“You will, of course, never breathe a word of this to anybody. Suppose I say I refuse to reply to your question. Will you take that refusal as the answer you really want?”
“I will – a thousand thanks. The subject is closed between us,” was Hugh’s grateful reply.
A diversion was caused by the approach of Guy Spencer.
“Hugh, old man, I am aching for a long crack with you. Come and dine quietly with us next week. I suggest Tuesday if that will suit you?”
“Perfectly; I am free on Tuesday, Guy.”
“Right, then. But to make sure, if Miss Crichton will excuse us, we will go over to Stella and see if I have forgotten something, if we are free that night. I can’t always carry these things in my head.”
They crossed over to the beautiful young woman, who was sustaining a somewhat listless conversation with her young hostess.
“Stella,” cried her husband, “I have asked Hugh to dine with us on Tuesday. My recollection is that we have nothing on for that night. But I thought you had better confirm it. You carry these things in your head so much better than I do.”
Young Mrs Spencer smiled at Hugh her sweet smile, and as she did so her likeness to Norah Burton was overwhelming, the Norah Burton who had smiled at him in just the same way six years ago, in the tea-shop at Blankfield.
“We are quite free, Major Murchison, and shall be delighted to see you.”
For a few moments he sat down beside her; and very shortly another coincidence happened.
Mrs Spencer made use of a certain word which is always pronounced in a certain way by educated people, and in another way by people who are only partially educated. Norah Burton had pronounced this particular word in the same way as Stella.
Hugh had commented upon the fact to Pomfret, and that easy-going young man had remarked to him that he failed to see it much mattered, that she was at liberty to pronounce the word as she thought fit.
When he got home, he passed a very restless night. When he had gone up into the drawing-room after dinner, he had been half prepared to dismiss the matter from his mind as a mere fantasy. And then had come his brief interview with Laura Crichton, in which she gave him plainly to understand that, in her opinion, Stella Spencer was not a good or a straight woman.
And then had come that corroborative little piece of evidence of the mispronunciation of a certain word, establishing another link in the chain of evidence that Stella Keane and Norah Burton were one and the same person.
And if it were so, what was his duty? If he could prove her to be Norah Burton, and her undesirable relative, George Burton, now freed from jail, could he permit such an adventuress to pass another day in the house of this honest gentleman whom she had so skilfully entrapped, as six years ago she had entrapped the guileless and trusting Jack Pomfret?
The morning dawned and found him still in the throes of anxious thought.
Chapter Sixteen
As Murchison thought over matters in the cold, clear light of the morning, when the brain is at its freshest, he cursed the fate that ever seemed to mix him up in the private affairs of his friends. First had been that unhappy episode of poor Jack Pomfret, who had not strength of mind to survive the disgrace he had brought upon himself by his impetuous folly.
Now there was this affair of Guy Spencer’s, which he felt he must go through with and prove to the bottom. He must find out definitely whether the likeness to Norah Burton was accidental, or whether that scheming adventuress had, for the second time, ensnared a trusting and unsuspicious man.
On Tuesday night when he dined in Eaton Place with the Spencers, he would seize an opportunity of putting to her a few leading questions. They would be of such a nature, that if his suspicions were correct, they would shake her self-possession.
Certainly, she had betrayed no embarrassment at the sight of him, and that was a point in her favour. For, assuming that she was Norah Burton, the name of Murchison would be quite familiar to her, even if she had forgotten his appearance after the lapse of those six years.
In the meantime he would get as much information about Stella Keane as he could before the date of the dinner. There was a man at his club, Gregory Fairfax, a middle-aged gossip, who was to be found in the smoking-room every day at a certain hour.
Fairfax was a man of leisure and means, who had the reputation of knowing more people, and all about them, than anybody in town. He mixed in a dozen different sets: smart, fast, and Bohemian. He was equally at home in Belgravia, Mayfair, South Kensington, and several other quarters. He belonged to most of the best clubs, and many more that had no pretensions to social distinction. His knowledge of the various phases of London life was wide and extensive. He had also a marvellous memory. He never forgot a face or the minutest details of a scandal.
To this gentleman, with whom he was on quite intimate terms, having known him from his first introduction to the London world, Hugh repaired, in the hope of getting to know all there was to know about this mysterious young woman who had so suddenly and clandestinely projected herself into the Southleigh family.
