Into New Oxford Street, one of the ceaseless streams of polyglot
humanity, came Zoe from her cheerless day bound for the theatre. She
was a little whiter, a little more tired than usual. All day long she
had heard nothing of Laverick. All day long she had sat in her tiny
room with the memory of that horrible night before her. She had tried
in vain to sleep,—she had made no effort whatever to eat. She knew now
why Arthur Morrison had fled away. She knew the cause of that paroxysm
of fear in which he had sought her out. The horror of the whole thing
had crept into her blood like poison. Life was once more a dreary,
profitless struggle. All the wonderful dreams, which had made existence
seem almost like a fairy-tale for this last week, had faded away. She
was once more a mournful little waif among the pitiless crowds.
She turned to the left and past the Holborn Tube. Boys were shouting
everywhere the contents of the evening papers. Nearly every one seemed
to be carrying one of the pink sheets. She herself passed on with
unseeing eyes. News was nothing to her. Governments might rise and
fall, war might come and go,—she had still life to support, a
friendless little life, too, on two pounds fifteen shillings a week.
The news they shouted fell upon deaf ears, but one boy unfurled almost
before her eyes the headlines of his sheet.
SENSATIONAL ARREST OF A WELL-KNOWN STOCKBROKER. CHARGE OF MURDER.
She came to a sudden stop and pulled out her purse. Her fingers
trembled so that the penny fell on to the pavement. The boy picked it
up willingly enough, however, and she passed on with the paper in her
hand. There it was on the front page—staring her in the face:
Early yesterday morning Mr. Stephen Laverick, of the firm of Laverick &
Morrison, Stockbrokers, Old Broad Street, was arrested at the Milan
Hotel on the charge of being concerned in the murder of a person
unknown, in Crooked Friars’ Alley, on Monday last. The accused, who
made no reply to the charge, was removed to Bow Street Police-Station.
Particulars of his examination before the magistrates will be found on
page 4.
There was a dull singing in her ears. An electric tram, coming up from
the underground passage, seemed to bring with it some sort of thunder
from an unknown world. She staggered on, unseeing, gasping for breath.
If she could find somewhere to sit down! If she could only rest for a
moment! Then a sudden wave of strength came to her, the blood flowed
once more in her veins—blood that was hot with anger, that stained her
cheeks with a spot of red. It was the man she loved, this, being made
to suffer falsely. It was the fulfilment of their threat—a deliberate
plot against him. The murderer of Crooked Friars’ Alley—she knew who
that was!—she knew! Perhaps she might help!
She had not the slightest recollection of the remainder of that walk,
but she found herself presently sitting in a quiet corner of the
theatre with the paper spread out before her. She read that Stephen
Laverick had been brought before Mr. Rawson, the magistrate of Bow
Street Police Court, on a warrant charging him with having been
concerned with the murder of a person unknown, and that he had pleaded
“Not Guilty!” Her eyes glittered as she read that the first witness
called was Mr. Arthur Morrison, late partner of the accused. She read
his deposition—that he had left Laverick at their offices at eleven
o’clock on the night in question, that they were at that time
absolutely without means, and had no prospect of meeting their
engagements on the morrow. She read the evidence of Mr. Fenwick, bank
manager, to the effect that Mr. Laverick had, on the following morning,
deposited with him the sum of twenty thousand pounds in Bank of England
notes, by means of which the engagements of the firm were duly met,
that those notes had since been redeemed, and that he had no idea of
their present whereabouts. She read, too, the evidence of Adolf Kahn,
an Austrian visiting this country upon private business, who deposed
that he was in the vicinity just before midnight, that he saw a person,
whom he identified as the accused, walking down the street and, after
disappearing for a few minutes down the entry, return and re-enter the
offices from which he had issued. He explained his presence there by
the fact that he was waiting for a clerk employed by the Goldfields’
Corporation, Limited, whose offices were close by. Further formal
evidence was given, and a remand asked for. The accused’s solicitor was
on the point of addressing the court when Mr. Rawson was unfortunately
taken ill. After waiting for some time, the case was adjourned until
the next day, and the accused man was removed in custody.
Zoe laid down the paper and rose to her feet. She made her way to where
the stage-manager was superintending the erection of some new scenery.
“Mr. Heepman,” she exclaimed, “I cannot stay to rehearsal! I have to go
out.”
He turned heavily round and looked at her.
