelve

months after his death, and that the estate shall be held by me, as

executor and trustee, for that period, and then dealt with according to

instructions deposited in the testator's private safe in the vault which

I rent from you in your Safe Deposit.'

'But--'

'I have just sealed up the flat--doors, windows, ventilators,

everything.'

'Mr. Polycarp, this is impossible.'

'Not at all. It is done.'

'But the reason?'

'I know no more than yourself. As executor, I have carried out the

terms of the will. I thought that you, as landlord, were entitled to the

information which I have given you.'

'As landlord,' said Hugo, 'I object. And I shall demand entrance.'

'On what ground?'

'Under the clause which in all tenancy agreements gives the landlord the

right to enter at reasonable times in order to inspect the condition of

the premises,' Hugo answered defiantly to the lawyer.

'I had considered that. But I shall dispute the right. You may bring an

action. What then? No court will give you leave to force an entrance. An

Englishman's furnished flat, just as much as his house, is his castle. I

could certainly keep you out for a year.'

'And may I ask why you are so anxious to keep me out, Mr. Polycarp?'

'I am anxious merely to fulfil my duties. May I ask why you are so

anxious to get in? Why do you want to thwart the wishes of a dead man?'

'I could not permit that mystery to remain for a whole year in the very

middle of my block of flats.'

_'What mystery?'_ Polycarp suavely inquired.

During this brief conversation all Hugo's suspicions had hurriedly

returned, and he had examined them anew and more favourably. Polycarp?

Was it not curious that Polycarp should be acting for both Ravengar and

Tudor?... Darcy? Were there not very strange features in the behaviour

of this English doctor who preferred to practise in Paris?... And the

hæmorrhage? And, lastly, this monstrous, unaccountable, inexplicable

shutting-up of the flat?

He felt already that those empty rooms, dark, silent, sealed, guarding

in some recess he knew not what dreadful secret, were getting on his

nerves. And was he to suffer for a year?

'Come, Mr. Hugo,' said Polycarp; 'I may count on your goodwill?'

'I don't know,' Hugo replied--'I don't know.'

PART II THE PHONOGRAPH

CHAPTER XI

SALE

Strange sights are to be seen in London.

At five minutes to nine a.m. on the first day of the year seven vast

crowds stood before the seven principal entrances to Hugo's; seven

crowds of immortal souls enclosed in the bodies of women. They meant to

begin the year well by an honest attempt to get something for nothing.

It was a cold, dank, raw, and formidable morning; Hugo's tessellated

pavements were covered with moisture, and, moreover, day had not yet

conquered night. But the seven crowds, growing larger each moment,

recked nothing of these inconveniences. They waited stolidly, silently,

in a suppressed and dangerous fever, as besiegers await the signal for

an attack. Between the various entrances, on the three façades of the

establishment, ran the long lines of windows dressed with all the

materials for happiness, and behind these ramparts of materials could

be glimpsed Hugo's assistants moving about in anxious expectation under

the electric lights, which burned red in the foggy gloom. Over every

portal was a purple warning: 'Beware of pickpockets, male and female.'

No possible male pickpockets, however, were visible to the eye; perhaps

they were disguised as ladies. The seven crowds wedged themselves closer

and closer, clutched tighter and tighter their purses, and stared at the

golden commissionaires through the glass doors with a glance more and

more ferocious. Then suddenly something went off with a boom; it was the

first stroke of the great Hugo clock under the dome. Six pairs of double

doors opened simultaneously, six pairs of golden commissionaires were

overthrown like ninepins, and in a fraction of time six companies of

determined and remorseless women had swept like Prussian cavalry into

the interior of the doomed edifice.

But the seventh crowd was left on the pavement, for the seventh pair of

doors had not opened. And this was the more extraordinary in that the

seventh crowd was the largest crowd, and stood before the entrance

nearest to the principal scene of the day's operations. Instantly the

world became aware that Hugo's management was less perfect than usual,

and people recalled incidents in his business during the previous four

months which had not been to his credit. The seventh crowd was

staggered, furious, and homicidal. If glances could have killed the

impassive pair of golden commissionaires behind the seventh portal, they

would certainly have fallen down dead. If the glass of the seventh

portal had not been set in small squares of immense thickness, it would

have been shattered to bits, and the stronghold forced. Many women cried

out that justice had come to an end in England, for was it not an

elementary principle of justice that all doors should open together? A

few women, more practical, and near the edge of the enraged horde,

slipped away to other entrances. One woman fainted, but she was held

upright by the press, and as no one paid the slightest attention to her

she rapidly came to. Then at length a tall gentleman in a beautiful

frock-coat was seen to be expostulating sternly with the seventh

pair of golden commissionaires; the recalcitant doors flew open,

and the beautiful frock-coat was hurled violently against a marble

pillar for its pains. Just as the seventh regiment was disappearing to

join in the sack and loot, a young and pretty girl drove up in a hansom,

threw the driver a shilling (which the driver contemplated with a scorn

too deep for words), and joined the tail of the regiment.

'I knew I should do it,' she said to herself, 'and Alb said I

shouldn't.'

In another moment Hugo's was a raging sea of petticoats. In half an hour

the doors had to be shut and locked, and new crowds formed on the

tessellated pavements; Hugo's was full.

Hugo's was full!

For three days past Hugo had bought whole pages of every daily paper in

London, in order to break gently to the public the tremendous fact that

his annual sale would commence on New Year's Day, and the still more

tremendous fact that it would close on the third of January. There are

only three genuine annual sales in the Metropolis. One is Hugo's,

another happens in Tottenham Court Road, and the third--but why disclose

the situation of the third, since all persons from Putney to Peckham

Rise who are worthy to know it, know it? Hugo's was naturally the

greatest, the largest, the most exciting, the most marvellous, the most

powerful in its appeal to the most powerful of human instincts--the

instinct to get half a crown's worth of value for two shillings. In

earlier years Hugo had made his annual sale prodigious and incredible,

with no thought of profit, merely for the pleasure of the affair. But he

found that the more he offered to the public the more he received from

them, and that it was practically impossible to lose money by giving

things away. This is, of course, a fundamental axiom of commerce. And

now Hugo's annual sale was to be more astonishing than ever; some said

that he meant at any cost to efface the memory of those discreditable

incidents before mentioned. Decidedly, many of the advertised bargains

were remarkable in the highest degree. There was, for example, the 'fine

silvered fox-stole, with real brush at each end,' at a guinea. Every

woman who can tell a silvered fox-stole from a cock's-feather boa is

aware that a silvered fox-stole simply cannot be sold for a guinea. Yet

Hugo had announced that he would sell two thousand of them at that

price, not to mention muffs to match at the same figure. And there was

the famous 'Incroyable' corset, white coutille, with wide belted band

round hips, double belt to buckle at sides, cut low--' Enough! Further

indiscretions of description are not necessary to show that eighteen and

nine is the lowest price at which a reasonable creature could hope to

obtain the 'Incroyable' corset. But Hugo's price was twelve and eleven.

And the whole-page advertisements were a solid blazing mass of such

jewels.

The young and pretty girl who had known that she would 'do it' hastened

with assured steps, and as quickly as the jostling multitudes would

allow, to the fur department. She was in pursuit of one of the silvered

fox-stoles with real brush at each end. She had her husband's

permission--nay, his command--to purchase a silvered fox-stole at a

guinea--if she could. On the way to her goal she encountered by chance

Simon Shawn, and it occurred that a temporary block compelled her to

halt before him. The two gazed at each other, and Simon looked away,

flushing. It was plain that, though acquainted, they were not on

speaking terms. The fact was, that their silence covered a domestic

drama--a drama which had arisen as the consequence of a great human

truth--namely, that even detectives will marry.

It will be remembered that on a certain morning in July, after Hugo had

finished pasting a notice on a mirror in one of the common rooms, in the

presence of a pink-aproned waitress, Albert Shawn entered, and kissed

the pink-aproned waitress. So far as possible, whom Albert Shawn kissed

he married, and he had married the waitress just the week before

Christmas, and this was she. Simon had objected sternly to the

_mésalliance_. It seemed shocking to Simon that a rising detective

should marry a girl who waited on shop-girls. Hence the drama. Hugo had

positively refused to allow an open quarrel between the brothers,

because of its inconvenience to himself, but he could not prevent a

quarrel between Simon and Lily--such was her name. They met now for the

first time since the marriage, and Lily's demeanour may be imagined. She

gazed through Simon as though he did not exist, and passed magnificently

onwards as soon as the throng permitted. She was Mrs. Albert Shawn, as

neat as ninepence, as smart and pert as a French maid out for the day.

She drove in hansoms, and she had a five-pound note in her pocket.

Albert had been granted two weeks' vacation for his honeymoon, and he

ought to have resumed his duties of detection that morning. The

honeymoon, however, had lasted only nine days, and the remaining five

days of the period had been spent by him in some secret affair of his

own, an affair which had ended in an accident to his left foot, so that

he could not walk. The consequence was that, on this day of all days,

Hugo's was deprived of his services. Lily was, perhaps, not altogether

sorry for the catastrophe which kept him a prisoner in the nest-like

home in Radipole Road, for it had resulted in this excursion of hers to

the sale. Albert had bidden her to go to buy a stole and other things,

to keep her eyes open, and to report to Hugo in person if she observed

anything queer. He had even given her a pass which would ensure her

immediate admittance to any of Hugo's private lairs. Therefore, Lily

felt extremely important, extremely like a detective's wife. She knew

that Albert trusted her, and she was very proud that she had not asked

him any questions concerning a matter exasperatingly mysterious. Albert

had taught her that a detective's wife should crucify curiosity.

She fought her way to a counter in the fur department.

'The guinea stoles?' she inquired from a shopwalker.

'I--I beg pardon, miss,' said the shopwalker.

'Madam,' Lily corrected him. 'I want one of those silvered fox-stoles

advertised at a guinea.'

'You'll probably find them over there, madam,' said the shopwalker,

pointing.

'Aren't you sure?' she asked tartly. 'I don't want to struggle across

there and then find they're somewhere else.'

The shopwalker turned his back on her.

'Well, I never!' she exclaimed to herself, and decided that Albert

should avenge her.

Then, behind the counter, she saw a girl whom she used to serve with a

glass of milk every morning.

'Oh, Miss Lawton,' she cried, as an equal to an equal, 'can you tell me

where the stoles are to be found?'

'Probably over there, Mrs. Shawn,' said Miss Lawton kindly, nodding the

greeting she had no time to utter.

So Lily got away from the counter, plunged into a chartless sea of

customers, and eventually emerged in the quarter which had been

indicated.

'All sold out, miss!'

Such was the blunt answer to her demand for a silvered fox-stole.

'Don't talk to me like that!' said Mrs. Albert Shawn. 'It isn't above

half-past nine on the first morning of the sale, and you advertised two

thousand of them.'

'Sorry, miss. All sold out,' repeated the second shopwalker.

'I shall report this to Mr. Hugo. Do you know who I am? I'm--'

And the second shopwalker also turned his back.

Could these things be happening at Hugo's, at Hugo's, so famous for the

courtesy, the long patience, the indestructible politeness of its

well-paid employés? And could Hugo have descended to the trickeries of

the eleven-pence-halfpenny draper, who proclaimed non-existent bargains

to lure the unwary into his shop? Lily might have wondered if she was

not dreaming, but she was far too practical ever to be in the least

doubt as to whether she was asleep or awake. And now she perceived that

scores of angry women about her were equally disappointed by the

disgraceful absence of those stoles. The department, misty, stuffy, and

noisy, had the air of being the scene of an insurrection. One lady was

informing the public generally that she had demanded a guinea stole at

three minutes past nine, and had been put off with a monstrous excuse.

And then a newspaper reporter appeared, and began to take notes. The din

increased, though shopwalkers said less and less, and the chances seemed

in favour of the insurrection becoming a riot. Other admirable bargains

in furs were indubitably to be had--muffs, for example--and the cashiers

were busy; but nothing could atone for the famine of stoles.

Lily had a suspicion that Albert would have wished her to report these

singular circumstances to Hugo at once. But she dismissed the suspicion,

because she passionately desired an 'Incroyable' corset at twelve and

eleven, and she feared lest the corsets might have vanished as strangely

as the stoles. In ten minutes, breathless, she had reached the corset

department, demanded an 'Incroyable' of the correct size, and bought it.

There was no dissatisfaction in the corset department.

'Shall we send it, miss?'

'Madam,' said Lily proudly. 'No, I'll take it.'

'Yes, madam.'

At the cash desk (No. 56) she had to wait her turn in a disorderly

queue before she could tender the bill and her five-pound note.