After a few casual remarks, he opened the ball. It was an easy task, for there was nothing pleased Fairfax more than to place his extensive social knowledge at the service of any friend or acquaintance who was in search of details.
“I say, Fairfax, I think you can help me in a little matter, because you have the reputation of knowing everything about everybody.”
Mr Fairfax smiled genially. He was very proud of his profound social knowledge, and nothing pleased him more than to have his well-earned reputation alluded to in flattering terms.
“Fire away, my young friend. I think I have picked up a bit in my twenty-five years of London life. Who is it you want to ask me about?”
“I dined last night with my old friends the Southleighs; and there, for the first time, I met Mrs Guy Spencer. I had heard of the marriage, of course, but no particulars of the young lady until I came to town a little while ago. All I have learned is that she was a Miss Stella Keane, and that she gives no very detailed account of her family history. I gather the general impression is that there is a mystery about her, which she refuses to allow anybody to penetrate. Do you know anything about her yourself?”
Fairfax assumed an air of great gravity and importance. He was now in his element, about to pour out his stores of knowledge to an interested and grateful listener.
“There may be one or two people who know as much as I know – always remembering that there is no first-hand knowledge, but the chances are a hundred to one you would not come across them. It happens that I was a good deal in that rather queer set which frequented Mrs L’Estrange’s flat.”
“She was supposed to be a well-bred woman, was she not?”
“Oh, certainly, so far as family went. But, judging in the light of subsequent events, there is no doubt she was a wrong ’un. The place, from the start, was simply a gambling-saloon. Sometimes, the play was very moderate. I am fond of a bit of a flutter myself, but I must own that I never lost very much, and for a long time I never had any suspicions of foul play.”
“Ah, but you had later on?” interrupted Hugh.
“I’ll come to that before we get on to Miss Stella Keane. Then one night something happened. Do you remember a little chap named Esmond, who used to go about everywhere?”
Yes, Hugh remembered Tommy Esmond, although his acquaintance with him had been of the slightest.
“He was a funny little man, very genial and popular with everybody. Like myself, he didn’t stick to any one particular set, but went into a dozen different ones. One night he would be dining at a swagger club with a peer, the next he would be hobnobbing at a pot-house sort of a place with a fifth-rate actor. Very eclectic was Tommy, and nobody ever knew where the deuce he came from. He had been so long about that people forgot to inquire, and looked upon him as a sort of institution, and took him for granted, as it were.
“Well, one night, one dreadful night, Tommy was discovered cheating by a couple of chaps who were too sharp for him. They were common sort of fellows, might have been crooks themselves for all I know, and kicked up a deuce of a row. They went so far as to insinuate that Mrs L’Estrange was not altogether innocent, and had a hand in the plunder. Result, Tommy had to make a bolt of it.”
“What was your own opinion about it? Was it an accident?”
“I might not have believed it, but a similar thing took place about a couple of months later. Another man was found cheating, and this time Mrs L’Estrange refused to face the music. She closed down, and disappeared from London. I have never met anybody who has seen or heard anything of her since. I expect she’s to be found on the Continent like her friend Tommy.”
“And Miss Keane was an inmate of this suspicious household?”
“Yes, ever since I went to the house, up to a few days after Tommy bolted. She left suddenly, and Mrs L’Estrange was very reticent as to where she had gone to. The next I heard was that she had been married quietly to Guy Spencer.”
“Did any suspicions attach to her?”
“No, it would not be fair to say that they did. She never played herself, but she had a great knack of hovering about the tables. And after the Esmond episode one or two men whispered that she had been hovering about them too much, and that Mrs L’Estrange thought she had better get rid of her. It might be so or not.”
“Did you ever come across a cousin of hers there, a man named Dutton?”
“Oh yes, a dozen or more times, for I went to the flat pretty frequently. A common, under-bred fellow, not in the least like her, for in addition to being remarkably good-looking, her manners and appearance were those of a lady.”
“Do you know what has become of him?”
“Yes, he’s an outside stockbroker, with a small office in the City. I ran against him only last week. I don’t know whether he recognised me or not, but I looked the other way. With one or two exceptions, the L’Estrange clientèle was not one that you cared to recognise when outside the flat.”
