A PERILOUS VENTURE
In the grey dawn of the following morning Cyril was already up and
dressed. The first thing he did was to detach two of the labels affixed
to his box and place them carefully in his pocketbook. That
accomplished, he had to wait with what patience he could muster until
Peter returned with Campbell's reply. Cyril perused it eagerly. It was
evidently satisfactory, for he heaved a sigh of relief as he sat down to
breakfast. His eyes, however, never left the clock and it had hardly
finished striking nine before our hero was out of the house. No
suspicious person was in sight, but Cyril, was determined to take no
chances. He therefore walked quickly ahead, then turned so abruptly that
he would necessarily have surprised any one who was following him. This
he did many times till he reached Piccadilly Circus, where, with a last
look behind him, he bolted into a shop. There he asked for a small
travelling box suitable for a lady. Having chosen one, he took his
labels out of his pocket.
"Have these pasted on the box," he ordered.
The man's face expressed such amazement that Cyril hastened to remark
that the box was intended for a bride who did not wish to be identified
as such by the newness of her baggage. A comprehending and sympathetic
smile proved that the explanation was satisfactory. A few minutes later
Cyril drove off with his new acquisition. The next purchase was a
handsomely-fitted lady's dressing-bag, which he took to Trufitt's and
filled with such toilet accessories as a much-befrizzled young person
designated as indispensable to a lady's comfort. On leaving there he
stopped for a moment at his bank.
Cyril now metaphorically girded his loins and summoning up all his
courage, plunged into a shop in Bond Street, where he remembered his
mother used to get what she vaguely termed "her things." Among the maze
of frou-frous he stood in helpless bewilderment, till an obsequious
floor-walker came to his rescue. Cyril explained that he had a box
outside which he wanted to fill then and there with a complete outfit
for a young lady. To his relief the man showed no surprise at so unusual
a request and he was soon ensconced in the blessed seclusion of a
fitting room. There the box was hurriedly packed with a varied
assortment of apparel, which he devoutly prayed would meet with
Priscilla's approval. It was not half-past eleven. The doctor must have
left the nursing home by this time, thought Cyril.
Not wishing to attract attention by driving up to the door, he told the
chauffeur to stop when they were still at some distance away from it.
There he got out and looked anxiously about him. To his relief he
recognised Campbell's crimson pate hovering in the distance. So far,
thought Cyril triumphantly, there had been no hitch in his
carefully-laid plans.
"You are to wait here," he said, turning to the driver, "for a lady and
a red-haired gentleman. Now understand, no one but a red-haired man is
to enter this car. Here is a pound, and if you don't make a mess of
things, the other gentleman will give you two more."
"All right, sir; thank you, sir," exclaimed the astonished chauffeur,
greedily pocketing the gold piece.
Cyril was certain that he had not been followed, and there was no sign
that the nursing home was being watched, but that did not reassure him.
Those curtained windows opposite might conceal a hundred prying eyes.
When he was ushered into Miss Prentice's room, he was surprised to find
her already up and dressed. She held a mirror in one hand and with the
other was arranging a yellow wig, which encircled her face like an
aureole. Cyril could hardly restrain a cry of admiration. He had thought
her lovely before, but now her beauty was absolutely startling.
On catching sight of him she dropped the mirror and ran to him with
outstretched hands.
"Oh! I am so glad you have come. How do you like my hair?" she exclaimed
all in one breath.
Cyril heroically disengaged himself from her soft, clinging clasp and
not daring to allow his eyes to linger on her upturned face, he surveyed
the article in question judicially.
"For a wig it's not bad. I can't say, however, that I like anything
artificial," he asserted mendaciously.
"You prefer my own hair!" she cried, and the corners of her mouth began
to droop in a way he had already begun to dread. "Oh! what shall I do?
Nurse tells me it will take ages and ages for it to grow again."
"There, there, my dear, it's all right. You look lovely--" he paused
abruptly.
"Oh, do I?" she cried, beaming with delight. "I am so glad you think
so!"
"It doesn't matter what I think."
"But it does," she insisted.
Cyril turned resolutely away. This sort of thing must stop, he
determined.
"I would like to ask you one thing." She hesitated a moment. "Are we
very poor?"
"No, why?"
"Then I could afford to have some pretty clothes?"
"Certainly."
"Oh, I'm so glad! I can't bear the ones I have on. I can't think why I
ever bought anything so ugly. I shall throw them away as soon as I can
get others. By the way, where is my box? Nurse tells me that I arrived
here with nothing but a small hand-bag."