Customers pressed round her on all sides as she put down the note and

peered through the wire network into the interior of the desk.

'Next, please,' said the cashier sharply, after a moment.

'My change,' demanded Lily.

'You have had it, madam.'

'Oh,' said Lily, 'I have had it, have I? Now, none of your nonsense,

young man! Do you know who I am? I'm Mrs. Albert Shawn.'

'Mr. Randall,' the cashier called out coldly, and a grave and gigantic

shopwalker appeared who knew not the name of Albert Shawn, and who

firmly told Mrs. Shawn that if she wished to make a complaint she must

make it at the Central Inquiry Office, ground-floor, Department 1A.

Lily had been brazenly robbed at Hugo's by an employé of Hugo! She was

elbowed away by other women apparently anxious to be robbed. She wanted

to cry, but suddenly remembering her identity, and her pass to the

presence of Hugo, she threw up her head and marched off through the

crowds.

She had not proceeded twenty yards before she was stopped by a group of

persons round a policeman--a policeman obviously called in from Sloane

Street. A stout woman of lady-like appearance had been arrested on a

charge of attempted pocket-picking. An accusatory shopwalker charged

her, and she replied warmly that she was Lady Brice (_née_

Kentucky-Webster), the American wife of the well-known philanthropist,

and that her carriage was waiting outside. The policeman and the

shopwalker smiled. It was so easy to be the wife of a well-known

philanthropist, and in these days all the best pickpockets had their

carriages waiting outside.

'I know this lady by sight,' said Lily. 'She visited the common-rooms

last year to see the arrangements, with Mr. Hugo, and he called her Lady

Brice, and I can tell you he'll be very angry with you.'

'And who are _you_, my young friend?' said the policeman sceptically,

and threateningly.

'I'm--'

The formula proved useless. Lady Brice (_née_ Kentucky-Webster) was led

off in all her vast speechless, outraged impeccability, and poor little

Lily was glad to escape with her freedom and the memory of Lady Brice's

grateful bow.

She ran, gliding in and out between the knots of visitors, until she was

stopped by a pair of doors being suddenly shut and fastened in her face.

The reason for the obstruction was plain. Those doors admitted to the

blouse department, and the blouse department, as Lily could see through

the diamond panes, was a surging sea of bargain-hunters, amid which

shopwalkers stood up like light-houses, while the girls behind the

counters trembled in fear of being washed away. Discipline, order,

management, had ceased to exist at Hugo's.

Mrs. Shawn turned to seek another route, but already dozens of women

were upon her, and she could not retire. The crowd of candidates for

admission to the blouse department swelled till it filled the gallery

between that department and its neighbour. Then someone cried out for

air, and someone else protested that the doors at the other end of the

short gallery had also been shut. Lily, whose manifold misfortunes had

not quenched her interest in the 'Incroyable' corset, opened her parcel,

and found that the corset was not an 'Incroyable' at all, but an

inferior substitute, with no proper belted band, and of a shape to

startle even a Brighton bathing-woman! The change must have been

effected by the assistant in making up the parcel.

'Well!'

She could say no more, and think no more, than this 'Well!'

And, moreover, the condition of the packed gallery soon caused her to

forget even the final swindle of the corset. The air had rapidly become

exhausted. Women clutched at each other; women rapped frenziedly against

the heavy, glazed doors; women screamed. It was the Black Hole of

Calcutta over again, and yet no one in the blouse department seemed to

notice the signals of distress. Lily felt the perspiration on her brow

and chin, and then she knew that she, too, must scream and clutch; and

she cried out, and the pressure which forced her against the door grew

more and more terrible.... She had dropped the corset.... She murmured

feebly 'Alb--'.... She began to dream queer dreams and to see strange

lights.... And then something gave way with a crash, and she fell

forward, and regiments of horses trampled over her, and at last all

living things receded from her, and she was in the midst of a great

silence. And then even the silence was gone, and there was nothing.

So ended the first part of Lily's adventures at Hugo's infamous annual

sale.

* * * * *

When she recovered perfect consciousness, she was in the dome. She knew

it was the dome because Albert had once, at her urgent request, taken

her surreptitiously to see it. Simon was standing over her, as

sympathetic as the most exigent sister-in-law could wish, and the great

Shawn family feud had expired.

In two minutes she was her intensely practical self again. In five

minutes she had acquainted Simon with all her experiences; they were but

the complement of what he himself had witnessed.

The sense of a mysterious calamity over-hanging Hugo's, and the sense of

the shame which had already disgraced Hugo's, pressed heavily on both of

them. They knew that only one man could retrieve what had been lost and

avert irreparable disaster. Their faith in that man was undiminished,

and Simon at least was sure that he had been victimized by some immense

conspiracy.

'Why don't you find Mr. Hugo?' Lily demanded.

'I've looked everywhere. A letter was brought up to him about an hour

ago, and he went off instantly.'

'And where's the letter?'

'I expect it's in that drawer, where he throws all his private letters,'

said Simon, pointing to a drawer in the big writing-table on the

opposite side of the room from the piano.

'Is it locked--the drawer?'

'No.'

'Then open it.'

'It's the governor's private drawer,' said Simon. 'I've never--'

'Stuff!' Lily exclaimed, and she opened the drawer and drew out the

topmost letter.

It was on blue paper.

'Yes, that's it,' said Simon. 'The envelope was blue, I remember.'

'He must be in the Safe Deposit,' said Lily, perusing the letter with

flying glance.

And Simon, at length sufficiently emboldened, seized the letter and

read:

'SIR,

'Mr. Polycarp has just been here, and accidentally left behind him

keys of his vault, including safe of late Mr. Francis Tudor, etc.

In these peculiar circumstances I shall be glad to know what I am to

do.

'Yours respectfully,

'H. BROWN,

'Head Guardian,

'Hugo's Safe Deposit.'

'What on earth can Brown be thinking about?' muttered Simon. 'Hadn't he

got enough gumption to send a messenger after Mr. Polycarp, without

troubling the governor? He'll catch it.'

'Never mind that,' said Lily sharply. 'Run down to the Safe Deposit.

Run, Simon.'

It was as though a delay of minutes might mean ruin. Who could say what

was even then happening in the disorganized and masterless departments?

CHAPTER XII

SAFE DEPOSIT

The Safe Deposit at Hugo's was perhaps the most wonderful of all the

departments. Until Hugo thought of it, and paid a trinity of European

experts to design and devise it, there had existed no such thing as an

absolutely impregnable asylum for valuables. In Dakota a strong-room

alleged to be impregnable had been approached underground, tunnelled,

mined, and emptied by thieves with imagination. In the North of England

a safe, which its inventor had defied the whole universe of crime to

open, had been rifled by the aid of so simple a dodge as duplicate keys.

Even in Tottenham Court Road a couple of ingenious persons had burnt a

hole in a guaranteed safe by means of common gas at three and threepence

per thousand cubic feet. These surprises could not occur at Hugo's. His

Safe Deposit really was what it pretended to be. All contingencies were

provided for. It was the final retort of virtue to vice.

You approached it by a door of quite ordinary appearance (no one cares

to be seen leaving what is obviously a safe deposit), and you signed

your name before entering a lift. You descended forty feet below the

surface of the earth, gave a password on emerging from the lift,

traversed a corridor, and at length stood in front of the sole entrance

to the Safe Deposit. A guardian, when you had signed your name again,

unlocked three unpickable, incombustible, and gunpowder-proof locks in a

massive steel door, and you were admitted, assuming always that the hour

was between nine and six. Out of hours and on Saturday after-noons and

on Sundays a time-lock rendered it utterly impossible for any person

whatever to turn any key in the Safe Deposit. Once the lock was set,

Hugo himself could not have entered, not even to save the British Empire

from instant destruction, until the time-lock had run its course.

You found yourself in an electrically lighted world of passages built in

flashing steel, with floors of steel and ceilings of steel--a world

where the temperature was always 65°. Every passage was separated from

every other passage by steel grilles, and at intervals uniformed and

gigantic officials wandered about with impassive, haughty faces--faces

that indicated a sublime confidence in the safety of the multifarious

riches committed to their care. You might have guessed yourself in the

fell grip of the Inquisition. As a fact, you were in something far more

fell. You were in a vast chamber of steel, and that chamber was itself

enclosed on all sides by three feet of solid concrete. No thief could

tunnel or mine you without first getting through the District Railway on

the one hand, or the main drainage system of London on the other. No

thief could rifle you by means of duplicate keys, for no vault and no

safe could be opened except in the presence of the head guardian, who

possessed a key without which the renter's key was useless. No tricks

could be played with the gas, because there was no gas, and the electric

light could only be turned off or on from the top of the lift-well.

Now, it was a singular thing that when Simon Shawn, having proved his

identity and his mission at the lift, arrived at the entrance to the

Safe Deposit, he discovered the great steel door ajar, and no

door-guardian in the leather chair where a door-guardian always sat.

This condition of affairs did not affect the essential impregnability of

any individual vault or safe, but, nevertheless, it was singular.

Simon walked straight in.

'There's no one at the door,' he said to the patrol, whom he met in the

main passage. 'I want to see Mr. Hugo at once. He's down here somewhere,

or he's been here.'

'Yes, Mr. Shawn,' said the patrol politely; 'I did see Mr. Hugo here

about an hour or so ago. I'll ask Mr. Brown. Will you step into the

waiting-room?'

Half-way along the main corridor was a large room, whose steel walls

were masked by tapestries, where renters could examine their treasures

on marble tables. It was empty when Simon went in. The patrol carefully

closed the door on him, and then in a moment came back to say that Mr.

Brown was not in his office, and had probably gone out to lunch, the

hour being noon.

'Where did you see Mr. Hugo?' Simon asked, hurrying out of the room in a

state of considerable agitation.

'I saw him just here, sir,' said the patrol, turning down a short side

corridor--the grille was unfastened--and stopping before a door numbered

thirty-nine. 'He was talking to Mr. Brown, and the door of the vault was

open.'

'That must be Mr. Polycarp's vault,' Simon observed; and then he

started, and put his ear against the door. 'Listen!' he exclaimed to the

patrol. 'Can't you hear anything inside?'

And the patrol also put his ear to the steel face of the door.

'I seem to hear a faint knocking, but it's that faint as you scarcely

_can_ hear it. There! it's stopped.'

'He is inside,' Shawn whispered.

'Who's inside?'

'Mr. Hugo.'

'It's God help him, then,' said the patrol, 'if he's there long. There's

no ventilation, Mr. Shawn. We'd better telephone for Mr. Polycarp. The

other key will be in the key-safe. I can get it. But how do you make

out, sir, that Mr. Hugo can be in there? The vault could only be locked

by Mr. Polycarp and Mr. Brown together, and surely they couldn't both--'

'Mr. Polycarp left his keys behind by accident. He had gone before Mr.

Hugo came down.'

'There's been no Mr. Polycarp here this morning,' said the patrol a

minute later. 'I've looked at the signature-book. I thought it was queer

I hadn't seen him. And, what's more, that isn't Mr. Polycarp's vault at

all. Mr. Polycarp's vault is No. 37. This vault has been empty for

several weeks.'

'Then you have both the keys?' Simon demanded quickly.

'No, sir. It's very strange. There's only one key of No. 39 in the

key-safe, and it's the renter's key.'

'Then Mr. Brown must have the other.'

'I expect so. But he ought not to have. It's against rules,' said the

patrol. 'I know where he takes his lunch. I'll send for him.'

Simon put his ear again to the face of the door. The faint knocking had

ceased, but after a few seconds it recommenced.

'And suppose you don't find Mr. Brown?' he queried, still listening.

'Then that vault can't be opened. But never you fear, Mr. Shawn. I'll

have him here in three minutes. It's funny as he should have left

anybody in there by accident--and Mr. Hugo of all people in this

blessed world....'

The patrol's accents died away as he passed down the main corridor.

Within the next half-hour Simon, who had the rare virtue of being honest

with himself, was freely admitting, in the privacy of his own mind, that

the crisis had got beyond his power to grapple with it, and he had begun

to fear complications more dreadful than he dared to put into words. For

the patrol had failed to find Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown, head guardian of the

Safe Deposit, had disappeared. Nor was this all. A renter had come to

take his belongings from a safe in the third side-passage on the left,

and the sub-guardian imprisoned in that passage could not open the

grille between it and the main corridor. He had his key, but the key

would not turn in the glittering lock. The renter, too impatient to

wait, had departed very angrily at this excess of safety. Then it was

gradually discovered that every sub-guardian in every side-passage was

similarly imprisoned. Not a key in the entire place would turn. The

patrol rushed to the main door. The three keys had clearly been turned

while the door was opened, and the shot bolts prevented the door from

closing. This explained why the door was ajar, but it did not explain

the absence of the doorkeeper, who had apparently followed in the

footsteps of his chief, Mr. Brown.