Fairfax had finished his narrative. Hugh thanked him warmly. Still, he had not learned anything really of importance. There was no evidence that Miss Keane had cheated, or helped others to cheat. The hovering round the card-table was not a particularly suspicious action if taken by itself. She might be signalling to her confederates, of course, but there was no evidence on which to convict her.
A sudden thought struck Murchison which prompted him to put a question to Fairfax.
“She might have been a decoy, to lure rich men to this gambling place, in order that they might be rooked by her accomplices.” The middle-aged man shook his head. “I don’t think so. She had no scope for that sort of game. Mrs L’Estrange hardly knew any body in her own world, for reasons which I daresay could be very satisfactorily explained, I should guess a not too clean or reputable past. She could not get the girl into houses where she would pick up rich men.”
“But you say some men came there who played heavily.”
“A few,” answered Fairfax. “But I always had a notion that Dutton picked those up, in the course of his shady business, a mug here, a mug there, who had a few thousands to throw away either on the Stock Exchange or in gambling. If the flat was run on the crook, and it is even betting it was, I should say the proprietors – or the syndicate, call it what you like – were contented with quite small profits. I daresay a couple of thousand a year would keep Mrs L’Estrange in luxury, and I suppose she must have had a bit of money of her own.”
“And, assuming that they were all in league, Tommy Esmond and others would want their bit,” suggested Hugh.
“Certainly,” assented Fairfax; “but always granting that the show was run on the crook, it wouldn’t be difficult to romp in thirty or forty pounds a night, with even the small players and the occasional mugs who were well-lined. Quite a decent amount to divide at the end of the week.”
“Well, I am awfully obliged for all you have told me, Fairfax.”
“But it doesn’t help you much, eh?” queried the elder man, who detected a certain note of disappointment in his companion’s tone.
“Well, candidly, it doesn’t, but of course, that is no fault of yours. We may dismiss the L’Estrange business, there is no evidence there. She might have signalled to her confederates or not. It might have been a perfectly innocent action. She didn’t play herself, she just hovered round the tables to kill the time.”
“Of course, either theory will fit,” remarked the shrewd man of the world, who had picked up so much knowledge of life in his forty-five strenuous years.
He paused for a few moments before he spoke again.
“Now look here, Murchison, I can read you like a book. I haven’t told you very much more than you know yourself, or could have pieced together. You are disappointed because I couldn’t tell you anything of her history prior to her appearance in the L’Estrange household. Well, there, I am at fault. And you have a particular reason for wanting to know. In other words, you have some suspicions of your own.”
Hugh felt he must be cautious. In connecting Mrs Spencer with Norah Burton he might be on the wrong track altogether, have been deceived by a striking, but purely accidental, resemblance. He could not be too frank with a man of Fairfax’s temperament. Rumour had it that he would always respect a confidence, but his general reputation was that of a chatterbox. He spoke guardedly.
“Yes, certain undefined ones, quite undefined, please understand that.” Then, speaking a little more frankly, “What I dearly want to know is, was she a straight woman before she charmed my friend Guy Spencer into marrying her.”
Fairfax smiled his slow, wise smile: “I am glad you have put your cards on the table. Of course I guessed from the beginning that it was what you were after. Well, I shan’t breathe a word of this to anybody; I can hold my tongue when I have a mind. You have a deep interest in the matter for the sake of the Southleigh family, eh?”
Hugh had to admit that it was so.
“Well, I am going to tell you something that, up to the present, I have not told to anybody else, and, to tell you the truth, I was not in the least interested in Guy Spencer’s marriage. If he chose to marry a girl without a past, that was his affair. But I see you are keen.”
“Yes, I am very keen.”
“Good! Well, I will give you a little information, from which you can draw your own inferences. They are as open to you as to me, and I shall just state the bare facts. As you know, Esmond had to bolt to the Continent. On a certain morning I came up from the country by an early train, landing at Charing Cross. I went to the bookstall to buy a few papers. I must tell you that I am one of those persons who have eyes at the back of their head, and see everything going on around them.”
Yes, Hugh knew that Fairfax had a wonderful gift of observation, in addition to his many other gifts.