"It has gone astray," he stammered. "It will turn up soon, no doubt, but
in the meantime I have bought a few clothes for your immediate use."
"Oh, have you? Where are they?" she cried, clapping her hands.
Now was the crucial moment. He must introduce the subject of her
departure tactfully.
"They are outside in a cab."
She ran to the window.
"But I see no cab."
"It is waiting a little farther down the street."
She looked bewildered.
"Farther down--why?"
"You trust me, don't you?" he said, looking earnestly at her.
"Yes, of course."
"Then, believe me, it is necessary for you to leave this place
immediately. I--you--are being pursued by some one who--who wishes to
separate us."
"Oh, no, not that!" she cried. "But how can any one separate us, when
God has joined us together?"
"It's a long story and I have no time to explain it now. All I ask is
that you will trust me blindly for the present, and do exactly what I
tell you to."
"I will," she murmured submissively.
"Thank you. Will you please call your nurse?"
She touched a bell.
The same middle-aged woman appeared of whom he had caught a glimpse on
his former visit.
"Good-morning, nurse. Your patient seems pretty fit to-day."
"Mrs. Thompkins is recovering very rapidly."
"Can I speak to the doctor?" asked Cyril.
"I am sorry, but he has just left."
"Too bad!" Cyril knitted his brows as if the doctor's absence was an
unexpected disappointment. "Mrs. Thompkins must leave here at once and I
wanted to explain her precipitate departure to him."
"You might telephone," suggested the nurse.
"Yes, or better still, I shall call at his office. But his absence
places me in a most awkward predicament."
Cyril paced the room several times as if in deep thought, then halted
before the nurse.
"Well, there is no help for it. As the doctor is not here, I must
confide in you. Thompkins is not our real name. The doctor knows what
that is and it was on his advice that we discarded it for the time
being. I can't tell you our reason for this concealment nor why my wife
must not only leave this house as soon as possible, but must do so
unobserved. Will you help us?"
"I--I don't know, sir," answered the nurse dubiously, staring at Cyril
in amazement.
"If you will dress my wife in a nurse's uniform and see that she gets
out of here without being recognised, I will give you L100. Here is the
money."
The nurse gave a gasp and backed away from the notes, which Cyril held
temptingly toward her.
"Oh, I couldn't, sir, really I couldn't. The doctor would never forgive
me. Besides it seems so queer."
"I promise you on my word of honour that the doctor need never know that
you helped us."
But the woman only shook her head.
"What makes you hesitate?" continued Cyril. "Do you think I am trying to
bribe you to do something dishonourable? Ah, that is it, is it?" He gave
a short laugh. "Look at my wife, does she look like a criminal, I ask
you?"
"She certainly doesn't," answered the nurse, glancing eagerly from one
to the other and then longingly down at the money in Cyril's hand.
"Well, then, why not trust your instinct in the matter? My wife and I
have been placed, through no fault of our own, in a very disagreeable
position. You will know the whole story some day, but for the present my
lips are sealed. International complications might arise if the truth
leaked out prematurely." Cyril felt that the last was a neat touch, for
the woman's face cleared and she repeated in an awe-struck voice:
"International complications!"
"Germany! I can say no more," added Cyril in a stage whisper.
"Ah! The wretches!" cried the nurse. "One never knows what they will be
at next. Of course I will help you. I ought to have known at once that
it was sure to be all right. Any one can see that you are a gentleman--a
soldier, I dare say?"
"Never mind who or what I am. It is better that you should be able
truthfully to plead your complete ignorance. Now as to the uniform; have
you one to spare?"
"Yes, indeed. I will go and get it immediately."
"All this mystery frightens me," exclaimed Priscilla as soon as they
were alone.
"You must be brave. Now listen attentively to what I am saying. On
leaving here----"
"Oh, aren't you going with me?" she asked.
"No, we must not be seen together, but I will join you later."
"You will not leave me alone again?"
"Not for long."
"Promise."
"I promise."
"Very well, now tell me what I am to do."
"On leaving this house you are to turn to your right and walk down the
street till you see a taxi with a box on it. A friend of mine, Guy
Campbell, will be inside. You can easily recognise him; he has red hair.
Campbell will drive you to a hotel where a lady is waiting for you and
where you are to stay till I can join you. If there should be any hitch
in these arrangements, go to this address and send a telegram to me at
the club. I have written all this down," he said, handing her a folded
paper.
The nurse returned with her arms full of clothes.
"Have you a thick veil?" asked Cyril.
"There is a long one attached to the bonnet, but we never pull it over
our faces, and I am afraid if Mrs. Thompkins did so, it would attract
attention."