'The time-lock! Someone must have set it!' cried the patrol to Shawn,

and the two hastened to the other end of the main corridor, where the

dial of the machine glistened under an electric lamp.

And all the sub-guardians stirred and grumbled in their beautiful bright

cages like wrathful lions. No such scene had ever been known in that

Safe Deposit or any other safe deposit before.

The patrol was right. The dial of the time-lock showed that it had been

set against every lock, great and small, in the Safe Deposit, until nine

a.m. the next day.

'It's all up!' the patrol said solemnly.

'Do you mean to say nothing can be done to open that vault till nine

to-morrow?' Simon demanded in despair.

'Nothing. The blooming Czar couldn't manage it with all his Cossacks!

No, nor Bobs either! This is a Safe Deposit, this is, and if Mr. Hugo is

in that vault, it's Mr. Hugo as knows it's a Safe Deposit by now.'

A brief silence ensued, and then Simon said:

'We must telephone to the police. There's a telephone in the

waiting-room, isn't there?'

The patrol admitted that there was, but his manner hinted a low opinion

of the utility of the police. He stood mute while Simon Shawn told the

telephone receiver what had occurred in the bowels of the earth beneath

Hugo's.

'Wait a minute,' said the telephone, and then, after a pause: 'Are you

there? I'm Inspector Winter.'

'That's him as has charge of all the strong-room cases,' the patrol

interjected to Simon.

'I've got Mr. Jack Galpin here, as it happens,' said the telephone.

'Mr. Jack Galpin?' Simon questioned.

'He's just done eighteen months for an attempt in Lombard Street,' the

patrol explained. 'I've heard of him.'

'I'll come down with him immediately in a cab,' said the telephone.

When Simon returned to the impregnable door of Vault 39 he listened in

vain for a sound. Then he knocked with his pen-knife on the polished

steel, and presently there was an answering signal from within--a series

of scarcely perceptible irregular taps. It struck him that the

irregularity of the taps formed a rhythm, and after a few seconds he

recognised the rhythm of the Intermezzo from 'Cavalleria Rusticana,'

which he had played for Hugo that very morning.

It was at this moment that the messenger-boy attached to the department

came whistling into the steel corridors, and delivered to the patrol a

small white packet, which, he said, Mr. Brown had handed to him with

instructions to hand it to the patrol. He had seen Mr. Brown in a cab

outside the building, and Mr. Brown had the appearance of being very

ill.

The packet contained the second key of Vault 39.

'But this'll be no use till to-morrow,' was the patrol's comment, 'and

by then--'

CHAPTER XIII

MR. GALPIN

When the patrol and Simon between them had explained the mysterious and

fatal situation to Mr. Jack Galpin, Mr. Jack Galpin leaned against one

of the marble tables in the waiting-room, and roared with laughter.

'Well,' observed Mr. Galpin, 'he didn't have his Safe Deposit built for

nothing, anyhow!'

And he laughed again.

'But he's slowly dying in there!' said Simon.

'Yes, I know,' said Mr. Galpin. 'That's what makes it such a good joke.'

'I don't see it, sir,' Simon remarked.

'Simply because your sense of humour is a bit off. What are you?'

'I am Mr. Hugo's man.'

'My respects.'

Mr. Galpin had arrived with Inspector Winter, and Inspector Winter had

introduced him as knowing more about safes than any other man in

England, or perhaps in Europe. After the introduction, Inspector Winter,

being pressed for time, had departed. Mr. Galpin was aged about forty,

and looked like an extremely successful commercial traveller. No one

would have suspected that he had recently done eighteen months anywhere

but in a first-class hotel; even his thin hands were white, and if his

hair was a little short--well, the hair of very many respectable persons

is often a little short. It appeared that he was under obligations to

Inspector Winter, and anxious to oblige. The relations between

distinguished law-breakers and distinguished detectives are frequently

such as can only exist between artists who esteem each other. For the

rest, Mr. Galpin had brought a brown bag.

'You see, the time-lock is placed so that--' began the patrol.

'Shut up!' said Mr. Galpin curtly. 'I know all that. I've got

scale-plans of every Safe Deposit in London, and I decided long since

that this one was too good to try. Of course, with the aid of the entire

staff things might be a bit easier, but not much--not much!' he

repeated scornfully. 'If I can manage a job at all, I can usually manage

it alone, and in spite of the entire staff.'

'I suppose you couldn't burn the door of the vault with oxy-hydrogen?'

Simon suggested.

'Yes, I could,' said Mr. Galpin; 'and with the brand of steel used here

I should get through about this time to-morrow. I could blow the bally

vault up with gun-cotton in something under two seconds, but no doubt

your Mr. Hugo would go up with it, and then the Yard would be angry.

No!'

He hummed an air, and strolled out into the main corridor to stare at

the curious dial of the time-lock.

'Why not blow up the clock of the time-lock?' ventured the patrol.

'Look here!' said Mr. Galpin, '_you_ ought to know better than that,

even if this other gent doesn't. Any violence to the clock automatically

jams all the connecting levers. Stop the clock, and it's all up. Nothing

but unbuilding the whole place would free the locks after that. And it

would be a mighty smart firm that could unbuild this place inside a

fortnight. No!' he said again. 'No gammon with the clock--unless we

could make it go quicker.'

'Then there's nothing,' Simon stammered.

Mr. Galpin gazed at the young man.

'Assuming I do the job, what's the job worth?' he asked.

'It's worth anything.'

'Is it worth a hundred pounds?'

'Yes.'

'Cash?'

'Yes, I promise it. I will hand you my savings-bank book if you like.'

'I only ask because I have a sort of a notion about that clock. It's a

pendulum clock, and you know how fast a clock ticks when you take the

pendulum away, and the escapement can run free. It does an hour in about

three minutes. Now, if I could get the pendulum out without alarming the

clock ... it would be nine to-morrow morning in no time. See?'

'I see that,' said the patrol. 'I see that. But what I don't see--'

'Never mind what you don't see,' Mr. Jack Galpin murmured. 'Bring me my

bag out of there. I may tell you,' he went on to Simon, 'that I thought

of this scheme months ago, just as a pleasant sort of a fancy, but quite

practical. It's a queer world, isn't it?'

'Here's your bag,' said the patrol.

'Now you two can just go into the waiting-room, and wait till I call

you. Understand? And tell all these wild beasts round here to hold their

tongues and sit tight. I haven't got to be disturbed in a job like

this.... And it's a hundred pounds if I do it, mister, no more and no

less, eh?'

Within exactly twenty-five minutes Mr. Galpin entered the waiting-room.

'See that?' he said, holding up a pendulum. 'That's _it_. You can come

and look now. But I don't invite the public to see my own private

melting process. Not me!'

He had burnt two holes through the half-inch plate of Bessemer steel in

which the clock was enclosed, and by means of two pairs of tweezers

(which must certainly have been imitated from the armoury of a dentist)

he had detached the pendulum without stopping the clock. The hands of

the clock could be plainly seen to move, and its ticking was furiously

rapid.

Mr. Galpin made a calculation on his dazzling cuff.

'In three-quarters of an hour the clock will have run out,' he informed

his audience, 'and you will be able to open any locks that you've got

keys for. I shall call to-morrow morning, young man, for the swag. And

don't you forget that there's only one Jack Galpin in the world. My

address is 205, the Waterloo Road.'

He left, with his bag.

Simon rushed to Vault 39 to encourage the captive by continual knocking.

Then the messenger-boy, who had been despatched to obtain food for the

prisoners behind the various grilles, came back with the desired food,

and with a copy of the _Evening Herald_. The back page of the _Herald_

bore Hugo's immense advertisement. The front page was also chiefly

devoted to Hugo. It displayed headings such as: 'Shocking Scenes at a

Sloane Street Sale,' 'Women Injured,' 'Customers Complain of Wholesale

Swindling,' 'Scandalous Mismanagement,' 'The Hugo Safe Deposit Suddenly

Closed,' 'Reported Disappearance of Mr. Hugo,' 'Is He a Lunatic?'

And when the three-quarters of an hour had expired Simon and the patrol

unlocked the massive portal of Vault 39, and swung it open, fearful of

what they might see within. And Hugo, pale and feeble, but alive,

staggered heavily forward, and put a hand on Simon's shoulder.

'Let us get away from this,' he whispered, as if in profound mental

agony.

Ignoring everything, he passed out of the impregnable Safe Deposit, with

its flashing steel walls, on Simon's obedient arm.

CHAPTER XIV

TEA

Arrived on the ground-floor, Simon managed to avoid the busy parts of

the establishment, but he happened to choose a way to Hugo's private

lift which led past the service-door of the Hugo Grand Central

Restaurant. And Hugo, although apparently in a sort of torpor, noticed

it.

'Tea!' he ejaculated. 'If I could have some at once!'

And he directed Simon into the restaurant, and so came plump upon one of

the worst scenes in the entire place. The first day of the great annual

sale was closing in almost a riot, and there in the restaurant the

primeval and savage instincts of the vast, angry crowd were naturally to

be seen in their crudest form. The famous walnut buffet, eighty feet in

length, was besieged by an army of customers, chiefly women, who were

competing for food in a manner which ignored even the rudiments of

politeness. It would be difficult to deny that several scores of

well-dressed ladies, robbed of their self-possession and their lunch by

delays and vexations and impositions in the departments, were actually

fighting for food. The girls behind the buffet remained nobly at their

posts, but the situation had outgrown their experience. Every now and

then a crash of crockery or crystal was heard over the din of shrill

voices, and occasionally a loud protest. Away from the buffet, on the

fine floor of the restaurant, a few waitresses hurried distracted and

aimless between the tables at which sat irate and scandalized persons

who firmly believed themselves to be dying of hunger. A number of people

were most obviously stealing food, not merely from the sideboards, but

from their fellows. At a table near to the corner in which Hugo, shocked

by the spectacle, had fallen limp into a chair, was seated an old,

fierce man, who looked like a retired Indian judge, and who had somehow

secured a cup of tea all to himself. A pretty young woman approached

him, and deliberately snatched the cup from under his very nose--and

without spilling a drop. The Indian judge sprang up, roared 'Hussy!' and

knocked the table over with a prodigious racket, then proceeded to pick

the table up again.

'Is it like this everywhere?' asked Hugo of Shawn.

And Shawn nodded.

'I might have foreseen,' Hugo murmured.

'I'll try to get you some tea, sir,' Shawn said, with an attempt to be

cheerful.

'Don't leave me,' begged Hugo, like a sick child. 'Don't leave me.'

'Only for a moment, sir,' said Shawn, departing.

Hugo felt that he was about to swoon, that he had suffered just as much

as a man could suffer, and that Fate was dropping the last straw on the

camel's back. His head fell forward. He was beaten for that day by too

many mysteries and too many tortures. And then he observed that the

pretty young woman who had stolen the cup of tea from the Indian judge

was hastening towards him with the cup of tea in one hand and several

pieces of bread-and-butter in the other.

'Drink this, Mr. Hugo,' she whispered, standing over him. He hesitated.

_'Drink it, I say, or must I throw it over you?'_

He sipped, and sipped again, obediently.

'Good, isn't it?' she questioned.

He looked up at her. He was stronger already.

'It's very good,' he said, with conviction. 'Now a bit of

bread-and-butter. Thanks.' Yes, the excellence and power of the Hugo tea

was not to be denied, and he was deeply glad in that moment that he

owned his private plantations in Ceylon. 'Who are you, may I ask?' he

demanded of his rescuer.

'If you please, sir, I'm Albert's wife.'

'Albert?'

'Albert Shawn, your detective, sir.'

'Of course you are!'

'You gave us a bedroom suite for a wedding present, sir.'

'Of course I did! By the way, where's Albert?'

'He's had an accident to his foot, and couldn't come to-day. You're less

pale than you were, sir. Take this other piece.'

Then Simon returned, empty-handed, and Lily's eye indicated to him her

real opinion of the value of a male in a crisis. She asked no questions

concerning the events which had ended in Hugo's collapse. She merely

dealt with the collapse, and in the intervals of dealing with it she

explained to Simon how she had waited and waited in the dome, and then

descended and tried in vain to enter the Safe Deposit, and been insulted

by the messenger-boy, and had finally drifted to the restaurant, where

she had caught sight of Hugo and himself, and guessed immediately that

something in the highest degree unusual had occurred.