“As I turned away, I saw Esmond slink into the station, glancing furtively from right to left, as fearful of being seen. Of course, I had not heard the news, and I was not present at the débâcle, but I guessed something was up from his furtive appearance. As he slunk along, a young woman heavily-veiled walked swiftly forward, and laid her hand upon his arm. They were only together for a few seconds, Esmond was evidently urging her to leave him for fear of recognition. When they parted, she kissed him affectionately. In spite of the heavy veiling, I recognised her.”
“Stella Keane, of course,” cried Hugh.
“Stella Keane. Fortunately, neither of them saw me, I expect they were both too agitated. Well, there is the fact; as I said just now, you can draw your own inferences, and perhaps answer the question whether she was a good woman before she married your friend.”
“It is answered,” said Hugh sternly. “A good woman would not trouble to go to the station to say good-bye to a derelict card-sharper, and kiss him affectionately, unless there had been some close and dishonourable relationship between them.”
Chapter Seventeen
Murchison arrived at Eaton Place about twenty minutes before the dinner hour. His expectation was that he would find Mrs Spencer alone in the drawing-room, and in this hope he was not disappointed.
Stella, beautifully gowned, was seated in a luxurious easy-chair, reading. As he was announced, she rose and threw her novel down. She advanced to him with outstretched hand and that ever-charming smile.
“Oh, how sweet of you to come in good time, not rush in just a moment before dinner is served. We can have a comfortable chat before Guy comes. He takes an awful time to dress, you know. His ties bother him really; he discards about half a dozen before he gets the proper bow. Isn’t it silly?”
She was very girlish to-night, quite different from what she had been at the Southleigh party, staid, demure, a little resentful, and averse from conversation.
Murchison’s thoughts flew back to that day at Blankfield when he had met a certain girl by chance at the tea-shop. Norah Burton had been just as girlish then as Mrs Spencer was now, allowing for the six years’ interval.
She crossed over to a Chesterfield, and motioned him to a seat beside her. Hugh obeyed her invitation, but he felt sure that she had done this with a motive. She was about to exercise her subtle fascination on her husband’s friend.
“Now, please tell me all about yourself,” she said. “You are Guy’s friend, and I have a right to know. His friends are mine. I know what you have done in the War: you have suffered very terribly. But before that; please enlighten me.”
It was a challenge. Did she desire to know as much of his past as he desired to know of hers? He looked at her very steadily.
“You know, Mrs Spencer, it is a little difficult to go back to anything before those awful years of war. But I remember, as in a sort of dream, that, quite as a young man, I was gazetted to the Twenty-fifth Lancers.”
“A crack regiment, was it not?” queried Mrs Spencer. “My dear father was in the Twenty-fourth.”
She was keeping it up bravely, he thought. He remembered Fairfax’s story. The woman who had said good-bye to a fugitive card-sharper at Charing Cross Station, and kissed him affectionately, was hardly likely to be the daughter of an officer in the Twenty-fourth Lancers. He was not sure of very much, but of this one incident he was absolutely positive: Fairfax was a man who was always certain of his facts.
“I can’t remember much about the early years; I expect I went through the usual trials and troubles of a young subaltern, was subjected to a good deal of ragging. Well, somehow, promotion came: I was Captain at quite a youthful age. The one thing that sticks in my mind, in those pre-war days, is the fact that we were quartered at Blankfield.”
Mrs Spencer lifted calm, inquiring eyes. “At Blankfield! And where is that?”
“You don’t mean to say you haven’t heard of Blankfield?”
Mrs Spencer shook her dark head. “No; I dare say it shows great ignorance, but I was never good at geography. I was brought up so quietly; I have never travelled. I know next to nothing of my own country, and nothing of any other.”
She uttered these remarks with a disarming and appealing smile, as if asking pardon from a man of the world for having led such an uneventful and sequestered life – she, as he thought sardonically, the mysterious cousin of Mrs L’Estrange, the affectionate friend of the card-sharper Tommie Esmond.
“Blankfield is rather a well-known town in Yorkshire; it is also a garrison town. As I said, it was my lot to be quartered there.”
“Was it a nice place?” queried Mrs Spencer with an air of polite interest.