"Yet something must be done to conceal her face."
The nurse thought for a moment.
"Leave that to me, sir. I used to help in private theatricals once upon
a time."
"That is splendid! I will go downstairs now and wait till you have got
Mrs. Thompkins ready."
"Give me a quarter of an hour and you will be astonished at the result."
She seemed to have thrown her whole heart into the business.
When Cyril returned, he found Priscilla really transformed. Her yellow
curls had been plastered down on either side of her forehead. A pair of
tinted spectacles dimmed the brilliancy of her eyes and her dark,
finely-arched eyebrows had been rendered almost imperceptible by a
skilful application of grease and powder. With a burnt match the nurse
had drawn a few faint lines in the girlish face, so that she looked at
least ten years older, and all this artifice was made to appear natural
by means of a dingy, black net veil. A nurse's costume completed the
disguise.
"You have done winders, nurse. I can't thank you enough," he exclaimed.
"Don't I look a fright?" cried Priscilla a little ruefully.
"No, you don't. That is just where the art comes in. You are not
noticeable one way or the other. It is admirable. And now you had better
be going."
The nurse peered into the hall.
"There is no one about just now. I will take Mrs. Thompkins to the front
door. If we are seen, it will be supposed that she is some friend of
mine who has been calling on me. I will watch till I see her safely in
the car," the nurse assured him.
"Thanks."
"By the way, as I have to pretend not to know of my patient's departure,
I had better not return till you have left."
"All right. Good-bye, nurse. I shall stay here a quarter of an hour so
as to give you a good start. Good-bye, my dear."
The next fifteen minutes seemed to Cyril the longest he had ever spent.
He did not even dare to follow Priscilla's progress from the window.
Watch in hand he waited till the time was up and then made his way
cautiously out of the house without, as luck would have it, encountering
any one.
The taxi was no longer in sight! With a light heart Cyril walked briskly
to the doctor's office.
"Well, Lord Wilmersley, what brings you here?" asked the doctor, when
Cyril was finally ushered into the august presence.
"I have called to tell you that my wife has left the nursing home,"
Cyril blurted out.
"Impossible!" cried the doctor. "She was quite calm this morning. The
nurse would----"
"The nurse had nothing to do with it," interrupted Cyril hastily. "It
was I who took her away."
"You? But why this haste? I thought you had decided to wait till
to-morrow."
"For family reasons, which I need not go into now, I thought it best
that she should be removed at once."
"And may I know where she is?" inquired the doctor, looking searchingly
at Cyril.
"I intend to take her to Geralton--in--in a few days."
"Indeed!" The doctor's upper lip lengthened perceptibly.
"So you do not wish me to know where you have hidden her."
"Hidden her?" Cyril raised his eyebrows deprecatingly. "That is a
strange expression to use. It seems to me that a man has certainly the
right to withhold his wife's address from a comparative stranger without
being accused of hiding her. You should really choose your words more
carefully, my dear sir."
The doctor glared at Cyril for a moment, then rising abruptly he paced
the room several times.
"It's no use," he said at last, stopping in front of Cyril. "You can't
persuade me that there is not some mystery connected with Lady
Wilmersley. And I warn you that I have determined to find out the
truth."
Cyril's heart gave an uncomfortable jump, but he managed to keep his
face impassive.
"A mystery? What an amusing idea! A man of your imagination is really
wasted in the medical profession. You should write, my dear doctor, you
really should. But, granting for the sake of argument that I have
something to conceal, what right have you to try to force my confidence?
My wife's movements are surely no concern of yours."
"One has not only the right, but it becomes one's obvious duty to
interfere, when one has reason to believe that by doing so one may
prevent the ill-treatment of a helpless woman."
"Do you really think I ill-treat my wife?"
"I think it is possible. And till I am sure that my fears are unfounded,
I will not consent to Lady Wilmersley's remaining in your sole care."
"Do you mind telling me what basis you have for such a monstrous
suspicion?" asked Cyril very quietly.
"Certainly. You bring me a young lady who has been flogged. You tell me
that she is your wife, yet you profess to know nothing of her injuries
and give an explanation which, although not impossible, is at all events
highly improbable. This lady, who is not only beautiful but charming,
you neglect in the most astonishing manner. No, I am not forgetting that
you had other pressing duties to attend to, but even so, if you had
cared for your wife, you could not have remained away from her as you
did. It was nothing less than heartless to leave a poor young woman, in
the state she was in, alone among strangers. Your letter only partially
satisfied me. Your arguments would have seemed to me perfectly
unconvincing, if I had not been so anxious to believe the best. As it
was, although I tried to ignore it, a root of suspicion still lingered
in my mind. Then, when you finally do turn up, instead of hurrying to
your wife's bedside you try in every way to avoid meeting her till at
last I have to insist upon your doing so. I tell you, that if she had
not shown such marked affection for you, I should have had no doubt of
your guilt."