'Come,' said Hugo at last, in curt command, 'I am better.'

He had recovered. He was Hugo again. And Simon was once more nothing but

his body servant, and Lily nothing but an ex-waitress who had married

rather well. He thanked Lily, and told her to go and look after her

husband as well as she had looked after him.

In the dome Simon ventured to show him the _Evening Herald_. And, having

read it, Hugo nodded his head and pressed his lips together. He had

ordered champagne and sandwiches, and was consuming them, at the same

time opening a series of yellow envelopes which lay on a table. These

latter were reports from his detective corps, which had accumulated

during the day.

'Get a sheet of plain paper,' he said to Simon, 'and write this letter.

Are you ready? Yes, it will do in pencil; I even prefer it in pencil.

'"DEAR SIR,

'"I have reason to think that you may be interested in some

extraordinary information which I have in my possession concerning

Camilla Tudor, who is supposed to have been buried at Brompton

Cemetery in July last year. If I am right, perhaps you will

accompany the bearer to my rooms. At present I will not disclose my

name.

'"Yours, etc."

'Put any initials you like. Address it to Louis Ravengar, Esquire. Now

listen to me. Go down to the auto garage, and choose a good man to take

the note instantly; a second man must go with him. If they bring back

Ravengar, he is to be taken to No. 6, Blair Street, shown upstairs, and

brought along the bridge-passage into the building. It will be quite

dark, and he will never guess. If necessary, he must be brought to me by

force, once he is inside. Have two or three porters in attendance to see

to that. But if it's managed properly, he'll come without a suspicion,

and he'll be finely surprised when he finds that the long passage ends

in just this room. Come back to me as soon as you've attended to that.'

'Yes, sir,' said Simon, quite mystified, but none the less enchanted to

see Hugo so actively the old Hugo.

In ten minutes he had returned, and was beginning to relate new facts

which he had learnt while downstairs.

'Stop!' said Hugo. 'Don't worry me with needless details. I know enough.

And don't ask me any questions. We can't hope to remedy the state of

affairs to-day. Nevertheless, we can do something for to-morrow. I must

have Mr. Bentley, the drapery manager, brought here before six o'clock.

He must be found.'

'He is found, sir. He has shot himself in his house in Pimlico Road.'

Hugo started.

'Ah!' was all he said at first. He added dryly: 'Good! And Brown?'

'I have no news of him, sir. He's vanished.'

'Telephone down to the press department that Mr. Aked must come up to

see me at seven o'clock precisely, and, in the meantime, he must secure

an extra half-page in all to-morrow's papers.'

'Yes, sir.'

'And after closing-time the entire staff must assemble, the men in the

carpet-rooms, and the women in the central restaurant--or what's left

of it. I shall speak to them. Have notices put in the common-rooms.'

'Yes, sir.'

'And send me all the buyers from the drapery department. They must go

round and buy every silvered fox-stole in London to-night, at no matter

what price.'

'Certainly, sir.'

'And telephone to Y.Z. that I shall be down there as soon as I can about

these things.'

He touched the pile of yellow envelopes. Y.Z. was the name always given

to the detectives' private room.

'Precisely, sir.'

'That's all.'

Simon Shawn gathered that his master had a very definite clue to the

origin of the unique and fatal events of that day, and that all dark

places were about to be made light with a blinding light.

CHAPTER XV

RAVENGAR IN CAPTIVITY

'Ravengar, what a fool you are!'

The dome was in darkness. Hugo, who stood concealed near the switch,

turned on all the lights as soon as he had uttered this singular

greeting, and stepped forward. He had decided to kill Ravengar. The

desire to murder was in his heart, and in order to give all his

instincts full play he had chosen a theatrical method of welcoming his

victim into the fastness from which he was never to escape.

'D--n!' exclaimed Ravengar, evidently astounded to the uttermost to find

himself in Hugo's dome, and in the presence of Hugo.

He sprang back to the door of the dressing-room by which he had so

unsuspectingly entered.

'What a fool you are to fall into a trap so simple! No; don't try to get

away. You can't. That door is locked now. And, moreover, I have a

revolver here, and also a pair of handcuffs, which I shall use if I have

any trouble with you.'

Ravengar gazed at his captor, irresolute. His clean-shaven upper lip

seemed longer than ever, and his short gray beard and gray locks gave

him an appearance of sanctimony which not even his sinister eyes could

destroy. Then he sat down on a chair.

'I should like to know--' he began, trying to speak steadily.

'You would like to know,' Hugo took him up, 'why I am here alive,

instead of being in that vault, suffocated. It was a pretty dodge of

yours to get me down there. You counted on my curiosity about the Tudor

mystery. You felt sure I should yield to the temptation. And I did

yield. You were right. I was prepared to commit a breach of faith in

order to satisfy that curiosity. No sooner was the door closed on me by

that scoundrel Brown, and I found the vault not Polycarp's vault at all,

than I knew to a certainty that you were at the bottom of the affair. So

easy to make out afterwards that it was an accident! So easy to spirit

Brown away! So easy to explain everything! Why, Ravengar, you intended

to murder me! I saw the whole scheme in a flash. You have corrupted many

of my servants to-day. But you didn't corrupt all of them. And because

you didn't, because you couldn't, I am alive. You would like to know how

I got out. But you will never know, Ravengar. You will die without

knowing.'

Ravengar put his hands in his pockets.

'I can only assume that you are going mad, Owen,' said he. 'I have long

guessed that you were. Nothing else will explain this extraordinary

action of yours towards me.'

'You act well,' replied Hugo, sitting down and eyeing Ravengar

critically. 'You act well. But you gave the whole show away by the tone

in which you swore two minutes ago. If there is anyone mad in this room,

it is yourself. Your schemes show that queer mixture of amazing

ingenuity and amazing folly which is characteristic of madmen. Let us

hope you are mad, at any rate.'

'My schemes!' sneered Ravengar. 'You might at least tell the madman what

his schemes are.'

Hugo laughed.

'You must have been maturing the day's business quite a long time, my

boyhood's companion, my floater of public companies, my pearl of

financiers. Yes, decidedly parts of it were wonderfully ingenious. To

sow the place with pickpockets, to get at my cashiers, my

commissionaires, and my servers. To substitute your own false

shopwalkers for the genuine article. To arrange for the arrest of

important customers on preposterous charges of theft. To lock up a

hundred women in a gallery till they nearly died. To have my best and

most advertised bargains removed in the night. To deprive the

restaurants of food, and to employ women to turn them upside down. To

produce, as you contrived to do, a general air of pandemonium, and to

ruin the discipline of over three thousand of the best-trained employés

in England. All this, and much else which I do not mention, was devilish

clever in its conception, and the execution of it commands my

unqualified admiration. Especially having regard to the fact that you

contrived not to arouse my suspicions. I may tell you that certain

strange incidents which occurred in my establishment during the autumn

did indeed lead me vaguely to suspect that you were at work against me,

but you were sufficiently smart to put me off the track again. Let me

add that until this afternoon I did not perceive that your purchase of a

controlling share in the _Evening Herald_ was only a portion of a

mightier plan.'

'Really, Owen--'

'Don't waste your breath in denials. You will have none at all

presently, like Bentley.'

'Bentley?' repeated Ravengar, with a slight movement.

'Yes; but we will come to Bentley in a few minutes. I have enlarged to

you on your own cleverness. I must enlarge to you on your folly. What

folly! What was the end of all this to be, Ravengar? I have tried to put

myself in your place, and to follow your thoughts. You hate me. You

think I robbed you of a fortune, and that I helped to rob you of a

woman. You wished to buy my business, and add it to the roll of your

companies. And I deprived you of that triumph. Your hatred of me grew

and grew. Leading a solitary and narrow life, you allowed it to develop

into a species of monomania. I had come out on top once too often for

your peace of mind. In your opinion the world was too small to hold both

of us. Accordingly, you evolved your terrific campaign. My business was

to be seriously damaged. And I was to be murdered. And then you were to

get the concern cheap from my executors, and to float me dead since you

could not float me living. What folly, Ravengar! What stupendous folly!

Even if the fanciful and grotesque scheme had succeeded as far as my

death, it could not have succeeded beyond that point.'

'I don't know what you are chattering about, Owen, but you look as if

you expected me to ask, "Why?" Anything to oblige you. Why?'

'You would have known the reason had you lived long enough to read the

provisions of my will,' said Hugo.

'I see,' said Ravengar.

'You do,' said Hugo. 'You see, you hear, you breathe, but Bentley

doesn't. Bentley has killed himself.' (Ravengar started.) 'So that if

you have not my blood on your conscience, you have his. You tempted him;

he fell ... and he has repented. Admit that you tempted him!'

Ravengar smiled superiorly. And then Hugo sprang forward in a sudden

overmastering passion.

'Hate breeds hate,' he cried, 'and I have learnt from you how to hate.

Admit that you have tried to ruin and to murder me, or, by G--! I will

kill you sooner than I intended.'

He had no weapon in his hands; the revolver was in a drawer; but

nevertheless Ravengar shrank from those menacing hands.

'Look here, Hugo--'

'Will you admit it? Or shall I have to--'

Their wills met in a supreme conflict.

'Oh, very well, then,' muttered Ravengar.

The conflict was over.

Hugo returned to his chair.

'Miserable cur!' he exclaimed. 'You were afraid of me. I knew I could

frighten you. I would have liked to be able to admire something more

than your ingenuity. Ravengar, I do believe I could have forgiven your

attempt to murder me if it had not included an attempt to dishonour me

at the same time. There is something simple and grand about a

straightforward murder--I shall prove to you soon that I do not always

regard murder as a crime--but to murder a man amid circumstances of

shame, to finish him off while making him look a fool--that is the act

of a--of a Ravengar.'

Ravengar yawned and glanced at his watch.

'It's nearly my dinner-time,' said he.

Again Hugo sprang forward, and, snatching at the watch, tore it and the

chain from Ravengar's waistcoat, dashed them to the floor, and stamped

on them. He was amazed, and he was also delighted, at his own fury. The

lust of destruction had got hold of him.

'Ass!' he murmured, suddenly lowering his voice. 'Can't you guess what I

mean to do?'

'I cannot,' Ravengar stammered.

'I mean to put you to the same test to which you put me. You arranged

that I should spend twenty-two hours in a vault without ventilation. At

the end of five hours I was by no means dead. I might have survived the

twenty-two. But, frankly, I don't fancy I should. And I don't fancy you

will. In fact, I'm convinced that you won't.'

'Indeed!' said Ravengar uncertainly.

'You think this scene is not real,' Hugo continued. 'You think it can't

be real. You refuse to credit the fact that this time to-morrow you will

be dead. You refuse to admit to yourself that I am in earnest--deadly,

fatal earnest.'

'Upon my soul!' Ravengar burst out, standing, 'I believe you are.'

'Good,' said Hugo. 'You are waking up, positively. You are getting

accustomed to the unpleasant prospect of not dying in your bed

surrounded by inconsolable dependants.'

'Hugo,' Ravengar began persuasively, 'you must be aware that all these

suspicions of yours are a figment of your excited brain. You must be

aware that I never meant to murder you.'

'My dear fellow,' Hugo replied with calm bitterness, '_I_ don't intend

to murder _you_. I intend merely to put you in that vault. Your death

will be an accidental consequence, as mine would have been. And why

should you not die? Can you give me a single good reason why you should

continue to live? What good are you doing on the earth? Are you making

anyone happy? Are you making yourself happy? That spark of vitality

which constitutes your soul has chanced on an unfortunate incarnation.

Suppose that I release it, and give it a fresh opportunity, shall I not

be acting worthily? For you must agree that murder in the strict sense

is an impossible thing. The immortal cannot die. Vital energy cannot be

destroyed. All that the murderer does is to end one incarnation and

begin another.'

'So that is your theory!'

'Was it not yours, when you got me deposited in the vault?' Hugo

demanded with ferocious irony. 'I am bound to believe that it was. The

common outcry against murder (as it is called) can have no weight with

enlightened persons like you and me, Ravengar.'

'Perhaps not,' said Ravengar, summoning his powers of self-control. 'But

the common outcry against murder is apt to be very inconvenient for the

person who chooses, as you put it, to end one incarnation and begin

another. Has it not struck you, Owen, that inquiries would be made for

me, that my death would be certain to be discovered, and that ultimately

you would suffer the penalty?'