“Rehearsal postponed,” he declared solemnly. “Shall you be back for the
evening performance, or shall we close the theatre?”
His clumsy irony missed its mark. Her thoughts were too intensely
focussed upon one thing.
“I am sorry,” she replied, turning away. “I will come back as soon as I
can.”
He called out after her and she paused.
“Look here,” he said, “you were absent from the performance the other
evening, and now you are skipping rehearsal without even waiting for
permission. It can’t be done, young lady. You must do your playing
around some other time. If you’re not here when you’re called, you
needn’t trouble to turn up again. Do you understand?”
Her lips quivered and the sense of impending disaster which seemed to
be brooding over her life became almost overwhelming.
“I’ll come back as soon as I can,” she promised, with a little break in
her voice,—“as soon as ever I can, Mr. Heepman.”
She hurried out of the theatre and took her place once more among the
hurrying throng of pedestrians. Several people turned round to look at
her. Her white face, tight-drawn mouth, and eyes almost unnaturally
large, seemed to have become the abiding-place for tragedy. She herself
saw no one. She would have taken a cab, but a glimpse at the contents
of her purse dissuaded her. She walked steadily on to Jermyn Street,
walked up the stairs to the third floor, and knocked at her brother’s
door. No one answered her at first. She turned the handle and entered
to find the room empty. There were sounds, however, in the further
apartment, and she called out to him.
“Arthur,” she cried, “are you there?”
“Who is it?” he demanded.
“It is I—Zoe!” she exclaimed.
“What do you want?”
“I want to speak to you, Arthur. I must speak to you. Please come as
quickly as you can.”
He growled something and in a few moments he appeared. He was wearing
the morning clothes in which he had attended court earlier in the day,
but the change in him was perhaps all the more marked by reason of this
resumption of his old attire. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes scarcely
for an instant seemed to lose that feverish gleam of terror with which
he had returned from Liverpool. He knew very well what she had come
about, and he began nervously to try and bully her.
“I wish you wouldn’t come to these rooms, Zoe,” he said. “I’ve told you
before they’re bachelors’ apartments, and they don’t like women about
the place. What is it? What do you want?”
“I was brought here last time without any particular desire on my
part,” she answered, looking him in the face. “I’ve come now to ask you
what accursed plot this is against Stephen Laverick? What were you
doing in the court this morning, lying? What is the meaning of it,
Arthur?”
“If you’ve come to talk rubbish like that,” he declared roughly, “you’d
better be off.”
“No, it is not rubbish!” she went on fearlessly. “I think I can
understand what it is that has happened. They have terrified you and
bribed you until you are willing to do any despicable thing—even this.
Your father was good to my mother, Arthur, and I have tried to feel
towards you as though you were indeed a relation. But nothing of that
counts. I want you to realize that I know the truth, and that I will
not see an innocent man convicted while the guilty go free.”
He moved a step towards her. They were on opposite sides of the small
round table which stood in the centre of the apartment.
“What do you mean?” he demanded hoarsely.
“Isn’t it plain enough?” she exclaimed. “You came to my rooms a week or
so ago, a terrified, broken-down man. If ever there was guilt in a
man’s face, it was in yours. You sent for Laverick. He pitied you and
helped you away. At Liverpool they would not let you embark—these men.
They have brought you back here. You are their tool. But you know very
well, Arthur, that it was not Stephen Laverick who killed the man in
Crooked Friars’ Alley! You know very well that it was not Stephen
Laverick!”
“Why the devil should I know anything about it?” he asked fiercely.
A note of passion suddenly crept into her voice. Her little white hand,
with its accusing forefinger, shot out towards him.
“Because it was you, Arthur Morrison, who committed that crime,” she
cried, “and sooner than another man should suffer for it, I shall go to
court myself and tell the truth.”
He was, for the moment, absolutely speechless, pale as death, with
nervously twitching lips and fingers. But there was murder in his eyes.
“What do you know about this?” he muttered.
“Never mind,” she answered. “I know and I guess quite enough to
convince me—and I think anybody else—that you are the guilty man. I
would have helped you and shielded you, whatever it cost me, but I will
not do so at Stephen Laverick’s expense.”
“What is Laverick to you?” he growled.
“He is nothing to me,” she replied, “but the best of friends. Even were
he less than that, do you suppose that I would let an innocent man
suffer?”
He moistened his dry lips rapidly.