"Nonsense! Do I look like a wife-beater?"
"No, but the only murderess I ever knew looked like one of Raphael's
Madonnas."
"Thanks for the implication." Cyril bowed sarcastically.
"The more I observed Mrs. Thompkins," continued the doctor, "the more I
became convinced that a severe shock was responsible for her amnesia,
and that she had never been insane nor was she at all likely to become
so."
"Even physicians are occasionally mistaken in their diagnosis, I have
been told."
"You are right; that is why I have given you the benefit of the doubt,"
replied the doctor calmly. "This morning, however, I made a discovery,
which practically proves that my suspicions were not unfounded."
"And pray what is this great discovery of yours?" drawled Cyril.
"I had been worrying about this case all night, when it suddenly
occurred to me to consult the peerage. I wanted to find out who Lady
Wilmersley's people were, so that I might communicate with them if I
considered it necessary. The first thing I found was that your wife was
born in 18--, so that now she is in her twenty-eighth year. My patient
is certainly not more than twenty. How do you account for this
discrepancy in their ages?"
Cyril forced himself to smile superciliously.
"And is my wife's youthful appearance your only reason for doubting her
identity?"
The doctor seemed a little staggered by Cyril's nonchalant manner.
"It is my chief reason, but as I have just taken the trouble to explain,
not my only one."
"Oh, really! And if she is not my wife, whom do you suspect her of
being?"
"I have no idea."
"You astonish me." In trying to conceal his agitation Cyril
unfortunately assumed an air of frigid detachment, which only served to
exasperate the doctor still further.
"Your manner is insulting, my lord."
"Your suspicions are so flattering!" drawled Cyril.
The doctor glared at Cyril for a moment but seemed at a loss for a
crushing reply.
"You must acknowledge that appearances are against you," he said at
last, making a valiant effort to control his temper. "If you are a man
of honour, you ought to appreciate that my position is a very difficult
one and to be as ready to forgive me, if I have erred through excessive
zeal, as I shall be to apologise to you. Now let me ask you one more
question. Why were you so anxious that I should not see the jewels?"
"Oh, had you not seen them? I thought, of course, that you had. I
apologise for not having satisfied your curiosity."
There was a short pause during which the doctor looked long and
searchingly at Cyril.
"I can't help it. I feel that there is something fishy about this
business. You can't convince me to the contrary."
"I was not aware that I was trying to do so."
The doctor almost danced with rage.
"Lord Wilmersley--for I suppose you are Lord Wilmersley?"
"Unless I am his valet, Peter Thompkins."
"I know nothing about you," cried the doctor, "and you have succeeded to
your title under very peculiar circumstances, my lord."
"So you suspect me not only of flogging my wife but of murdering my
cousin!" laughed Cyril. "My dear doctor, don't you realise that if there
were the slightest grounds for your suspicions, the police would have
put me under surveillance long ago. Why, I can easily prove that I was
in Paris at the time of the murder."
"Oh, you are clever! I don't doubt that you have an impeccable alibi.
But if I informed the police that you were passing off as your wife a
girl several years younger than Lady Wilmersley, a girl, moreover, who,
you acknowledged, joined you at Newhaven the very morning after the
murder--if I told them that this young lady had in her possession a
remarkable number of jewels, which she carried in a cheap, black
bag--what do you think they would say to that, my lord?"
Cyril felt cold chills creeping down his back and the palms of his hands
grew moist. Not a flicker of an eyelash, however, betrayed his inward
tumult. "They would no doubt pay as high a tribute to your imagination
as I do," he answered.
Then, abandoning his careless pose, he sat up in his chair.
"You have been insulting me for the last half-hour, and I have borne it
very patiently, partly because your absurd suspicions amused me, and
partly because I realised that, although you are a fool, you are an
honest fool."
"Sir!" The doctor turned purple in the face.
"You can hardly resent being called a fool by a man you have been
accusing of murder and wife-beating. But I don't want you to go to the
police with this cock-and-bull story----"
"Ah! I thought not," sneered the doctor.
"Because," continued Cyril, ignoring the interruption, "I want to
protect my wife from unpleasant notoriety, and also, although you don't
deserve it, to keep you from becoming a public laughing stock. So far
you have done all the talking; now you are to listen to me. Sit down.