'My arrangements for the future are far more complete than yours could

have been in regard to me,' Hugo answered smoothly. 'You betrayed some

clumsiness. I shall profit by your mistakes. No one will see you go into

the Safe Deposit except myself and a man whom I can trust. No one at all

except myself will see you go into the vault. I can manage the operation

alone. A little chloroform will quieten you for a time. The vault once

closed will not be opened during my lifetime, unless at four o'clock

to-morrow night I hear you knocking on the door. Of course, inquiries

will be made, but they will be futile. People often simply disappear.

You will simply disappear.'

The clock struck six.

'And your conscience?' Ravengar muttered.

'It's soon well under control. Besides, I shall be doing the human race,

and especially the investing part of the human race, a very good turn.'

Then Ravengar approached Hugo, and, Hugo rising to meet him, their faces

almost touched in the middle of the great room.

'You called me a cur,' he said. 'Yet perhaps I am not such a cur after

all. You have beaten me. You mean to finish me; I can see it in your

face. Well, you will regret it more than I shall. Do you know I have

often wished to die? You are right in saying that there is no reason why

I should live. I am only a curse to the world. But you are wrong to

scorn me when you kill me. You ought to pity me. Did I choose my

temperament, my individuality? As I am, so I was born, and from his

character no man can escape.'

And he sat down, and Hugo sat down.

'When is it to be?' Ravengar questioned.

'In a few minutes,' said Hugo impassively, feeding his mortal

resentment on the memory of those hours when he himself had waited for

death in the vault.

'Then I shall have time to ask you how you came to know that Camilla

Payne, or rather Camilla Tudor, is alive.'

'She is not alive,' Hugo explained. 'The suggestion contained in my

decoy letter was a pure invention in order to entice you. As you tempted

me into the vault, so I tempted you here on your way to the vault.'

'But she is alive all the same!' Ravengar persisted. 'It is the fact

that she is not dead that makes me less unwilling to die, for a word

from her might send me to a death more shameful than the one you have so

kindly arranged for me.'

Hugo in that instant admired Ravengar, and he replied quite gently:

'You are mistaken. Where can you have got the idea that she is not dead?

She is dead. I myself--I myself screwed her up in her coffin.'

The words sounded horrible.

'Then you were in the plot!' Ravengar cried.

'What plot?'

'The plot to persuade me falsely that she is dead. Bah! I know more

than you think. I know, for example, that her body is not in the coffin

in Brompton Cemetery. And I am almost sure that I know where she is

hiding. I should have known beyond doubt before to-morrow morning.

However, what does it matter now?'

'Not in the coffin?' Hugo whispered, as if to himself. His whole frame

trembled, shook, and his heart, leaping, defied his intellect.

CHAPTER XVI

BURGLARS

When at eleven o'clock that same winter night Hugo stood hesitating,

with certain tools and a hooded electric lamp in his hand, on the

balcony in front of the drawing-room window of Francis Tudor's sealed

flat, he thought what a strange, illogical, and capricious thing is the

human heart.

He knew that Camilla was dead. He had had the very best and most

convincing evidence of the fact. He knew that Ravengar's suspicions were

without foundation, utterly wrong-headed; and yet those statements of

his enemy had unsettled him. They had not unsettled the belief of his

intelligence, but they had unsettled his soul's peace. And that

curiosity to learn the whole truth about the history of the relations

between Francis Tudor and Camilla, that curiosity which had slumbered

for months, and which had been so suddenly awakened by Ravengar's lure

of the morning, was now urged into a violent activity.

Nor was this all. Camilla was surely dead. But supposing that by some

incredible chance she was not dead (lo! the human heart), could he kill

Ravengar? This question had presented itself to him as he sat in the

dome listening to Ravengar's asseverations that Camilla lived. And the

mere ridiculous, groundless suspicion that she lived, the mere fanciful

dream that she lived, had quite changed and softened Hugo's mood. He had

struggled hard to keep his resolution to kill Ravengar, but it had

melted away; he had fanned the fire of his mortal hatred, but it had

cooled, and at length he had admitted to himself, angrily, reluctantly,

that Ravengar had escaped the ordeal of the vault. And this being

decided, what could he do with Ravengar? Retain him under lock and key?

Why? To what end? Such illegal captivities were not practicable for long

in London. Besides, they were absurd, melodramatic, and futile. As the

moments passed and the fumes of a murderous intoxication gradually

cleared away, Hugo had regained his natural, sagacious perspective, and

he had perceived that there was only one thing to do with Ravengar.

He let Ravengar go. He showed him politely out.

It was an anti-climax, but the incalculable and peremptory processes of

the heart often result in an anti-climax.

The night was cold and damp, as the morning had been, and Hugo shivered,

but not with cold. He shivered in the mere exciting eagerness of

anticipation. He had chosen the drawing-room window because the panes

were very large. He found it perfectly simple, by means of the treacled

cardboard which he carried, to force in the pane noiselessly. He pushed

aside the blind, and crept within the room. So simple was it to violate

the will of a dead man, and the solemnly affixed seals of his executor!

He had arranged that the pane should be replaced before dawn, and the

new putty darkened to match the rest. Thus, no trace would remain of the

burglarious entry. No seal on door or window would have been broken.

He stood upright in the drawing-room, restored the blind and the heavy

curtains to their positions, and then ventured to press the button of

his lamp. He saw once more the vast outlines of the room which he had

last seen under such circumstances of woe. The great pieces of furniture

were enveloped in holland covers, and resembled formless ghosts in the

pale illumination of the lamp. He shivered again. He was afraid now,

with the fear of the unknown, the forbidden, and the withheld. Why was

he there? What could he hope to discover?

In answer to these questions, he replied:

'Why did Francis Tudor order that the flat should be closed? He must

have had some reason. I will find it out. It is essential to my peace of

mind to know. I meant to commit murder to-day; I have only committed

burglary. I ought to congratulate myself and sing for joy, instead of

feeling afraid.'

So he reassured his spirit as he stepped carefully into the midst of the

holland-covered and moveless ghosts. On the mantelpiece to the left

there still stood the electric table-light, and by its side still lay

the screwdriver.... He determined to pass straight through the

drawing-room. At the further edge of the carpet, on the parquet flooring

between the carpet and the portière leading to the inner hall, he

noticed under the ray of his lamp footprints in the dust--footprints of

a man, and smaller footprints, either of a woman or a child. He remained

motionless, staring at them. Then it occurred to him that during the

days between the death of its tenant and the sealing-up the flat would

probably not have been cleaned, and that these footprints must have been

made months ago by the last persons to leave the flat. Little dust would

fall after the closing of the flat. He was glad that he had thought of

that explanation. It was a convincing explanation.

Nevertheless he dared not proceed. For on the other mantelpiece to the

right there was a clock, and while staring in the ghostly silence at the

footprints, he had fancied that his ear caught the ticking of the clock.

Imagination, doubtless! But he dared not proceed until he had satisfied

himself that his ears had deluded him; and, equally, he dared not

approach the clock to satisfy himself. He could only gaze at the

reflection of the clock in the opposite mirror. In the opposite mirror

the hands indicated half a minute past nine; hence the clock was really

at half a minute to three, and if it was actually going, it might be

expected to strike immediately. He waited. He heard a preliminary

grinding noise familiar to students of symptoms in clocks, and in the

fraction of a second he was bathed from head to foot in a cold

perspiration.

The clock struck three.

The next instant he walked boldly up to the clock and bent his ear to

it. No, he could hear nothing. It had stopped. He glared steadily at the

hands for two minutes by his own watch; they did not move.

In the back of his head, in the small of his back, in his legs, little

tracts of his epidermis tickled momentarily. He wiped his face, and

walked boldly away from the clock to the portière, which he lifted with

one arm. Then he threw the light of his lamp direct on the dial, and

glared at it again, fearful lest it should have taken advantage of his

departure to resume its measuring of eternity.

Could a clock go for four months? A clock could be made that would go

for four months. But this was not a freak-clock. It was a large Louis

Seize pendule, and he knew it to be genuine of his own knowledge; he had

bought it.

He dropped the portière between himself and the clock, and stood in the

inner hall. He had had as much of the drawing-room as was good for his

nerves.

The inner hall was oblong in shape, and measured about twelve feet at

its greatest width. In front of him, as he stood with his back to the

drawing-room, was a closed door, which he knew led into the principal

bedroom of the flat. To his right another heavy portière divided the

inner from the outer hall. This portière hung in straight perpendicular

folds. He wondered why the portières had not been taken down and folded

away.

He decided to penetrate first into the bedroom, partly because he deemed

the bedroom might contain the solution of the enigma, and partly because

his eye had fancied it saw a slight tremor in the portière leading to

the outer hall. So he stepped stoutly across the space which separated

him from the bedroom door. But he had not reached the door before there

was a loud, sharp explosion, and a panel of the door splintered and

showed a hole, and he thought he heard a faint cry.

A revolver shot!

He did not believe in anything so far-fetched as man-traps and

spring-guns. Hence there must be some person or persons in the flat.

Some unseen intelligence was following him. Some mysterious will had

ordained that he should not enter that bedroom. The shot was a warning.

He guessed from the flight of the splinters and the appearance of the

hole that the mysterious will must be on the other side of the portière,

but the portière gave no sign.

What was he to do? He had brought with him no weapon. He had not

anticipated that revolvers would be needed in the exploration of an

empty and forbidden flat. The very definite terrors of the inner hall

seemed to him to surpass the vaguer terrors of the drawing-room, and he

decided to return thither in order to consider quietly what his tactics

should be; if necessary, he could return to the dome for arms and

assistance. But no sooner did he move a foot towards the drawing-room

than another shot sounded. The drawing-room portière trembled, and

something crashed within the apartment. The mysterious will had ardently

decided that he should go neither back nor forward.

'Who's there? Who's that shooting?' he muttered thickly, and

extinguished his lamp.

He had meant to cry out loud, but, to his intense surprise, his throat

was dried up.

There was no answer, no stir, no noise. The silence that exists between

the stars seemed to close in upon him. Then he really knew what fear

was. He admitted to himself that he was unmistakably and horribly

afraid. He admitted that life was inconceivably precious, and the

instinct to preserve it the greatest of all instincts. And gradually he

came to see that the safest course was the most desperate course, and

gradually his courage triumphed over his fear.

He dropped gently to his hands and knees, and began, with a thousand

precautions, to crawl like a serpent towards the outer hall. The

darkened lamp he held between his teeth. If the mysterious will fired

again, the mysterious will would almost to a certainty fire harmlessly

over his head. At last his hands touched the portière. He hesitated,

listened, and put one hand under the portière. Then, relighting the

lamp, he sprang up with a yell on the other side of the portière, and

clutched for the unseen intelligence.

But there was nothing. He stood alone in the outer hall. To his right

lay the side-passage between the drawing-room and the _cabinet de

toilette_, which Camilla had used on the night of her engagement. In

front of him was a door, slightly ajar, which led to the servants'

quarters. He gazed around, breathing heavily.

CHAPTER XVII

POLYCARP AND HAWKE'S MAN

Then it was that he heard a noise, something between scratching and

fumbling, on the further side of the front-door, in the main corridor of

the flats. He could see through the ground glass over the door that the

corridor was lighted as usual.

He thought: 'Someone is breaking the seal on that door!' And his next

idea was: 'Since the seal is being broken in the full light of the

public corridor, it is being broken by someone who has the right to

break it. Only one man has the right, and that man is Francis Tudor's

executor, Senior Polycarp.'

The noise of scratching and fumbling ceased, and a key was placed in the

lock.

Hugo hastily extinguished his lamp, and hid behind the portière.

Immediately the lamp was extinguished he observed, what he had not

observed before, that a faint light came through the aperture of the

door leading to the servants' quarters.

The front-door opened, and he heard footsteps in the hall. Then ensued a

pause. Then the footsteps advanced, and the newcomer evidently went into

the room where the faint light was.

'Come out of that!'

Yes; it was Polycarp's quiet, mincing, imperious voice.

'Come out of it yourself!'

The answering tones were gruff, heavy, full, the speech of a strong

coarse-fibred man.

Hugo peeped cautiously through the portière. Polycarp was backing slowly

out of the room into the hall, followed by a tall, dark, scowling man,

who bore an ordinary kitchen candle. Polycarp halted in the middle of

the floor. The man also halted; he seemed to be towering over Polycarp

in an attitude of menace.

'Let me pass,' said the man. 'I've had enough of this.'

Polycarp smiled scornfully.

'You're caught,' said he. 'You're one of Hawke's men, aren't you?'

'Go to h---!' was the man's ferocious reply.

'Answer my question, sir.'

'What if I am?' the man grumbled.

