DOPE
“It happened on my seventeenth birthday,” she went on in a lifeless
voice. “I had discovered something about the doctor; he had been
guilty of a most heartless fraud. I was acting as his secretary at the
time, and I detected him in the act of forging a document which
transferred property to him of an old man who was his patient. I
didn’t know then why he did it, but he insisted that I should marry
him right away. I was terrified, until he had promised me that, if I
agreed, he would let me live by myself somewhere. Like a fool, the
chance of gaining my liberty at the expense of such a bondage was so
alluring that I agreed, and we were married before the registrar. The
same day I moved into the rooms which I have occupied off and on ever
since.”
“He doesn’t love you?”
She shook her head.
“He made that clear on the day of our wedding, and he has taunted me
many times since that I trapped him into the marriage. The truth was
that he feared a criminal prosecution would follow the discovery of
the forgery, and he married me to keep my mouth shut, knowing that a
wife may not give evidence against her husband.”
Clive Lowbridge sat motionless.
“I never guessed,” he said simply.
“Of course, I can divorce him, and I should do that if”--she shrugged
her shoulders--“if there were any excuse. But, Clive, he has given me
nothing; his life is austere; he has never been really cruel to
me--not cruel enough to secure a divorce in England. I’m just shelved
until he dies.”
“The old devil!” he whispered.
A soft knock on the panel of the door. He turned with a start as
Benson came in, carrying a silver tray.
“Mr. William Holbrook is below, sir.”
“Here? What does he want?” said Clive in surprise. “Ask him up,
Benson, and put another cup for him.”
Bill looked white and drawn.
“You been in the wars, too, Holbrook?” asked Clive good-humouredly.
“Somewhat,” was the laconic reply. “How do you do, Miss Stone? I
didn’t expect to find you here.”
Her lips twitched at the “Miss Stone.”
“You ought to be in hospital.”
“I really ought to be in an insane asylum,” said Holbrook as he sat
down. “Have you seen your respected relative?”
“He hasn’t deigned to call upon me,” she said, “and I am not very
sorry.”
Bill grunted something.
“The doctor is--strange,” he said aloud, and she felt that he was
showing admirable restraint.
Clive was wondering what was the object of the reporter’s call, until
Bill Holbrook caught his eye, then, taking advantage of Betty’s
discreet retirement to admire the window-boxes, they walked out of the
room.
“I want to put a question to you, Lord Lowbridge. Do you know anything
about the Sons of Ragousa?”
“I know something, yes, as much as most people know. It is a friendly
society, is it not?”
“Hardly that,” said Bill, grimly. “But are you aware that Laffin
holds a very high position in the order?”
“No, that is news to me,” said the other frankly. “In fact, it is so
incredible that I take leave to doubt----”
“It’s a fact,” interrupted Bill. “He is the head of the Twenty-Third
Degree.”
“The news is surprising, and yet not surprising,” said Lowbridge,
after a pause. “His eccentricities are proverbial. Was it to tell me
this that you called?”
“Partly,” said Bill, “and partly to ask you whether you saw anything
of him the night Miss Carew disappeared?”
Lowbridge shook his head.
“He could not possibly have had anything to do with the abduction,”
he said. “He was on the telephone to me at midnight, and asked me to
go round to his place to see him about an impoverished property of
mine in which he is interested. Of course, I did not go.”
“He was establishing an alibi?” suggested Holbrook.
“I hardly think so. It was not remarkable in him to call me up at that
hour, for the doctor has no idea of time. As you are probably aware,
he does not sleep like a normal man, but has those queer ten-minute
intervals of unconsciousness which seem to satisfy all his needs. I
saw him the following day; he called here on the same matter, and I’ll
swear that he was in town that same night, for I went to his place and
stayed with him for the greater part of an hour…” he hesitated. “I
ought to tell you that his great scheme of transferring my land had
the elements of trickery in it that annoyed me most intensely. I only
discovered it last night. You probably noticed, when you came to
Camden Road, that I was rather heated? The man has no conscience and
no scruples. He puzzles me sometimes, at other times he fills me with
despair. For under his eccentricities, there is something about him
that I like, and I shall not, of course, forget our earlier
association, when he gave me his time and his genius to educate me.
But what do you mean about the Sons of Ragousa? That seems a fairly
inoffensive association. Do you think they were concerned in the
kidnapping of Miss Carew?”
“I don’t think so, I am certain,” said Bill vigorously. “Laffin may
not have been a member of the party, but I’ll swear he directed
operations.”
Clive came back alone, to Betty Carew’s surprise.
“Where is the tireless Mr. Holbrook?” she asked.
“Gone. He’s on Laffin’s track, and is obsessed with the idea that the
old man was responsible for your kidnapping, and, upon my word, he’s
almost convinced me! Betty, do you remember--can you concentrate your
mind upon the forty-eight hours you disappeared? Can you recall any
single incident which would help us?”
“Yes, I think I can,” she said quietly. “The incidents are beginning
to sort themselves out, and whilst I recognise that most of them are
absurd and fantastical, the chapel and the masked men----”
“Chapel?” he said quickly. “What do you mean?”
She laughed softly.
“In a day or two I shall probably realise that these are fantasies
also. But I have a recollection of being taken into a chapel--a tiny
little place, with men who looked like monks, sitting in the stalls on
each side of the altar; and I’m sure I heard the voice of the man who
came to me at the store for the message. He gave me something, a
book--I am certain it was a book--and called me the ‘Long Desired.’
Before and after that, my memory is a confusion of impossible
happenings. But of that time I am certain. I am going to write it down
to-night for Mr. Bullott.”
He strode up and down the room, his hands behind him, his brow knit in
thought. Then he rang the bell, and, to Benson, who appeared
immediately:
“Get me all the evening newspapers that are on the streets,” he said.
“You may have to go to Piccadilly for the _Globe-News_, but get it.”
“Why?” she asked in surprise, after Benson had disappeared.
“I have a theory. It is only a theory, and I think it can be tested by
the information that has already been published.”
“Clive, you’re a bundle of nerves!”
“Have I reason?” he asked. “I’ve had the misery of your abduction,
and on top of it all, the terrific news you have given me about
Laffin. You’ll get the marriage annulled, of course?”
“Excuse me, sir.”
It was Benson, who had come in noiselessly.
“When you said all the newspapers, did your lordship mean the
Socialistic journals?” he asked. “Your lordship has forbidden those
newspapers to be brought into the house.”
“Of course, I mean them all,” said Clive, with a touch of asperity.
When the man had bowed himself out:
“Why the dickens did he come back?”
“Nerves again!” she laughed. She took up her cup. “Is it cigarettes
or this insidious little cup?”
“Both,” he said, and swallowed the hot tea with a wry face.
In a much shorter time than he had expected, Benson returned and laid
the newspapers at his master’s elbow. Clive opened one at random,
skimmed the news, opened another and a third, and finally threw the
journals on the floor in disgust.
“There’s nothing new here at all,” he said.
He spoke a little thickly. She looked at him in alarm; his face had
gone white, his eyes had a queer, glazed appearance, and when he rose
to his feet he stumbled, and would have fallen if she had not assisted
him.
“What is the matter, Clive?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” He passed his hand across his forehead. “Something
queer,” he muttered.
She pressed the bell, and Benson came in almost immediately, and
together they laid Lowbridge upon a sofa. His eyes were closed, his
breathing was heavy, and when she spoke to him he did not answer.
“What is the matter, Benson?” she asked in alarm.
Benson stooped, lifted the eyelids of the unconscious man.
“I think he has been drugged, Madam,” he said blandly.