You make me nervous strutting about like that. Sit down, I tell you.
There, that's better. Now let us see what all this rigmarole really
amounts to. You began by asking for my wife's address, and when I did
not immediately gratify what I considered your impertinent curiosity,
you launch forth into vague threats of exposure. As far as I can make
out from your disjointed harangue, your excuse for prying into my
affairs is that by doing so you are protecting a helpless woman from
further ill-treatment. Very well. Granting that you really suppose me to
be a brute, your behaviour might be perfectly justified if--if you
believed that your patient is my wife. But you tell me that you do not.
You think that she is either my mistress or my accomplice, or both. Now,
if she is a criminal and an immoral woman, you must admit that she has
shown extraordinary cleverness, inasmuch as she succeeded not only in
eluding the police but in deceiving you. For the impression she made on
you was a very favourable one, was it not? She seemed to you unusually
innocent as well as absolutely frank, didn't she?"
"Yes," acknowledged the doctor.
"Now, if she was able to dupe so trained an observer as yourself, she
must be a remarkable woman, and cannot be the helpless creature you
picture her, and consequently would be in no danger of being forced to
submit to abuse from any one."
"True," murmured the doctor.
"But I think I can prove to you that you were not mistaken in your first
estimate of her character. This illness of hers--was it real or could it
have been feigned?"
"It was real. There is no doubt about that."
"You saw her when she was only semi-conscious, when she was physically
incapable of acting a part--did she during that time, either by word or
look, betray moral perversity?"
"She did not." The doctor's anger had abated and he was listening to
Cyril intently.
"How, then, can you doubt her? And if she is what she seems, she is
certainly neither my mistress nor a thief; and if she is not the one nor
the other, she must be my wife, and if you go to the police with your
absurd suspicions, you will only succeed in making yourself ridiculous."
There was a pause during which the two men eyed each other keenly.
"You make a great point of the fact that my wife had in her possession a
number of valuable ornaments," continued Cyril. "But why should she not?
My wife insisted on having all her jewelry with her at Charleroi, and
when she escaped from there, they were among the few things she took
with her. The excitement of meeting her so unexpectedly and her sudden
illness made me forget all about them, otherwise I would have taken them
out of the bag, which, as you may have noticed, was not even locked. But
the very fact that I did forget all about them and allowed them to pass
through the hands of nurses and servants, that alone ought to convince
you that I did not come by them dishonestly. You had them for days in
your possession; yet you accuse me of having prevented you from
examining them. That is really ridiculous! Your whole case against me is
built on the wildest conjectures, from which you proceed to draw
perfectly untenable inferences. My wife looks young for her age, I grant
you; but even you would not venture to swear positively that she is not
twenty-eight. You fancied that I neglected her; consequently I am a
brute. She is sane now; so you believe that she has never been
otherwise. You imagined that I did not wish you to examine the contents
of my wife's bag, therefore the Wilmersley jewels must have been in it."
"What you say sounds plausible enough," acknowledged the doctor, "and it
seems impossible to associate you with anything cruel, mean, or even
underhand, and yet--and yet--I have an unaccountable feeling that you
are not telling me the truth. When I try to analyse my impressions, I
find that I distrust not you but your story. You have, however,
convinced me that I have no logical basis for my suspicions. That being
the case, I shall do nothing for the present. But, if at the end of a
fortnight I do not hear that Lady Wilmersley has arrived in England, and
has taken her place in the world, then I shall believe that my instinct
has not been at fault, and shall do my best to find out what has become
of her, even at the risk of creating a scandal or of being laughed at
for my pains. But I don't care, I shall feel that I have done my duty.
In the meantime I shall write to Dr. Monet. Now I have given you a fair
warning, which you can act on as you see fit."
What an unerring scent the man had for falsehood, thought Cyril with
unwilling admiration. It was really wonderful the way he disregarded
probabilities and turned a deaf ear to reason. He was a big man, Cyril
grudgingly admitted.
"I suppose you will not believe me if I tell you that I have no personal
animosity toward you, Lord Wilmersley?"
"I know that. And some day we'll laugh over this episode together,"
replied Cyril, with a heartiness which surprised himself.
"Now that is nice of you," cried the doctor. "My temper is rather hasty,
I am sorry to say, and though I don't remember all I said just now, I am
sure, I was unnecessarily disagreeable."
"Well, I called you a fool," grinned Cyril.
"So you did, so you did, and may I live to acknowledge that I richly
deserve the appellation."
And so their interview terminated with unexpected friendliness.