“In a way, yes; we had a good time. But my recollections of it are distinctly unpleasant. For I had the misfortune to assist at a tragedy – nay, more, to play a part in it – which has left an ineffaceable record upon my memory.” Stella Spencer leaned forward. There was no momentary change of expression upon the clear-cut, charming face; her eyes met his own with a calm, steady gaze. But he thought – and after all that might be fancy – he detected a restless movement of her hands.
“I shall like to hear about that tragedy, if it is not too painful for you to recall it,” she said softly. If she were really what he believed her to be, she was playing the rôle of sympathetic listener to perfection.
“I had a young chum of the name of Pomfret, a mere boy, impulsive, high-spirited, generous, unsuspicious, little versed in the ways of the world, absolutely unversed in the ways of women. I had promised his family to look after him. Looking back at this distance of years, I realise how badly I fulfilled my trust; how, in a sense, I was unwittingly the cause of the tragedy that befell him. I wonder if you ever came across my friend, Jack Pomfret.”
“Never; but, of course, I have met so few people. And you know the truth, as well as everybody else, I was not brought up in my husband’s world, in your world and that of the Southleighs. I could never claim to be more than respectable middle-class. I take it, your friend was a member of some old family.”
The voice was steady, but he thought he noticed an increased restlessness in the movements of the hands. And the admission that she was a member of the respectable middle-class struck him as conveying a false note intentionally. If what she alleged was true, that her father had been an officer in the Twenty-fourth Lancers, she was a grade higher than the respectable middle-class. Clever as she was, she had made a false step there.
“You want to hear the history of that tragedy, of the terrible circumstances which cut short the life of my poor young friend. Well, it is hardly necessary to say that a woman was the cause. Women, I suppose, have been at the bottom of most of the tragedies that have happened to men ever since the days of Eve.”
“I know that is the general opinion, but I have always been very doubtful as to whether it is a true one.”
She spoke lightly, but it seemed to him her tone was not quite so assured as it had been a moment ago. Anyway, she was evidently intensely interested in the forthcoming narrative.
“At Blankfield I happened to make the acquaintance of a very charming young woman, who was not received in the Society of the place, for the reason that nothing was known about her. The acquaintance was made in the most unconventional fashion. She asked me to call upon her and her brother. I told all this to Pomfret, who knew the girl by sight, and he asked me to take him along with me. He had met her very often in the High Street, and was immensely attracted by her appearance.”
“And were you attracted, too, by this formidable young lady, Major Murchison?” interrupted Stella.
“In a way. But, honestly, more curious than attracted. Well, to cut my story as short as I can, Pomfret soon arrived at an understanding with the young woman, to a great extent without my knowledge. They were married secretly; there were family reasons why he could not marry her openly.”
“But this – but this,” – was she speaking a little nervously, or was it only his fancy? – “was quite romantic and charming. No doubt they were deeply in love with each other. Surely there was no tragedy to follow such a delightful wooing?”
“But there was. This innocent-faced, charming girl was an adventuress of the first water. She was the accomplice of her criminal brother, if brother he was. A day or two after the wedding, Pomfret and I went to dine with this wretched pair. Before we sat down to dinner, two detectives entered the room and arrested the so-called brother on a charge of forgery.” Mrs Spencer shuddered. “How horrible, how appalling! And what happened to the girl? Was she arrested, too?”
“No; she fainted, and I dragged my friend away. At the time I did not know he had married her. When I got him back to the barracks, he told me his miserable story. That same night, or some time in the next morning, he shot himself. It was perhaps a cowardly way in which to avoid the consequences of his folly, but then he was always rash and impulsive.”
Mrs Spencer spoke, and there was a far-away look in her eyes. “Your poor friend! No wonder that memory haunts you. And yet, he was not very wise. This poor adventuress might have been easy to deal with; she might not have troubled him any further if he had made her some small allowance; would, so to speak, have slunk out of his life. And she might have been innocent herself, unable to break away from this wretched criminal of a brother.”
“You are very charitable, Mrs Spencer,” said Hugh coldly. “But I fear I cannot agree with you. If the girl had been naturally and innately honest, she would rather have swept a crossing than have lived upon the gains of that creature – brother, or lover, or whatever he was.”