“You are talking nonsense, Zoe,” he said,—“nonsense! Even if there has
been some little mistake, what could I do now? I have given my
evidence. So far as I am concerned, the case is finished. I shall not
be called again until the trial.”
“Then you had better go to the magistrates tomorrow morning and take
back your evidence,” she declared boldly, “for if you do not, I shall
be there and I shall tell the truth.”
“Zoe,” he gasped, “don’t try me too high. This thing has upset me. I’m
ill. Can’t you see it, Zoe? Look at me. I haven’t slept for weeks.
Night and day I’ve had the fear—the fear always with me. You don’t know
what it is—you can’t imagine. It’s like a terrible ghost, keeping pace
with you wherever you go, laying his icy finger upon you whenever you
would rest, mocking at you when you try to drown thought even for a
moment. Don’t you try me too far, Zoe. I’m not responsible. Laverick
isn’t the man you think him to be. He isn’t the man I believed. He did
have that money—he did, indeed.”
“That,” she said, “is to be explained. But he is not a murderer.”
“Listen to me, Zoe,” Morrison continued, leaning across the table.
“Come and stay with me for a time and we will go away for a
week—somewhere to the seaside. We will talk about this and think it
over. I want to get away from London. We will go to Brighton, if you
like. I must do something for you, Zoe. I’m afraid I’ve neglected you a
good deal. Perhaps I could get you a better part at one of the
theatres. I must make you an allowance. You ought to be wearing better
clothes.”
She drew a little away.
“I want nothing from you, Arthur,” she said, “except this—that you
speak the truth.”
He wiped his forehead and struck the table before her.
“But, good God, Zoe!” he exclaimed, “do you know what it is that you
are asking me? Do you want me to go into court and say—‘That isn’t the
man... It is I who am the murderer’? Do you want me to feel their hands
upon my shoulder, to be put there in the dock and have all the people
staring at me curiously because they know that before very long I am to
stand upon the scaffold and have that rope around my neck and—”
He broke off with a low cry, wringing his hands like a child in a fit
of impotent terror. But the girl in front of him never flinched.
“Arthur,” she said, “crime is a terrible thing, but nothing in the
world can alter its punishment. If it is frightful for you to think of
this, what must it be for him? And you are guilty and he is not.”
“I was mad!” Morrison went on, now almost beside himself. “Zoe, I was
mad! I called there to have a drink. We were broke,—the firm was broke.
I’d a hundred or so in my pocket and I was going to bolt the next day.
And there, within a few yards of me, was that man, with such a roll of
notes as I had never seen in my life. Five hundred pounds, every one of
them, and a wad as thick as my fists. Zoe, they fascinated me. I had
two drinks quickly and I followed him out. Somehow or other, I found
that I’d caught up a knife that was on the counter. I never meant to
hurt him seriously, but I wanted some of those notes! I was leaving the
next day for Africa and I hadn’t enough money to make a fair start. I
wanted it—my God, how I wanted money!”
“It couldn’t have been worth—that!” she cried, looking at him
wonderingly.
“I was mad,” he continued. “I saw the notes and they went to my head.
Men do wild things sometimes when they are drunk, or for love. I don’t
drink much, and I’m not over fond of women, but, my God, money is like
the blood of my body to me! I saw it, and I wanted it and I wanted it,
and I went mad! Zoe, you won’t give me away? Say you won’t!”
“But what am I to do?” she protested. “He must not suffer.”
“He’ll get off,” Morrison assured her thickly. “I tell you he’ll get
off. He’s only to part with the document, which never belonged to him,
and the charge will be withdrawn. They know who the murdered man was.
They know where the money came from which he was carrying. I tell you
he can save himself. You wouldn’t dream of sending me to the gallows,
Zoe!”
“Stephen Laverick will never give up that document to those people,”
she declared. “I am sure of that.”
“It’s his own lookout,” Morrison muttered. “He has the chance, anyway.”
She turned toward the door.
“I must go away,” she said. “I must go away and think. It is all too
horrible.”
He came round the table swiftly and caught at her wrists.
“Listen,” he said, “I can’t let you go like this. You must tell me that
you are not going to give me up. Do you hear?”
“I can make no promises, Arthur,” she answered sadly, “only this—I
shall not let Stephen Laverick suffer in your stead.”
He opened his hand and she shrank back, terrified, when she saw what it
was that he was holding. Then he struck her down and without a backward
glance fled out of the place.