'In five minutes you'll be in the hands of the police. I got wind

yesterday of what your rascally agency was up to. You needn't deny

anything. You're working on behalf of Mr. Ravengar. You know me! Mr.

Ravengar happens to be a client of mine, but after to-night he will be

so no longer. What he wants done in this flat I cannot guess, but it's

an absolute certainty that you're in for three years' penal, my friend.'

'Let me pass,' the man repeated, lifting his jaw, 'or I'll blow your

brains out!'

He produced his revolver.

'Oh no, you won't,' said Polycarp coldly. 'You daren't. You aren't on

the stage, and you aren't in Texas. And you aren't a bold Bret Harte

villain. You're simply the creature of a private inquiry agency, as it's

called, the most miserable of trades! Usually you spend your time in

manufacturing divorces, but just now you're doing something more

dangerous even than that, something that needed more pluck than you've

got. I should advise you to come with me quietly.'

Polycarp was in evening dress, and carried a pair of white gloves. Hugo

decidedly admired the old dandy as he stood there gazing up so

condescendingly at the man with the candle.

'Look here!' said the man with the candle. 'Let me pass. I don't want

any fuss. I want to go. There's more in this flat than I bargained for.

Let me pass.'

'Give me that revolver,' Polycarp smoothly demanded.

'Curse it!' cried the man. 'I'll give it you! Hands up, you old fool! Do

you think I'm here for fun?'

And he raised the revolver.

'I shall not put my hands up.'

'I'll count five,' said the man grimly, 'and if you don't--'

'Count.'

'One!... two!... three! Can't you see I mean it?'

Hugo perceived plainly the murderous, wild look on the man's face. He

knew what it was to feel murderous. He knew that in a fit of homicide

all considerations of prudence, all care for the future, vanish away,

that the mind is utterly monopolized by the obsession of the one single

desire.

Polycarp disdainfully sneered:

'Four!'

Hugo could withstand the strain no more. He bounded out from his

concealment, and snatched the revolver from the man's hand.

'I forgot you,' growled the man, glancing at him, disgusted.

And so saying he dashed the candle in Polycarp's face and knocked him

violently against Hugo. Both Hugo and Polycarp fell to the ground. The

man made a leap for the door, and in a second had fled, banging it after

him. Hugo and Polycarp rose with stiff movements. Hugo picked up his

lamp, and the two confronted each other. It was a highly delicate

situation.

'Your life is, at any rate, saved,' said Hugo at length.

'You think it was in danger?'

Polycarp's lip curled.

'I think so.'

'Possibly you foresaw the danger I ran,' Polycarp remarked with frigid

irony, 'and came into the flat with the intention of protecting me. May

I ask _how_ you came in?'

'I came in through the drawing-room window,' said Hugo. 'I did not

interfere with your seals, however,' he added.

'You know you are guilty of a criminal offence?'

'I know it.'

'And that I, as executor of the late Francis Tudor, have a duty which I

must perform, no matter how unpleasant both for you and for me?'

'Just so.'

'What are you doing here? Do you think your conduct is worthy of a

gentleman?'

Hugo put the candle down on a table, and dug his hands into his pockets.

'At this moment,' said he, 'I am not a gentleman. I am just a man.

Nothing else. I will appeal to you as another man. I need hardly say

that I have no connection with the opposition firm; I was entirely

ignorant of the presence of Hawke's mission here when I broke into the

flat. I had no notion that Ravengar was pursuing investigations similar

to mine. Mr. Polycarp, Ravengar is, or was, a client of yours--'

'Was.'

'Yes, I heard what you said a few moments ago. Was a client of yours. I

am sure, therefore, that no one knows better than you that Ravengar is

not an honest man. On the other hand, I am equally sure that on the few

occasions when you and I have met I must have impressed you as a

comparatively honest man. Is it not so? I speak without false modesty.

Is it not so?'

Polycarp nodded.

'Well, then,' proceeded Hugo, walking slowly about, 'you will probably

need no convincing that in any difficulty between me and Ravengar I am

in the right. Now, there have been, and are, matters between Ravengar

and me in which others had best not interfere, even indirectly. I shall

end those matters in my own way, because I am the strongest, and because

my hands are clean. I can give you no details. But let me tell you that

once the whole of my life's dream was in this flat, this flat which you

have legally closed, and I have illegally opened. Let me tell you that

my life, the only part of my life for which I cared, came to an end in

this flat some months ago: and that a mystery hangs over that event

which has lately made intolerable even the dead-alive existence which

Fate had left to me. Let me tell you that circumstances have arisen this

very day which rendered it impossible for me to keep myself out of this

flat, be the penalty what it might. And, finally, let me make my appeal

to you.'

'What do you want?' asked Polycarp quietly. The sincerity of Hugo's

emotion had touched him. 'Don't ask me to act contrary to my duty.'

'But that is just what I shall ask!' Hugo exclaimed. 'Leave me. Leave me

till to-morrow: that is my sole wish. What is your duty, after all?

Tudor is dead. He is beyond the reach of harm. He requires the

protection of no lawyer. Trust me, and leave me. I am an honest man.

Forget your law, forget your parchments, forget the conventions of

society, forget everything except that you are human, and can do a

service to a fellow-creature. Exercise some imagination, and see how

artificial and absurd is the world of ideas in which you live. Listen to

your heart, and help me. I am worth it. Can't you see how I suffer?

To-day I have been through as much as I can stand. I am at the end of my

forces, and I must have sympathy. You will be guilty of deliberate

neglect of duty in leaving me here, but I implore you to leave me. And I

give no specific reason why you should. Will you?'

There was a silence.

'Yes,' said Polycarp.

'I thank you.'

'I don't know why I should consent,' Polycarp continued, 'but I do. I

am quite in the dark. Legally, I am a disgrace to my profession. I

forfeit my professional honour. But I will consent. Do what you like. Go

out as you came in and leave no trace. If, however--'

'Don't trouble to say that,' Hugo interrupted him. 'I shall take no

unfair advantage of your generosity. The flat and all its contents are

absolutely safe in my hands. And if you should decide, in the future,

that I must accept the consequences of to-night's work, I shall not

shuffle. All I want is to be left alone _now_.'

Polycarp opened the door.

'Good-night,' he said. 'Perhaps you did save my life. But if you had

appealed on that account to my gratitude I should have been obliged to

refuse your request.'

'I know it,' said Hugo. 'I knew whom I was talking to. Good-night, and

thanks.'

'I shall lock this door,' Polycarp called out, departing.

'Yes, do; and, I say, you'll lay hands on that man of Hawke's easily

enough in a day or two.'

'Oh, certainly,' said Polycarp. 'I have not forgotten him. But I was

compelled to deal with you first.'

Twisting his white moustache, and buttoning his overcoat across the vast

acreage of his shirt-front, Polycarp disappeared from Hugo's view into

the corridor.

CHAPTER XVIII

HUSBAND AND WIFE

Hugo bolted the front-door on the inside, relighted the candle which

Hawke's man had used as a weapon, and placed it in the middle of the

hall floor. He then penetrated into the servants' part of the flat, and

emerged on to the balcony by the small side-door, which was open, and

had evidently been forced by Hawke's man. And there, on the balcony, he

leaned over the balustrade in the cold humid night, and tried to recover

his calmness. He felt that any systematic, scientific search of the

premises would be impossible to him until his mind resembled somewhat

less a sea across which a hurricane has just passed.

Many questions stood ready to puzzle his brain, but he ignored them all,

and fell into a vague reverie, of which Camilla was the centre. And from

this reverie he was suddenly startled by the clear, unmistakable sound

of a door being shut within the flat. It was not the shutting of a door

by the wind, but the careful, precise shutting of a door by some person

who had a habit of shutting doors as doors ought to be shut.

'Polycarp has returned!' was his first thought. But he remembered. 'No!

I bolted the front-door on the inside.'

The conundrum of the clock and of the two sizes of footprints in the

drawing-room recurred to him. Without allowing himself to hesitate, he

strode back again into the flat, with a sort of unbreathed sigh, an

unuttered complaint against circumstances for not giving him an

instant's peace.

The candle was still placidly burning in the hall, but its position had

certainly been shifted by at least three feet. It was much nearer the

portière leading to the inner hall. Hugo listened intently. Not a sound!

And he stared interrogatively at the candle as though the candle were a

guilty thing.

However, he now possessed the revolver of Hawke's man, and this gave him

confidence. He left the perambulating candle to itself, and proceeded to

the inner hall by the light of his own electric lamp. The door of the

principal bedroom, which he had originally meant to invade, lay to his

right; the entrance to the drawing-room lay to his left. He thought he

would take another look at the drawing-room, and then he thought:

'No; I'll tackle the bedroom.'

And he seized the handle of the bedroom door. At the first trial it

would not turn, but in a moment it turned a little, and then turned back

against his pressure.

'Someone's got hold of it inside!' he said to himself.

He put the lamp on a chair, and took the revolver from his pocket in

readiness for any complications that might follow his forcing of the

door.

Then he heard a woman's voice within the bedroom.

'I shall open it, Alb, if you kill me for it. I don't care who it is.

You may be dying of loss of blood. In fact, I'm sure you are.'

And the door was pulled wide open with a single sweeping movement, and

Hugo beheld the figure, slightly dishevelled and more than slightly

perturbed, of Mrs. Albert Shawn.

'Oh, Alb!' cried Lily. 'It's Mr. Hugo! Oh, Mr. Hugo! whatever next will

happen in this world?'

The swift loosing of the tension of Hugo's nerves was too much for his

self-possession. He burst into a peal of loud laughter. It was

unnaturally loud, it was hysterical; but it was genuine laughter, and it

did him good.

Lily straightened herself. So far, she had not admitted Hugo into the

chamber.

'It's all very well for you to laugh like that, Mr. Hugo,' she protested

sharply; 'but perhaps you don't know that you've nearly killed my

husband with that there revolver. The shot came through the door, and

took him in the arm just as he was emptying this safe.'

Hugo saw Albert Shawn lying on the stripped bed, a handkerchief tied

round his arm, and in the corner near the door a large safe opened, and

its contents in a heap on the floor.

'It's all right, sir,' said Albert; 'come in. I'm nowhere near croaking.

I didn't know you were on this lay as well as me, sir. I thought I was

going to come down on you to-morrow with a surprise like a thousand of

bricks.'

'What lay, Albert?' asked Hugo, advancing into the room.

'The secret-finding lay, sir,' said Albert.

'Your wife has the right to be anxious about you,' Hugo observed, after

a pause. 'But you don't seem to be quite dying, Shawn; and I think it

will be as well if you explain to me why you have adopted the profession

of burglar. It is extremely singular that there should have been three

burglars here to-night. You, and then me--'

'What did I tell you, Alb?' Mrs. Albert Shawn exclaimed. 'Didn't I tell

you I heard a scuffle?'

'The scuffle was between me and No. 3. And be it known to you, Mrs.

Shawn, that the revolver was not fired by me, but by No. 3. I took it

off him, afterwards.'

'Then No. 3 must have come on behalf of Mr. Ravengar, sir,' said Albert.

'You are no doubt right,' Hugo agreed. 'But how did you know that?'

'Hawke's Detective Agency, sir. I found out before my wedding that one

of their men had been hanging about here, so I chummed up to him. I spun

him a yarn how I'd been with Hawke's once, and they gave me the bag, and

I wasn't satisfied, and he'd got a lot of grievances against Hawke's,

too, he had. We got very friendly. Pity I had to leave the thing for my

wedding. But I came back after a week.'

'Yes, that he did, sir,' said Lily proudly, 'and insisted on it.'

'I soon knew they were going to burglarize this flat to get some

phonograph records.'

'Phonograph records!' Hugo repeated, pondering.

'Yes, sir; and so I thought I'd be beforehand with 'em.'

'Why didn't you tell me directly you knew?'

'You gave me that Gaboriau book to read, sir, and I learnt a lot from

it. It's put me up to a power of things. And, amongst others, that two

people can't manage one job. One job, one man.'

'You'll excuse Albert, sir,' said Lily; 'that's only his way of

talking.'

'It was simply this, sir. I found out enough to make me as sure as eggs

is eggs that you'd like to have those phonograph records yourself,

without having to inquire too much where they came from or how they

came.'

'I see.'

'Exactly, sir. Well, to cut a long story short, sir, I happened to come

across something yesterday that made me think that the annual sale was

going to be interfered with by parties unknown. But I'd got all I could

manage, and I left that alone; I'd no time for it. And last night

parties unknown tried to break my leg for me with an open cellar-flap. I

knew it was a plant, and so I pretended it had succeeded.'