Stella spoke with dignity. “You are, I see, very much moved, Major Murchison, and you can judge better than I. I cannot pretend to understand the mentality of adventuresses and their criminal associates,” she added with a light laugh, “but I should say that sweeping a crossing is a most uncongenial occupation, especially in the cold weather.”
“In other words, if you had been in her place, you would have preferred to live on the earnings of a rogue?” queried Hugh, perhaps a little too warmly. As soon as he spoke, he regretted his words. He had given her an advantage, of which she was not slow to avail herself.
She drew herself up proudly. “Major Murchison, are you not saying a little too much in presuming to place me on the level of the adventuress you have spoken of? I think it will be more consistent with my self-respect to leave your question unanswered.”
And then suddenly her proud mood vanished, and a softer one took its place. Her voice trembled as she spoke; there was a suspicious moisture in her eyes.
“I see that I was very wrong when I suffered Guy to persuade me to marry him. I have alienated him from his friends and family, and, alas! I have none of my own to bring him in exchange. His uncle loathes me; Lady Nina is polite and tolerates me. And you – you, his old friend, who have known him from boyhood – you dislike me also. But,” – and here her voice swelled into a proud note – “my husband loves and trusts me. While he does that, Major Murchison, I can snap my fingers at the rest of the world.”
Murchison bowed respectfully; he felt he had got to recover a good deal of lost ground. So far the woman had the advantage, but he did not fail to notice the vulgarity of the last phrase, “snap my fingers.”
“I am very sorry if I have offended you, Mrs Spencer, by my indiscreet remarks. If you are secure in Guy’s love, as I am sure you are, you have a very happy possession.”
She sank back on the sofa, and in a second recovered the composure which had been momentarily disturbed.
“Forgive me if I have spoken a little warmly,” she said, “but I could not overlook what you said just now.”
And then Hugh shot at her his last bolt. “I have not yet told you the name of the girl who drove my poor young friend Pomfret to his death.”
“Tell it me, if you please, but I shall be no more likely to know it than the name of your friend, Mr Pomfret. As I told you, I am a member of the respectable middle-class; I cannot boast that I am acquainted with the aristocracy, except through my husband.”
“And yet your father, you told me just now, was an officer in the Twenty-fourth Lancers. Those officers were all recruited from the aristocracy, or at worst the upper middle-class.”
“Oh, you are trying to cross-examine me and trap me,” she cried bitterly.
But Hugh was inexorable. “The name of that woman was Norah Burton; her accomplice, her brother as she called him, was George Burton; he had other aliases,” he thundered.
He had shot his last bolt, but Stella was not shaken. She rose up, quivering a little. He noticed that, but it might be due to the agitation of wronged innocence.
“The name conveys nothing to me. Your attitude during these few minutes has been very strange. You have insinuated that I am an adventuress on the same level with your Miss Norah something. Well, so far, poor dear Guy has not shot himself, and I will take good care he doesn’t.”
“You have much to gain by his living, if you love him – the title and everything. I have no doubt he has made his will. You would gain a good deal by his death. I cannot say, at the moment, which alternative would suit you better.”
“You are intolerable, you are insulting. If I tell my husband this when he comes down, he will kick you out of the house.”
“But I don’t think you will tell your husband,” retorted Hugh coolly.
“And why not? My word will outweigh yours. I have only to tell him that you brand me as an adventuress, of the same class as this Miss Nora Burton, and you will see what he will say.”
“But you will not tell him,” repeated Hugh. “Mrs Spencer, I did not think we should go so far as we have done. But I will put my cards on the table at once, and I do so from certain indications in your demeanour to-night. I will not say all I have in my mind; I am going to collect further evidence first. But I will say this: you are not what you seem.” He had touched her now. Her calm had gone, her breast was heaving, her hands were moving more restlessly.
“Put your cards on the table and have done. I was Stella Keane when I married my husband. I defy you to disprove that.”
“At present, no. You are the same Stella Keane who saw Tommie Esmond, a discovered card-sharper, off at the Charing Cross Station, and kissed him an affectionate farewell. If you were on such intimate terms with that man, you are no fit wife for my friend Guy Spencer.”
He had touched her at last. “How did you find that out?” she gasped, and her face for a second went livid. She was surprised beyond the point of denial.