'He made me think his ankle was that sprained he couldn't walk. He

wouldn't trust even me, sir,' said Lily.

'Gaboriau,' Albert explained briefly. 'I knew I was watched, and I told

Lily to tell the milkman I couldn't walk. It was all over Radipole Road

at eight o'clock this morning. And so, while parties unknown thought I

was fast on a sofa, I slipped out by the back-door as soon as I'd sent

Lily here to warn you about the annual sale, in case of necessity. I

must say I thought I should be twenty-four hours in front of Hawke's

men, but I expect they changed their plans. I brought Lily along with me

at the last moment. She's read Gaboriau, too, sir, and she's mighty

handy.'

'I am aware of it,' said Hugo.

'Anyhow, we got in here first, by the side-door on the balcony. Hawke's

man must have come in about an hour after us, and you just after him.

That's how I reckon it.'

'You went into the drawing-room, didn't you?' Hugo asked.

'Just looked in.'

'And played with the clock?'

Here he glanced sternly at Lily.

'I shook it to start it, sir, to see if it would go,' Lily admitted.

'I reckon you turned out Hawke's man, sir?' Albert queried.

'It amounted to that,' said Hugo. 'But these phonograph records--what

are they?'

'I don't know what they are,' said Albert, descending from the bed, 'but

I know that Mr. Ravengar wanted them very badly. It seems Mr. Tudor was

a great hand at phonographs and gramophones. Like me, sir.'

'Yes, sir; we've got a beauty. My uncle gave it us,' Lily put in. 'Oh,

Alb! your arm's all burst out again.'

The bandage was, in fact, slightly discoloured.

'Oh, that's nothing, my dear,' said Albert.

He pushed up a pile of discs from in front of the safe, and displayed

them to Hugo.

'Can we try them here?' Hugo demanded, in a voice suddenly and

profoundly eager.

'Certainly, sir. Here's the machine. You undo this catch, and then

you--'

Albert was mounted on his latest hobby, and in a few minutes, although

he could only use one arm, the phonograph, which stood on the table near

the safe, was ready for its work of reproduction. Albert started it.

'Follow me, follow me!'

It began to sing the famous ditty in the famous voice of Miss Edna May.

'Stop that!' cried Hugo, and Albert stopped it.

The next two discs proved to be respectively a series of stories of Mr.

R.G. Knowles and 'The Lost Chord,' played on a cornet. And these also

were cut short. Then came a bundle of discs tied together. Hugo himself

fixed the top one, and the machine, after whirring inarticulately, said

in slow, clear tones:

'In case I should die before--'

Hugo arrested the action.

'Go,' he said, almost threateningly, to Albert and his wife. 'Mrs.

Shawn, look after your husband's wound. It needs it. See the blood!'

'But--'

'Go,' said Hugo.

And they went.

And when they were gone he released the mechanism, and in the still

solitude of the bedroom listened to the strange story of Francis Tudor,

related in Francis Tudor's own voice. It occurred to him that the man

must have been talking into a phonograph shortly before he died. He

remembered the monotonous voice on that fatal night in August.

CHAPTER XIX

WHAT THE PHONOGRAPH SAID

In case I should die before I can complete my arrangements for the

future (said the phonograph, reproducing the voice of Francis Tudor), I

am making a brief statement of the whole case into this phonograph. I am

exhausted with to-day's work, and I shall find it easier and much

quicker to speak than to write; and I'm informed that I ought never to

exert myself more than is necessary. Supposing I were to die within the

next few days--and I have yet to go through the business of the funeral

ceremonies!--circumstances might arise which might nullify part of my

plan, unless a clear account of the affair should ultimately come into

the hands of some person whom I could trust not to make a fool of

himself--such as Polycarp, my solicitor, for instance.

Hence I relate the facts for a private record.

When I first met Camilla Payne she was shorthand clerk or private

secretary, or whatever you call it, to Louis Ravengar. I saw her in his

office. Curiously, she didn't make a tremendous impression on me at the

moment. By the way, Polycarp, if it is indeed you who listen to this,

you must excuse my way of relating the facts. I can only tell the tale

in my own way. Besides meddling with finance, I've dabbled in pretty

nearly all the arts, including the art of fiction, and I can't leave out

the really interesting pieces of my narrative merely because you're a

lawyer and hate needless details, sentimental or otherwise. But _do_ you

hate sentimental details? I don't know. Anyhow, this isn't a counsel's

brief. What was I saying? Oh! She didn't make a tremendous impression on

me at the moment, but I thought of her afterwards. I thought of her a

good deal in a quiet way after I had left her--so much so that I made a

special journey to Ravengar's a few days afterwards, when there was no

real need for me to go, in order to have a look at her face again. I

should explain that I was dabbling in finance just then, fairly

successfully, and had transactions with Ravengar. He didn't know that I

was the son of the man who had taken his stepmother away from his

father, and I never told him I had changed my name, because the scandals

attached to it by Ravengar and his father had made things very

unpleasant for any bearer of that name. Still, Ravengar happened to be

the man I wanted to deal with, and so I didn't let any stupid resentment

on my part stop me from dealing with him. He was a scoundrel, but he

played the game, I may incidentally mention. I venture to give this

frank opinion about one of your most important clients, because he'll be

dead before you read this, Polycarp. At least, I expect so.

Well, the day I called specially with a view to seeing her she was not

there. She had left Ravengar's employment, and disappeared. Ravengar

seemed to be rather perturbed about it. But perhaps he was perturbed

about the suicide which had recently taken place in his office. I felt

it--I mean I felt her disappearance. However, the memory of her face

gave me something very charming to fall back on in moments of

depression, and it was at this time something occurred sufficient to

make me profoundly depressed for the remainder of my life. I was over in

Paris, and seeing a good deal of Darcy, my friend the English doctor

there. We were having a long yarn one night in his rooms over the Café

Américain, and he said to me suddenly: 'Look here, old chap, I'm going

to do something very unprofessional, because I fancy you'll thank me for

it.' He said it just like that, bursting out all of a sudden. So I said,

'Well?' He said: 'It's very serious, and in nine hundred and ninety-nine

cases out of a thousand I should be a blundering idiot to tell you.' I

said to him: 'You've begun. Finish. And let's see whether I'll thank

you.' He then told me that I'd got malignant disease of the heart, might

die at any moment, and in any case couldn't live more than a few years.

He said: 'I thought you'd like to know, so that you could arrange your

life accordingly.' I thanked him. I was really most awfully obliged to

him. It wanted some pluck to tell me. He said: 'I wouldn't admit to

anyone else that I'd told you.' I never admired Darcy more than I did

that night. His tone was so finely casual.

In something like a month I had got used to the idea of being condemned

to death. At any rate, it ceased to interfere with my sleep. I purchased

a vault for myself in Brompton Cemetery. Then I took this flat that I'm

talking in now, and began deliberately to think over how I should

finish my life. I'd got money--much more than old Ravengar imagined--and

I'm a bit of a philosopher, you know; I have my theories as to what

constitutes real living. However, I won't bother you with those. I

expect they're pretty crude, after all. Besides, my preparations were

all knocked on the head. I saw Camilla Payne again in Hugo's. She had

stopped typewriting, and was a milliner there. I tried my level best to

strike up an intimacy with her, but I failed. She wouldn't have it. The

fact is, I was too rich and showy. And I had a reputation behind me

which, possibly--well, you're aware of all that, Polycarp. In about a

fortnight I worshipped her--yes, I did actually worship her. I would

have done anything she ordered me, except leave her alone; and that I

wouldn't do. I dare say I might have got into a sort of friendship with

her if she'd had any home, any relatives, any place to receive me in.

But what can a girl do with nothing but a bed-sitting-room? I asked her

to go up the river; I asked her to dinner and to lunch, and to bring her

friends with her; I even asked her to go with me to an A.B.C. shop, but

she wouldn't. She was quite right, in a general way. How could she

guess I wasn't like the rest, or like what I had been?

Once, when she let me walk with her from Hugo's down to Walham Green, I

nearly went mad with joy. I think I verily was mad for a time. I used to

take out licenses for our marriage, and I used to buy clothes for

her--heaps of clothes, in case. Yes, I was as good as mad then. And when

she made it clear that this walking by my side was nothing at all, meant

nothing, and must be construed as nothing, I grew still more mad.

At last I wrote to her that if she didn't call and see me at my flat, I

should blow my brains out. I didn't expect her to call, and I did expect

that I should blow my brains out. I was ready to do so. A year more or a

year less on this earth--what did it matter to me?

Some people may think--_you_ may think, Polycarp--that a man like me,

under sentence of death from a doctor, had no right to make love to a

woman. That may be so. But in love there isn't often any question of

right. Human instincts have no regard for human justice, and when the

instinct is strong enough, the sense of justice simply ceases to exist

for it. When you're in love--enough--you don't argue. You desire--that's

all.

To my amazement, she came to the flat. When she was announced, I could

scarcely tell the servant to show her in, and when she entered, I

couldn't speak at all for a moment. She was so--however, I won't

describe her. I couldn't, for one thing. No one could describe that

woman. She didn't make any fuss. She didn't cry out that she had ruined

her reputation or anything like that. She simply said that she had

received my letter, and that she had believed the sincerity of my

threat, while regretting it, and what did I wish to say to her--she

wouldn't be able to stay long. It goes without saying I couldn't begin.

I couldn't frame a sentence. So I suggested we should have some tea.

Accordingly, we had some tea. She poured it out, and we discussed the

furniture of the drawing-room. I might have known she had fine taste in

furniture. She had. When tea was over, she seemed to be getting a little

impatient. Then I rang for the tray to be removed, and as soon as we

were alone again, I started: 'Miss Payne--'

Now, when I started like that, I hadn't the ghost of a notion what I was

going to say. And then the idea stepped into my head all of a sudden:

'Why not tell her exactly what your situation is? Why not be frank with

her, and see how it works?' It was an inspiration. Though I didn't

believe in it, and thought in a kind of despair that I was spoiling my

chances, it was emphatically an inspiration, and I was obliged to obey

it.

So I told her what Darcy had told me. I explained how it was that I

couldn't live long. I said I had nothing to hope for in this world, no

joy, nothing but blackness and horror. I said how tremendously I was in

love with her. I said I knew she wasn't in love with me, but at the same

time I thought she ought to have sufficient insight to see that I was

fundamentally a decent chap. I went so far as to say that I didn't see

how she could dislike me. And I said: 'I ask you to marry me. It will

only be for a year or two, but that year or two are all my life, while

only a fraction of yours. I am rich, and after my death you will be

rich, and free from the necessity of this daily drudgery of yours. But I

don't ask you to marry me for money; I ask you to marry me out of pity.

I ask you, out of kindness to the most unfortunate and hopeless man in

the world, to give me a trifle out of your existence. Merely out of

pity; merely because it is a woman's part in the world to render pity

and balm. I won't hide anything from you. There will be the unpleasant

business of my sudden death, which will be a shock to you, even if you

learn to hate me. But you would get over that. And you would always

afterwards have the consciousness of having changed the last months of a

man's career from hell to heaven. There's no disguising the fact that

it's a strange proposition I'm making to you, but the proposition is not

more strange than the situation. Will you consent, or won't you?' She

was going to say something, but I stopped her. I said: 'Wait a moment. I

shan't try to terrorize you by threats of suicide. And now, before you

say "Yes" or "No," I give you my solemn word not to commit suicide if

you say "No."' Then I went on in the same strain appealing to her pity,

and telling her how humble I should be as a husband.

I could see I had moved her; and now I think over the scene I fancy that

my appeal must have been a lot more touching than I imagined it was when

I was making it.

She said: 'I have always liked you a little. But I haven't loved you,

and I don't love you.' And then, after a pause--I was determined to say

nothing more--she said: 'Yes, I will marry you. I may be doing wrong--I

am certainly doing something very unusual; but I have no one to advise

me against it, and I will follow my impulse and marry you. I needn't say

that I shall do all I can to be a good wife to you. Ours will be a

curious marriage.... Perhaps, after all, I am very wicked!'

I cried out: 'No, you aren't--no you aren't! The saints aren't in it

with you!'

She smiled at this speech. She's so sensible, Camilla is. She's like a

man in some things; all really great women are.

I could tell you a lot more that passed immediately afterwards, but I

can feel already my voice is getting a bit tired. Besides, it's nothing

to you, Polycarp.

Then, afterwards, I said: 'You _will_ love me, you know.'

And I meant it. Any man in similar circumstances would have said it and

meant it. She smiled again. And then I wanted to be alone with her, to

enjoy the intimacy of her presence, without a lot of servants all over

the place; so I went out of the drawing-room and packed off the whole

tribe for the evening, all except Mrs. Dant. I kept Mrs. Dant to attend

on Camilla.

We had dinner sent up; it was like a picnic, jolly and childish.

Camilla was charming. And then I took photographs of her by flashlight,

with immense success. We developed them together in the dark-room. That

evening was the first time I had ever been really happy in all my life.

And I was really happy, although every now and then the idea would shoot

through my head: 'Only for a year or two at most; perhaps only for a day

or two!'

I returned to the dark-room alone for something or other, and when I

came back into the drawing-room she was not there. By heaven! my heart

went into my mouth. I feared she had run away, after all. However, I met

her in the passage. She looked very frightened; her face was quite

changed; but she said nothing had occurred. I kissed her; she let me.

Soon afterwards she went on to the roof. She tried to be cheerful, but I

saw she had something on her mind. She said she must go home, and begged

my permission to precede me into the flat in order to prepare for her

departure. I consented. When ten minutes had elapsed I followed, and in

the drawing-room, instead of finding Camilla, I found Louis Ravengar.

I needn't describe my surprise at all that.

Ravengar was beside himself with rage. I gathered after a time that he

claimed Camilla as his own. He said I had stolen her from him. I

couldn't tell exactly what he was driving at, but I parleyed with him a

little until I could get my revolver out of a drawer in my escritoire.

He jumped at me. I thrust him back without firing, and we stood each of

us ready for murder. I couldn't say how long that lasted. Suddenly he

glanced across the room, and his eyes faltered, and I became aware that

Camilla had entered silently. I was so startled at her appearance and by

the transformation in Ravengar that I let off the revolver

involuntarily. I heard Camilla order him, in a sharp, low voice, to

leave instantly. He defied her for a second, and then went. Before

leaving he stuttered, in a dreadful voice: 'I shall kill you'--meaning

her. 'I may as well hang for one thing as for another.'

I said to Camilla, gasping: 'What is it all? What does it mean?'

She then told me, after confessing that she had caught Ravengar hiding

in the dressing-room, and had actually suspected that I had been in

league with him against her, that long ago she had by accident seen

Ravengar commit a crime. She would not tell me what crime; she would

give me no particulars. Still, I gathered that, if not actually murder,

it was at least homicide. After that Ravengar had pestered her to marry

him--had even said that he would be content with a purely formal

marriage; had offered her enormous sums to agree to his proposal; and

had been constantly repulsed by her. She admitted to me that he had

appeared to be violently in love with her, but that his motive in

wanting marriage was to prevent her from giving evidence against him. I

asked her why she had not communicated with the police long since, and

she replied that nothing would induce her to do that.

'But,' I said, 'he will do his best to kill you.'

She said: 'I know it.'

And she said it so solemnly that I became extremely frightened. I knew

Ravengar, and I had marked the tone of his final words; and the more I

pondered the more profoundly I was imbued with this one idea: 'The life

of my future wife is not safe. Nothing can make it safe.'

I urged her to communicate with the police. She refused absolutely.

'Then one day you will be killed,' I said.

She gazed at me, and said: 'Can't you hit on some plan to keep me safe

for a year?'

I demanded: 'Why a year?'

I thought she was thinking of my short shrift.

She said: 'Because in a year Mr. Ravengar will probably have--passed

away.'

Not another word of explanation would she add.

'Yes,' I said; 'I can hit on a plan.'

And, as a matter of fact, a scheme had suddenly flashed into my head.

She asked me what the scheme was. And I murmured that it began with our

marriage on the following day. I had in my possession a license which

would enable us to go through the ceremony at once.

'Trust me,' I said. 'You have trusted me enough to agree to marry me.

Trust me in everything.'

I did not venture to tell her just then what my scheme was.

She went to her lodging that night in my brougham. After she had gone I

found poor old Mrs. Dant drugged in the kitchen. On the next morning

Camilla and I were married at a registry office. She objected to the

registry-office at first, but in the end she agreed, on the condition

that I got her a spray of orange-blossom to wear at her breast. It's no

business of yours, Polycarp, but I may tell you that this feminine

trait, this almost childish weakness, in a woman of so superb and

powerful a character, simply enchanted me. I obtained the

orange-blossom.

Then you will remember I sent for you, Polycarp, made my will, and

accompanied you to my safe in your private vault, in order to deposit

there some secret instructions. I shall not soon forget your

mystification, and how you chafed under my imperative commands.

Camilla and I departed to Paris, my brain full of my scheme, and full of

happiness, too. We went to a private hotel to which Darcy had

recommended us, suitable for honeymoons. The following morning I was,

perhaps, inclined to smile a little at our terror of Ravengar; but,

peeping out of the window early, I saw Ravengar himself standing on the

pavement in the Rue St. Augustin.

I told Camilla I was going out, and that she must not leave that room,

nor admit anyone into it, until I returned. I felt that Ravengar, what

with disappointed love, and jealousy, and fear of the consequences of a

past crime, had developed into a sort of monomaniac in respect to

Camilla. I felt he was capable of anything. I should not have been

surprised if he had hired a room opposite to us on the other side of

that narrow street, and directed a fusillade upon Camilla.

When I reached the street he had disappeared--melted away.

It was quite early. However, I walked up the Rue de Grammont, and so to

Darcy's, and I routed him out of bed. I gave him the entire history of

the case. I convinced him of its desperateness, and I unfolded to him my

scheme. At first he fought shy of it. He said it might ruin him. He said

such things could not be done in London. I had meant to carry out the

scheme in this flat. Hence the reason, Polycarp, of the clause in my

will which provides for the sealing up of the flat in case I die within

two months of my wedding. You see, I feared that I might be cut off

before the plan was carried out or before all traces of it were cleared

away, and I wanted to keep the place safe from prying eyes. As it

happened, there was no need for such a precaution, as you will see, and

I shall make a new will to-morrow.

Darcy said suddenly: 'Why not carry out your plan here in Paris; and

now?'

The superior advantages of this alternative were instantly plain. It

would be safer for Camilla, since it would operate at once; and also

Darcy said that the formal details could be arranged much better in

Paris than in London, as doctors could be found there who would sign

anything, and clever sculptors, who did not mind a peculiar commission,

were more easily obtainable in the Quartier Montparnasse than in the

neighbourhood of the Six Bells and the Arts Club, Chelsea.

We found the doctor and the sculptor.

The hotel was informed that Camilla was ill, and that the symptom

pointed to typhoid fever. Naturally, she kept her room. That day the

sculptor, a young American, who said that a thing was 'bully' when he

meant it was good, arrived, and took a mask of Camilla's head. By the

way, this was a most tedious and annoying process. The two straws

through which the poor girl had to breathe while her face was covered

with that white stuff--! Oh, well, I needn't go into that.

The next day typhoid fever was definitely announced. Hotels generally

prefer these things to be kept secret, but we published it

everywhere--it was part of our plan. In a few hours the entire Rue St.

Augustin was aware that the English bride recently arrived from London

was down with typhoid fever.

The disease ran its course. Sometimes Camilla was better, sometimes

worse. Then all of a sudden a hæmorrhage supervened, and the young wife

died, and the young husband was stricken with trouble and grief. The

whole street mourned. The death even got into the Paris dailies, and the

correspondence column of the Paris edition of the _New York Herald_ was

filled with outcries against the impurities of Parisian water.

It was colossal. I laughed, Polycarp.

My mind unhinged by sorrow, I insisted on taking the corpse to London

for burial. I had a peculiar affection for the Brompton Cemetery, though

neither her ancestors nor mine had been buried there. I insisted on

Darcy accompanying me. The procession left the Rue St. Augustin, and the

hotel was disinfected. This alone cost me a thousand francs. I gave the

sculptor one thousand five hundred, and the doctor two thousand. Then

there were the expenses of the journey with the coffin. I forget the

figure, but I know it was prodigious.

But I was content. For, of course, Camilla was not precisely in that

coffin. Camilla had not been suffering from precisely typhoid fever. In

strict fact, she had never been ill the least bit in the world. In

strict fact, she had been spirited out of the hotel one night, and at

the very moment when her remains were crossing the Channel in charge of

an inconsolable widower, she was in the middle of the Mediterranean on a

steamer. The coffin contained a really wonderful imitation of her

outward form, modelled and coloured by the American sculptor in a

composition consisting largely of wax. The widower's one grief was that

he was forced to separate himself from his life's companion for a period

of, at least, a week.

A pretty enough scheme, wasn't it, Polycarp? We shall shortly bury the

wax effigy in Brompton Cemetery, with the assistance of Hugo's

undertakers, and a parson or so, and grave-diggers, and registrars of

deaths, and so on and so on. Louis Ravengar will breathe again, thankful

that typhoid fever has relieved him of an unpleasant incubus, and since

Camilla is underground, he will speedily forget all about her. She will

be absolutely safe from him. The inconsolable widower will

ostentatiously seek distraction in foreign travel, and in a fortnight,

at most, will, under another name, resume his connubial career in a

certain villa unsurpassed, I am told, for its picturesque situation.

To-morrow or the next day I must make that new will, dispensing with the

shutting-up of the flat. The secret instructions, however, will stand.

You may wonder why I confide all this to the phonograph, Polycarp. I

will tell you. The record will be placed by me to-morrow in my safe in

your vault. To-night I shall lock it up in the safe here. When I am

dead, Polycarp, you will find that the secret instructions instruct you

to realize all my estate, and to keep the proceeds in negotiable form

until a lady named Mrs. Catherine Pounds, a widow, comes to you with an

autograph letter from me. You will hand everything to that lady, or to

her representative, without any further inquiry. But it has struck me

this very day, Polycarp, that you, with your confounded suspicious and

legal nature, when you see Mrs. Catherine Pounds, if she should come in

person, may recognise in her a striking resemblance to Camilla. And you

may put difficulties in the way, and rake up history which was not

meant to be raked up. This phonographic record is to prevent you from

doing so, if by chance you have an impulse to do so. Think it over

carefully, Polycarp. Consider our situation, and obey my instructions

without a murmur. The thought of the false death certificates and burial

certificates, and of the unprofessionalism of Darcy, will abrade your

legal susceptibilities; but submit to the torture for my sake, Polycarp.

You are human. I shall add to the letter which Mrs. Catherine Pounds

will bring you a note to say that if you have any scruples, you are to

listen to the phonographic records in the safe; if not, you are to

destroy the phonographic records.

Do I seem gay, Polycarp?

I ought to be. I have carried through my scheme. I have outwitted

Ravengar. I have saved Camilla from death at his hands. I can look

forward to an idyll--brief, perhaps, but ecstatic--in a villa with the

loveliest view on all the Mediterranean. I ought to be gay. And yet I am

not. And it is not the knowledge of my fatal disease that saddens me.

No; I think I have been saddened by a day and a night spent with that

coffin. It is a fraud of a coffin, but it exists. And when I saw it

just now occupying the drawing-room, it gave me a sudden shock. It

somehow took hold of my imagination. I was obliged to look within, and

to touch the waxen image there. And that image seemed unholy. I did not

care to dwell on the thought of it going into the ground, with all the

solemnities of the real thing. What do you suppose will happen to that

waxen image on the Judgment Day, Polycarp? Surely, someone in authority,

possibly a steward, fussy and overworked, will exclaim: 'There is some

mistake here!' I can hear you say that I am mad, Polycarp, that Francis

Tudor was always a little 'wrong.' But I am not mad. It is only that my

brain is too agile, too fanciful. I am a great deal more sane than you,

Polycarp.

And I am trying to put some heart into myself. I am trying to make ready

to enjoy the brief ecstatic future where Camilla awaits me. But I am so

tired, Polycarp. And there's no disguising the fact that it's an awful

nuisance never to be quite sure whether you won't fall down dead the

next minute or the next second. I must go in and have another glance at

that singular swindle of a coffin.

* * * * *

The phonograph went off into an inarticulate whirr of its own

machinery. The recital was over. Tudor must have died immediately after

securing the record in the safe in his bedroom, where Hugo had just

listened to it.

'She lives!' was Hugo's sole thought.

The profound and pathetic tragedy of Tudor's career did not touch him

until long afterwards.

'She lives! Ravengar lives! Ravengar probably knows where she is, and I

do not know! And Ravengar is at large! I have set him at large.'

His mind a battlefield on which the most glorious hope struggled against

a frenzied fear, Hugo rose from the chair in front of the

phonograph-stand, and, after a slight hesitation, left the flat as he

had entered it. Before dawn the pane had been replaced in the

drawing-room window, and the side-door secured.

PART III

THE TOMB